#game analysis

against my better judgement (and without supporting za/um in any way) i decided to pick up their newly released piece of work. i wanted to see with my own eyes, as a child holding their hand above a lit candle, if it's really that bad. in short - yes, it was.

i don't want to repeat other people's points about the writing itself, the game's soullessness and its sociopolitical naiveté. a lot of you have already worded it better than i every could, so for the time being i'll leave this aspect out of the analysis.

let's talk about something else, shall we? there's something else at the core of this story that was bothering me from the start, feeling like a regular stream of sewage - courtesy of za/um's writers and designers. it's misogyny. yes, the misogyny, the kind that would leave your weird uncles and their friends blushing. i'll break it down into bullet points, because it's not just a matter of a weak joke or two.

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Mouthwashing with the entire crew

Still wakes the deep with again the entire crew

Thinking again about the "good is not always nice" trope when it comes to Balan's personality, especially in the novelization. He's not exactly a typical comfort character, in that he very decidedly pushes the characters OUT of their comfort zones in order to necessitate their healing process. And he's quite dramatic and occasionally snarky about it, lol. But ultimately his ends are towards the inhabitants healing from their trauma, regaining their balance, and returning to their lives to bring about meaningful change--all good things that lead us towards necessary inner growth and true happiness.

Conversely, the novelization's take on Lance might be understood as a manifestation of "evil is not always mean," which can be a very dangerous thing in practice. He offers a sense of security, avoidance of the things that frighten or disturb you, a never-ending safe space where you're simply free to wile away your time and never think about anything awful ever. (It might even be a form of "toxic positivity," if you think about it.) But none of these things are conducive towards healing--and ultimately are traps that prevent us from growing, learning, facing our fears, and attaining true healing and happiness. Complacency, false security, maladaptive coping--all bad things that keep us from moving forward.

We might also take it to mean that Balan, a character that largely represents positivity, has that touch of negative to him, which manifests in his dramatics, sarcasm, and occasional impatience. Whereas Lance, who largely represents negativity, has a niceness gentleness about him. It's another illustration of the contrast between them, zeroing and/or balancing each other out. Although that meanness is ultimately towards good anyway, and the niceness ultimately towards ruin, but the point still stands!

Ok so for a while I had no fucking idea what this gallery was suppose to mean, or why it even exists. But a couple of days ago, I decided to actually try and analyze it again, which lead to my brain blast and now I think I know what this gallery is all about. So firstly, a very huge clue is given by one of the NPCs that resides here. When interacting with them, they say this:

This sounds really weird and cryptic, so let's break it down.

"This is your worst part. In that deep part behind your pituitary gland" okay, what the hell would that part be. Well, first what even is a pituitary gland? According to Cleveland Clinic, "Your pituitary gland is a small, pea-sized endocrine gland located at the base of your brain below your hypothalamus." And judging by the words "deep part behind", whatever they're describing is the farthest thing behind from where the pituitary gland is.

( https://askabiologist.asu.edu/parts-of-the-brain ) The farthest thing behind the pituitary gland is the cerebral cortex. It plays a key role in many functions, most notably memory and emotions. The Symbol Person describes this as "the part you try to hide." So basically, the Symbol Person is talking about the memories, and the emotions associated with those memories, that Vena holds. And judging by what the Symbol Person says, "...that part that crushes your chest in and seizes your lungs" those memories were not very pleasant. Essentially, the Symbol Person is saying the art gallery is a commodification of Vena's deepest trauma made for the viewing of the general public. So, what exactly does this trauma look like? You need to look at the art pieces in the gallery to figure this out. I'm going to analyze each of them the best I can here.

I'm going to start with the largest center piece in the gallery here, as it's the biggest clue as to what that trauma could've been. So right off the bat, judging by its size, the central placement in the gallery, and four other statues sharing the same theme, it's the most crucial piece in the gallery so we need to listen to the story being told by it. Notice how the torso is specifically female, and that there is also a large spike impaled straight through where the heart would be? That sharp object looks really, really fucking familiar...

The form of Mercury's nail doesn't always look the same sometimes but generally the silhouette matches up with the sharp object impaled through the female torso. The story being told here is that Mercury betrayed Vena.

As far as I know, the harm that was done to Vena being depicted here could be metaphorical or literal. I just haven't encountered enough evidence to support one or the other. On one hand, you could look at it like this, Mercury betrayed Vena by stabbing her in the heart with a nail OR The impaling of the heart is a metaphor for somebody breaking Vena's heart, and the nail is representative of who specifically broke her heart, which would be Mercury. but in general, what can be taken away from this is that Vena was betrayed by Mercury. If someone has more evidence that can more strongly support one of the claims I'd be glad to hear about it in the comments :33 So now that we know what that trauma must've been, we can move on to another aspect of the gallery, the paintings. I think that these paintings actually do mean something, and I'll get into that right now.

So these are very abstract pieces, so rather than trying to find a specific meaning out of them its better to try and understand what emotions these pieces are trying to evoke. The harsh contrast of bright warm colors with black, and the chaotic brush strokes create a sense of unease and fear, especially with the second piece which seems to depict a vague, screaming face.

This other abstract art piece also similarly follows the same color palette of the first two, but its kind of unique. There's a whole lot of negative space in this one, with just one, lone white figure in the middle. It creates a sense of loneliness, and I think the touch of dark blue at the very right kind of adds to that. So with all of this in mind, when you look at the bigger picture, these paintings are very likely suppose to represent the emotions tied to Vena's trauma. They're sort of meant to let you step into the state of mind she was in when everything went down. She must've felt deeply afraid, and sorrowfully alone. Theres also these two other pieces, which seem to depict embryos

I'm honsetly not super sure on these, but my best guess is that the embryo imagery is suppose to be symbolic of a childhood past? As in, the trauma that happened to Vena is from long, long ago, most likely when she was a goddess before being rebirthed again as a human in the main events of Psychopomp.

So in summary, what I've got out of analyzing the art gallery in the symbols level is that its meant to be a representation of Vena's deepest trauma. She was betrayed by Mercury when they were gods, it was a terrifying experience for her, and she felt like she was abandoned by him. Its something she would rather not remember ever again.

Thats my analysis!!! :D I hope it makes sense, sometimes when it comes to stuff like this i feel like this image

I hope that in the 2nd game we can get more information that might better help with what must've happened to Vena :3 I have a feeling this may be tied to whatever cycle the Caldamen Four are putting Vena and Mercury through but I don't know for sure.

Anyway, since we've been on the topic of Balan Wonderworld's gameplay today, I started thinking about this again.

A major sticking point with a lot of people is BWW's ultra-simplistic (to a fault) gameplay style, whereby all face buttons and trigger buttons perform the exact same function. And yes, BWW really takes its one-button approach seriously, to the annoyance and perplexity of many a gamer and critic. But there are a few important things to understand about the overall gameplay loop, as well as the control configuration (and why current button mapping on modern controllers makes it look ridiculous):