We Know the Devil (Date Nighto, 2015) is a short visual novel about some teenagers at camp. But the camp is for bad kids. And surrounded by sirens. And run by a sadist. And haunted by the devil. Like, literally the devil.

I’ve been meaning to play this game for a few years. So yesterday, unable to read another word of anything at all on paper, I finally loaded it. I have a gaming PC at work because, well, I teach about games, and this title seemed like a good one to turn to in the middle of teaching Interactive Storytelling.

Welcome to hell

The game follows three characters, shown in a manga-inspired, hand drawn style, who are at camp. As the player, you choose which characters spend time together each time the trio split up over the course of a night spent in a creepy cabin. Both God and the devil are on the radio, and the tech and magic deployed by the characters further the surreal combination of science fiction and metaphysics. A score that seems to anticipate Stranger Things and poetically spare writing round out the aesthetic.

Ostensibly about the looming threat of the literal devil, the game is really about the handful of seemingly arbitrary but deeply meaningful choices open to the player. Every choice strengthens or weakens the characters’ relationships with one another. And, these choices determine the game’s ending, since whoever is left out most becomes the devil, who in the game is both literally real and deeply allegorical. In the haunting landscape of the game’s monstrous camp, as in real camps, high schools, dorms, and other forced social settings, friendship is at turns tender and terrifying.

Things that are aesthetic

The thematic issues surrounding relationship formation, and inclusion and exclusion lend the game real depth. But, most of all I was struck by how atmospheric We Know the Devil is despite having a finite range of graphics and a brief story. Little is shown, much is revealed. I think often of an anecdote about The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The MPAA ratings system was, at the time, new, and Tobe Hooper was as unclear on what it might mean as everyone else. So, hoping to garner a relatively low rating, Hooper placed much of the gore off camera. Leatherface puts a woman on a meat hook, and the audience sees her dangling feet, not her tortured flesh.

This game similarly operates in part by implying and hiding. Threats loom outside or off screen. The landscape is dark and blurred. And, technology works in deeply strange ways the characters speak of as banal. Radios wrap. Crystals scream. Whatever. All of this contributes to a skincrawling sense of wrongness. While the devil appears only at the game’s climactic scene, the game gives a real sense of him closing in as the game progresses. His arrival is as inevitable as pain. Someone is going to get their feelings hurt, and the devil is definitely going to arrive.

Replay

Because the player’s choices matter to the game, We Know the Devil manages to be replayable. Different choices yield different endings, although here as always, there is no perfect set of choices, and each ending is horrifying in its own right.

Ultimately, We Know the Devil exemplifies the profound punch a seemingly small game can pack. This game, playable in less than an hour, balances horror with a deep meditation on the nature of friendship. Perhaps the real devil was the friendships we formed along the way.