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Name of the Will starts as it means to go on – ominous, tense, and teeming with delicious dread. I awake in a room with zero recollection of how I got there. Sparse furnishings, plain and sterilized of any personality, stand sentry in the chamber as I get my bearings. I'm prompted to click my character's head to gain a little insight, but my first instinct says it all: I'd better leave this room.
But before I do, I inspect the wall hangings. Aside from a calendar, only two posters occupy these four walls. One's an inspirational slogan, while the other sports the Chinese characters for "Hope". That's the name of this place – this cult headquarters I've found myself in – and it turns out that Hope is the real enemy here.
Penitence
Take the point-and-click narrative choice elements of the best visual novels, add a heavy dose of psychological thriller goodness, and it's not hard to see why Name of the Will is one of the most exciting upcoming horror games you might not have heard about yet.
As one of the latest members of the Hope "family", the game sees me reduced to a number instead of a name. Neighbors greet me as 3279 – first the sweet yet thoroughly indoctrinated Auntie, then a burly younger man called Neighbor 3252 – as we make our way to Education. I must be taught the proper morals, Auntie tells me, in order to "embrace Hope" and find enlightenment in its walls.
Navigating Hope is as simple as using my mouse, clicking on points of interest and holding down the left button to walk about. I find a piece of paper in my cell – I mean bedroom, sorry – with which to keep track of any special items or information I stumble across. Items can then be dragged out of the inventory when needed, the first instance being to unlock my own door with my assigned keycard after rifling through a cupboard of Hope propaganda – I mean, educational texts.
One of the most striking things about Name of the Will is its bleak, atmospheric art style. Zeitgeist Studio's hand-drawn world of narrow, side-scrolling corridors is teeming with uncanny chills, ranging from overt to subtly disturbing.
Character portraits change and distort in speech boxes when certain dialogue choices are made, the rosy-cheeked ear-splitting smile of Hope's masked inhabitants twisted into something even more unsettling as the depth of their mindwashing becomes more and more apparent.
Even the setting of a multistory apartment complex in a fictionalized Hong Kong – a familiar sight for me, being my hometown – feels eerie in its compact vastness. As I enter an elevator, noting the long list of floor numbers encompassing G to 29, I initially feel a warm sense of satisfaction at the omission of any involving a four.
It's a standard in most Hong Kong buildings to skip them entirely, with four being an unlucky number in Chinese superstition. But this contextual realism makes the whole experience distressingly more believable, adding another layer of uncanny terror to what's already a deeply harrowing story.
Hope and faith
It's the kind of head-scratching indie horror that doesn't come around too often...
The framing of a cult is an excellent metaphor. It's easy to feel anonymous in a city like Hong Kong. You're one among the faceless masses, lonely despite the overcrowding – and Name of the Will embodies that to perfection.
There's no individualism here, no personal sense of identity. 3279 is not their own person anymore. They must maintain behavioral conduct in line with the cult's expectations, never letting their score dip too low. Failure in doing so results in seven opportunities for repentance. Miss the mark, and be deemed a "traitor to the faith".
I get my first taste of this in Education. The teacher asks a variety of cryptic questions, and four options appear on the screen. What do you say when someone tells you they're down? "That makes me feel better", apparently. Selecting two incorrect choices in a row restarts all the questions from the first, so this section feels like a memory game as well as a deeper insight into how the cult shapes its hive mind.
When I'm finally able to answer all the questions correctly, avoiding the disapproving gaze of my fellow Hope family members, what sounds like a gunshot rings out through the building. We're summoned to a sermon with The Father, where things get… well, you'll have to play the demo for yourself.
Even with its share of snags – the stealth sections feel clunky at the moment, with hiding and movement imprecise for the amount of clicking required to simply stop and start running – this brief taster of what's to come has thoroughly whetted my appetite. Who is this mysterious Father, who takes the form of a prowling beast by night? Where does the cult find its "family" members? And who exactly was I before they found me?
All of these questions ring in my head after spending a mere hour with Name of the Will – including the fact that something might be hidden on the nonexistent yet apparently very real fourth floor. It's the kind of head-scratching indie horror that doesn't come around too often, thoughtful puzzles never detracting from the truly skin-crawling setting, and I can't wait to see how this diamond in the rough polishes up.
There are plenty of upcoming indies to check out if you can't wait until Name of the Will launches next year!
