A lot of us Internet users have heard of the “Deep Web” at one point or another. A good handful of us may have downloaded Tor just to try some browsing out for the fun of it. While some might take to the Deep Web to observe some narcotics sales websites for curiosity’s sake, or others might browse for much more sinister purposes, one can only imagine what might be stumbled upon when browsing the Deep Web (the good, the bad, and the strange). Interestingly enough, one proprietor named Jamie of the YouTube channel, Obscure Horror Corner, managed to head into the depths of the Deep Web in order to download a game called “Sad Satan.”
“I don’t use the deep web too often,” Jamie told Patricia Hernandez from Kotaku, “but a month or two ago a subscriber sent me a link and said they found something creepy and knew that I would be interested, which I of course was.” He continued, “I did a malware check and other virus stuff on the file and it seemed OK, so I just shot ahead with it.” Conveniently for us, Jamie decided to record a few videos of himself playing the odd game and they are currently located on the Obscure Horror Corner channel (links are located at bottom of article). As for the game itself, it is fairly low-resolution but entertaining and creepy, to say the least!
The player is forced to wander dynamic mazes of hallways complete with doors and passageways that tend to shape-shift into each other. Throughout the walking journey, the player will hear various grumbling, crying (of children), screaming, and other disturbing noises such as dialogues being slowed down or played in reverse (even Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven in reverse and a Charles Manson monologue). While some might think “Sad Satan” is merely a jumble of messy horror techniques, some praise should be given for the game’s context. The game’s odd noises and confusing labyrinth-style area come packaged with various screens and visuals that are only shown for a brief moment. Not to mention, the environment makes the player wonder if the character in the game they control is disoriented or hallucinating.
While plenty of images are flashed onto the screen for the player to take notice of, one theme seems to stick out in my mind: child abuse. Between the moaning, crying, and screaming of what sounds to be children, there are even child-like NPC’s in the maze with you as well. One of the most interesting references involves a still-image flashed on the screen of Jimmy Savile and Margaret Thatcher promoting the The NSPCC (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children). One can only notice the irony here as Jimmy Savile was accused of multiple child sexual assaults and some of his dialogues can be heard within the game.
Currently, Jamie has posted 5 videos on YouTube showing gameplay of “Sad Satan,” and they have attracted a fair amount of attention. Because of the game’s lack of specific origin, viewers are combining their efforts to learn more about the game itself to possibly draw a connection as to where it came from. In fact, one page on Reddit is specifically dedicated to breaking down each reference made in the game by presenting information in a guide that is divided up into sections each representing a different one of Jamie’s videos. Some are claiming the game is making connections with one video from a couple of years ago titled “Sad Sad Satan.”
Naturally though, some want to get into contact with the subscriber who directed Jamie to download “Sad Satan” in the very first place. Patricia Hernandez from Kotaku managed to get into contact with said subscriber to see if any information about the game could be obtained. To note, the subscriber wished to remain anonymous. “I first found out about the game on a deep web forum,” the subscriber claimed. “It’s like an all purpose site, all your usual forums can be found there (tech help, reviews, fitness, things like that), plus some original content.” Apparently, games in general (not just odd games) are not too commonplace on the forum where he was browsing. “That was the first time I had seen a game posted on the site,” he said. If media floated around on this website, it was more likely to be music and movies—not games, and certainly not user-created games. The user never specified whether it was his own content or someone else’s, but I presume it was the user’s game,” he said. “He signed off his post with ‘ZK.’”
When asked if he knew anything about ZK, the subscriber did not seem to know much at all. “I have seen other posts signed off with ZK, mostly comments, which were very odd,” he said. “Some of the stuff ZK posted before was pretty weird—dark views, satanic mumbo jumbo. Whether its nefarious or all in good fun, I can’t really say,” According to Kotaku, the only reason why the subscriber did not run the game himself was because he could not get it to work on his computer.
What some might be wondering at this point is if Jamie is going to re-upload the game for all of us to enjoy. Unfortunately, there was a slight side-effect to playing “Sad Satan” that was enough to freak Jamie out to the point of wiping the game from his hard drive. He told Hernandez at Kotaku, “It was getting a bit strange...a note pad file that went along with the game kept appearing on my desktop each time I played the game with some gibberish messages,” When she asked for proof from Jamie, she would not receive any. “I unfortunately have no screenshots of the notepad files,” Jamie told her. “They were genuinely gibberish text. It didn’t seem to be in any language, just symbols and numbers really. I did notice 666 a few times, which fits I guess, considering the title of the game.”
Interestingly enough, within the game there are various short coded messages that are flashed onto the player’s screen whilst exploring the mazes. Some of these messages have been decoded by one user on Reddit (refer to picture below).
Seeing as the phrase, “I can track you,” does not settle too well in the stomach for most people, one can only wonder if there was anything malicious going on with the game itself. Perhaps “Sad Satan” is merely some unfinished gaming or software project. On the other hand, it could have a much more insidious agenda. Either way, I feel like I would like to give the game a whirl, but it is unknown if there is even a working download link anywhere for it. So, if anyone wishes to dive into the depths of the Deep Web (to the depths of Hell that is), let’s gear up and go find ourselves a scary game! (do so responsibly).
SOURCE, SOURCE, SOURCE
YouTube Game-play:
PART 1, PART 2, PART 3, PART 4, PART 5
UPDATE:
It appears there was a lot more to this game than what I thought. Apparently, one version of the game was posted somewhere on 4chan which contained images of gore and cp. One person on reddit took the levels from this version, replaced the gore and cp with non-explicit images, and then uploaded said levels and audio files to be ran through Terror Engine:
https://www.reddit.com/r/sadsatan/comments/3cslpz/if_youre_new_to_this_subreddit_please_read_this/
If you wish to play the clean version of the game, follow this link which will show you a post containing links and instructions on how to play the clean version:
https://www.reddit.com/r/sadsatan/comments/3cq2si/uploaded_a_clean_version_of_the_files/
