Old Box is a horror game for iOS currently in development by Russian indie game developer “Waves Of Mind Studio.” There isn’t a whole lot of information out there about it, and what there is can be a little hard to understand given that it’s mostly in the form of forums posts in poor English or cryptic YouTube videos. If you’re curious about this game, come along and join me as I try to make sense of the videos and forums post.

Let’s start by taking a look at the initial 30-second teaser video.

 

 

It mostly consists of pulsating images of what seem to be men in suits. Just off the bat, this has me a little hesitant because faceless men in suits is a trope that has been run into the ground hard by new media horror ever since SomethingAwful user Victor Surge came up with the Slender Man in 2009. I could go on about the Slender Man, but several other authors have already done it in far more academic contexts, and furthermore the figures don’t seem to actually be Slender Men. Instead, it seems like they are supposed to represent some sort of societal disconnect, as they seem to be reading something for the camera, almost as though they are newscasters. The gap between figures is filled with two images, one shows a clock with the phrase “do you kNoW Me?” written above it. This does seem like it’s trying a bit too hard to be eerie and cryptic. However, it also provides a very interesting contrast to the image before it of a faceless man. After all, how can we know if we know someone without seeing his face or hearing his voice? The other image is a very quick flash of a man in a suit sitting in a chair. He doesn’t seem to be the faceless man (or men?) but the framing of the shots seems to suggest a connection. One last thing to note is the date in the corner of the screen. It seems to show two overlapping dates, but with the same time. This seems to suggest to me that the game will somehow feature a connection between events on those two days.

Next, let’s talk about the post.

http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=278839

I will admit that I had a very hard time understanding this post, and I may have made a mistake or two in my interpretation of it. The gist that I get from the post is that the developer behind Waves of Mind is saying that he’s always wanted to make a video game, but is now regretting that. It seems to me like he is trying to blur the lines between reality and the game itself. Personally, I kind of roll my eyes at this. It seems more like the designer is writing a “creepypasta” story than he is designing a game. He talks about how the game is influenced by poverty and depression, and that seems to me like a really great basis for horror. However, then he goes on to talk about how since he started work on the game he’s been receiving strange calls and people have been trying to pick his locks at night.

Now, let’s talk real quickly about the longer trailer.

A lot of this seems to be composed of live action video of pseudo-creepy imagery like a close-up of teeth and gums. However, one thing we see a fair bit of is a digital render of a room with a black-and-white chevron patterned floor and red curtains everywhere. This is just shamelessly ripped off of the Black Lodge from Twin Peaks. Like, this doesn’t even seem to be an homage, it seems like Waves of Mind is just blatantly taking something weird and off-putting from another work and trying to pass it off as their own. The other actually rendered (as opposed to live-action) bits are just real quick glimpses of other very sparse scenes. It’s not very promising

So, there you have it. Personally, I’m not even entirely sure that there’s an actual game in development. Almost nothing about the game itself is ever actually shown. Instead we have lots of “creepy” stories about the game’s development and distorted live-action video. If there were a Kickstarter or Indiegogo I would say that this is clearly a scam, but there isn’t. Instead, I’ll offer that maybe it’s a real game in development, but it could very well be an attempt to cash in on video game-on-the-internet urban legends like “Sad Satan.”