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evaporated into plain grass and a stone stair

My kimono dissolved to water,

and the sparrows turned in shame

from my nakedness

KILLSWITCH

In the spring of 1989 the Karvina Corporation released a curious ga Ah its popularity was ultimately short-lived

The game was Killswitch

On the surface it was a variant on the ame, a precursor to the Myst and Silent Hill franchises The narrative showed the coraphics were round Slow MIDI versions of Czech folk songs played throughout Players could choose between two avatars: an invisible demon named Ghast or a visible human woman, Porto Play as Ghast was considerably more difficult due to his total invisibility, and players were highly liable to restart the game as Porto after the first level, in which it was ie jumps or aim However, Ghast was clearly the more powerful character—he had fire-breath and a coal-steam attack, but as it was above the skill level of , poison-dispensing invisible imp was on their screens once the fire and steam had run out, Porto became more or less the default

Porto’s singular ability was seerowth—she expanded and contracted in size throughout the gaured out the pattern involved, but for reasons which will become obvious, his as lost

Porto awakens in the dark ounds in her elbows, confused Seeking a way out, she ascends through the levels of a coal mine in which it is slowly revealed she was once an e its collapse and beset on all sides by deolems, and demonic inspectors from the Sovatik corporation, whose boxy bodies are clothed in red, the only color in the gaenuinely uncanny as play progresses There are no “bosses” in any real sense—Porto h tunnels to reach subsequent levels while her size varies wildly through interlevel spaces

The story that enetic tapes, files, mutilated factory workers ere once her friends, and deciphering an impressively complex code inscribed on a series of iron axes players hably complex and defeated many players until “Porto881” posted the cipher to a Columbia BBS Attempts to contact this player have been unsuccessful, and the usernaer in use on any known service) is that the forean to falsify reports of malfunctions and worker malfeasance in order to excuse low output, which incited a Sovatik inspection Officials were dispatched, one for each miner, and an extraordinary story of torture unfolds, with fuzzy and indistinct graphics of red-coatedsmall knives into their joints whenever production slowed (Admittedly, this is not a very subtle critique of Soviet-era industrial tactics, and as the town of Karvina itself was devastated by the departure of the coal industry, more than one thesis has interpreted Killswitch as a political screed)

After solving the axe code, Porto finds and assembles a tape recorder, on which a male voice tells her that the fires of the earth had risen up in their defense and flowed into the hearts of the decrepit, pre-revolution equipenerally assumed that the “fires of the earth” are de the old raphics elect to show only two or three gear teeth or a conveyor belt rather than the entire apparatus The machines drove the inspectors mad, and they disappeared into caverns with their knives (only to eue Porto, of course) The workers were often crushed and raceful nor discririef-stricken engine, and her fluctuating size, if it is real and not iined, is implied to be the result of poisonous fumes inhaled there

What follows is the ical reason to proceed in the “correct” way, and again it was Porto881 who ca Killswitch coreat furnace where coal was once rendered into coke There are no clues as to what she is intended to do in this roo her to continuing to process coal as if the machines had never risen up Porto881 hit upon the solution and posted it to the Coluests the raw coke, she will find her body under control, and can go on to fight her way out of the final levels of thethe tape containing this extraordinary story However, as she crawls through the final tunnel to eoes suddenly white

Killswitch, by design, deletes itself upon player coame It is not recoverable by any means; all trace of it is reame cannot be copied For all intents and purposes it exists only for those playing it and then ceases to be entirely One cannot replay it, unlocking further secrets or narrative pathways; one cannot allow another to play it; and perhaps ame all the way to the end as both Porto and Ghast

Predictably, player outcry was enormous Several routes to solve the problem were pursued, with no real efficacy The first and ame, but Karvina Corp released only five thousand copies and refused to