Category Archives: Game

Children’s Game: Spanking Machine Tag

Nationality: American
Age: 52
Occupation: Medical Writer
Residence: Staunton, VA
Performance Date: April 18, 2021
Primary Language: English

Main Piece: 

Informant: “Here’s a neighborhood game that I just remembered we used to play. It was very popular in our neighborhood. And I don’t know where it was picked up. You know, I was one of five kids, so we played a lot of games together and so we played a lot of games together, and the neighborhood would play a lot of games together, and we played a lot of tag. So we’d play some pretty typical tags like freeze tag, or just tag, or… I can’t remember the other names.”

Collector: “Like zombie tag. Or the version of it, yeah.”

Informant: “Zombie tag, yeah. So, one that we played pretty frequently- maybe it was pretty common, I’ve never seen anyone else do it -it was spanking machine tag. So, when someone gets frozen by tag, if they can stand with their legs apart like a teepee or like an A-frame and someone else can crawl through their legs before the person who’s it catches them, the person gets free.”

Collector: “Oh, yeah. I’ve played that.”

Informant: “Okay, so maybe it’s—”

Collector: “The word spanking in the title threw me off.”

Informant: “Maybe… Oh, I think we would spank them as they went through, too.”

Background:

This is a game that, as above, my informant would play as a child in Virginia as one of a number of tag variants. From the tone of voice, it was clear that she enjoyed the game. She called it as a neighborhood game, rather than a school game or kid’s game. Playing this game, she said, was localized to a smaller group than children or Virginian children. She had the opinion that this was a weird thing her neighborhood specifically did.

Thoughts:

Having played a version of this myself when I was a child in Utah, I can attest that this game is widely proliferated. The idea behind crawling through the legs rather than simply touching the frozen body is to provide a further challenge for everyone that’s not “it.” Games where there is an “it” figure are characterized by a balance of power. Power is temporarily granted to the “it” figure and it is the title that transfers from child to child, allowing them to try their hand at power. This modification allows more power for the “it” figure in freeze tag, where it’s normally very easy for the larger group to win and the “it” figure doesn’t change as frequently. This specific version is also a good example of children’s counter-authoritative tendency to introduce things like spanking that they’re not supposed to do into their games in order to push the game outside the boundary of approved play.

The Cult in worlds.com

Nationality: American
Age: 23
Occupation: Student

Description: There are rumors of a cult developing within a MMO game that no longer has a large enough player base. People believe there to be a recruiter and people have reported strange content appearing in certain areas of the game.

Background: The informant learned about this from browsing Reddit.

Transcript:

BD: This one I don’t remember in extreme detail, but there was a rumor that there was a cult in worlds.com. It was an old mmo from I think 90s era where it had just like a bunch of “worlds” you could go to and eventually lost the majority of its player base. But the servers were kept up (and I think still might be up?) despite having no players. The reason why cult started to float around was for a few reasons; one that there was a user that would float around and try to recruit you (this is the one that was debunked) ((also tbh I think this started bc the guys avatar looks like a goat iirc)). Another being that there were worlds floating around that had questionable content.

Me: Questionable as in illegal?

BD: Not illegal, but weird. It was naked photos of people in a room with their names under photos I believe. Actually it might have had some personal info on them too. But not 100%.

My thoughts:

Surprisingly, video games are considered by some as some of the most effective ways of secret messaging. For example, someone can shoot massages in the form of bullet holes. Looking at the circumstances, it’s interesting to think about a cult being created inside of an abandoned server. There is a level of creepiness in being in a server with so few people when they are meant to be filled to the brim. This rumor, while debunked, is not unthinkable especially since the server is still operational despite having no players. Of course, the reports of questionable content furthers the narrative. Seeing strange things on the internet often leads to extreme speculations because of the crazy things that happen on the web.

Kanye Quest

Nationality: American
Age: 23 and 22
Occupation: Students

Description: A video game created in the RPG maker game engine. On the surface, it seems to be a regular role playing game centered around the musical artist Kanye West. However, there is a secret terminal within the game that eventually leads to the implication of cult recruitment and activity.

Background: Both informants received the information through internet videos.

Transcript:

TS: But basically there was an arg thing in it that people aren’t sure is like an Easter egg or actual cult recruitment (like 90% chance it’s the former but still)

BD: there’s a few video essays on it on youtube

BD: it was an rpg maker game. like the base game was kanye quest but there was a terminal you could enter a password into and it’d go into a weird pseudo game where you had to keep entering passwords and then if you got to the end there’d be a thing saying “congrats you ascended” and would ask if you wanted to move into the next step and if you selected yes it’d ask for your info but the version of the game that was playable didn’t have internet capabilities however original version is lost i believe bc the creator locked it

Me: How does Kanye tie into all that?

BD: Honestly it(Kanye) doesn’t, that’s just what the game was. If you didn’t know about the terminal there was a whole full-ledged game about kanye basically.

TS: Yeah like it was a meme rpg game totally unrelated to anything. That’s why the ARG cult stuff was such a surreal thing.

BD: Also because the cult(referenced in the game) is a real cult.

Me: Is there actual indication that it was real cult stuff?

BD: That’s where it gets murky, like since the game didn’t have internet capabilities people think it was just a thing to spook. There’s also rumors that that’s because it’s the second released version of the game if i remember.

My thoughts:

Cult recruitments through the medium of the internet is certainly not something that is unthinkable. I think what is interesting is how under the surface it is. A seemingly innocent game having cult implications if someone digs deep enough. It is a popular genre when it comes to internet mysteries. One example would be the popularity of the iceberg, where obscure knowledge and rumors about a specific topic is placed within an iceberg image, separated by how obscure the rumor or fact is. This kind of thing tends to be a recurring theme when it comes to the internet. As everything on the internet is somewhat public and monitored, people start to devise methods to encrypt their actions and the information that they want to spread. I think it’s the feeling of secrecy that makes these tales so compelling, the feeling that you are within a secret club for a specific hidden knowledge. Also the hidden sense of excitement and fear when something digital begins to affect the real world. In this sense that hook also applies to many ARGs that have existed. As for what I believe, I think that there is a good chance that the cult elements were real. It is not unthinkable for cults to recruit people through these obscure means, and having Kanye fans as a target does make sense in some ways (some fans worship him like a god).

Polybius

Nationality: American/Greek
Age: 22
Occupation: Student

Description: Poybius is a possibly fictional arcade game that was created during the 90s. There are people who recalled that such a game cabinet existed but no physical copies exist. There are those that believe the cabinets were a part of the MK ULTRA secret experiments 

Background: The informant obtained the information through internet videos.

Transcript:

DT: The supposed creation of an arcade cabinet during the 90s called Polybius. Someone thought it existed, and it spread from there like a Mandela effect, of people remembering something that didn’t actually exist but potentially vaguely similar to it. It’s an urban legend that lasted for a while, and even got assumed it was a part of the MK ULTRA secret experiments. With conspiracy theories coming up that the cabinet was created by the government to give people nightmares as a way to test stuff that leaked from MK ULTRA.

Me: So it(the cabinet) didn’t really exist?

DT: It’s still kinda unclear if a cabinet of the like actually existed or not, but the video I saw concluded that it most likely wasn’t real. I forget the specific evidence to prove this but it’s still kinda up in the air. But regardless of its existence, the crazy effect it had on if people remembered it or not was what really got people involved with it.

My thoughts:

The 90s were a time where rumors about digital media were abundant. Things that come to mind were numerous video game rumors such as the Mew under the truck in pokemon. At the time, the internet was still in its infancy and information was not easily accessible nor entirely accurate. The coupled with the introduction of new technology gave rise to many rumors and theories. Polybius is an example of a product of that time, when people didn’t have ready access to information and when any kind of information can be spoken from anywhere.

Sad Satan

Nationality: American
Age: 23
Occupation: Student

Description: Sad Satan is a video game that resides inside the deep web. It is said that the game contains numerous real images of gore, violence, and other illegal content. The existence of the actual game is undetermined.

Background: The informant obtained the information from a youtube channel.

Transcript:

BD: I have another video game one in mind, it was another retro style “indie” game called Sad Satan that made the rounds a few years ago. Essentially a youtube channel that focused on obscure horror games released a multipart playthrough of the series

Me: Is it a real game?

BD: Yes, but it’s also one of those situations where the “true” version is murky. Basically the guy that played it heard about it from a subscriber, and the subscriber said he found the game on a deep web forum board that was unrelated. I don’t know too much about the gameplay because I didn’t watch the gameplay videos myself, but from the looks of it everything looks very dark/surreal. The guy who made the original playthrough started posting his video around online asking for help on finding info about it, and as more people got involved the more the rumor developed. The rumor being that the game also contained images of gore, violence, and other extremely illegal images. Basically, the reason why this gets murky is bc of this:

-the guy “linked” a downloadable version in his youtube video but the link was broken

-said guy does an interview saying it did not contain those kind of images but later recants and says it did

-right before said guy publicly recants, someone going by the same name as the person who posted the game on the deep-web(who’s believed to be the developer) says that the rumors were true, and provides a downloadable link

-link does not work for many people, with some saying it went so far as to break their computers (but keep in mind this is happening on 4chan), but for those who do manage to open it, they say it does contain said images. It’s kind of complicated and confusing to explain. I was trying to think how to summarize it best. But yeah essentially it’s a creepy retro indie game that someone recorded in hopes of having people help him figure out the meaning of the game, which blew up into a bigger thing as more eyes found it.

My thoughts:

The deep web is often a source of illegal and unsettling activities. An example would be the red rooms. Because of this, there are many scary tales that come from the deep web, real or not. These kinds of tales, real or not, serve to entice our morbid curiosities. Of course, it’s entirely possible that such a game or multiple such games existed. The internet, with minimum security, is a place where anything can exist. The game itself existed but its the rumors of the gory and dark imagery that keeps it going around communities.