Karl Persson uses a glossy realism to depict horrific themes and evoke the un-plumbable depths of pain, madness, and misery.

Almost nothing is known about the story except this: you explore the sprawling, intricate, nearly opulent-looking Hanwell Mental Institute, and the horrors that the inmates underwent. The main character is an ex-patient who has returned to the asylum “to understand why he is suffering from bizarre hallucinations.”

There’s a lot of focus on the actual exploration of the building – as creator Agustín Cordes claims, “Each single room matters and even the bathrooms are brimming with details,” and “The overall consensus is that exploring the Hanwell building feels eerily realistic and is filled with ‘touchably crisp textures.’” About the premise, “I will only say this: Asylum is supposed to feel surreal, like there’s something horribly wrong going on inside Hanwell as soon as you set foot inside the place. Don’t try to make any sense out of it, at least not until you’re halfway into the game.”

More words from the creator:
An aspect that has become very apparent during our testing is that Asylum, unlike most first-person adventures, is really fluid. There are virtually no loading times, control is quick and smooth, navigation is easy, you have an amazing deal of freedom of movement — all in all, everything feels just right. At times it feels like a first-person shooter actually, which is pretty cool if you ask me — after all, adventures should test your creativity and intuition, not your patience with the controls. In this regard I believe that we have definitely achieved our goal because Asylum feels, in one word, “modern.”

I love anything to do with old insane asylums, especially in the context of horror, and if the teaser (showing the decayed and sinister corridors of the institute, and cells in which inmates are suffering in horrific, bloody ways) is anything to go by, this should be interesting and imagination-piquing.

A gameplay trailer was released last month, which is quite amazing.

>>Kikyz Ferrer<<

via Same Hat!

Also check out Suzanne’s fabulous chest-piece based on an artwork by Vania Zouravliov.

Related posts:
Jessica Harrison’s “Breaking” Series

Further delight yourself by viewing this video, inspired by “the cinepoems of Man Ray and jarring aspects of psychological horror”:

via Haute Macabre

>>Fuyuko Matsui<<

{Nicole Absher’s blog}

Audrey by Stella Im Hultberg

The New Girl at One-Eyed Jack’s by Chris Mars

Mrs. Lanterman’s Daughter by Chris Mars