We Know the Devil
Jul. 20th, 2023 08:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynlingWe Know the Devil
https://pillowfight.itch.io/we-know-the-devil
We Know the Devil is a horror-themed visual novel about three teenagers at summer camp. Although the world of the game is close to our own, there are key differences, one of which is that “the devil” is real. One of the kids’ duties as campers is to reinforce the magical wards protecting a forest, and your job as the player is to help them make it through the night. We Know the Devil has four endings; and, depending on how quickly you read, it takes about thirty to forty minutes to finish a run.
Since you can’t get the true ending on your first playthrough, I might recommend going into the game without consulting a guide, but only if you’re the sort of person who absolutely can’t tolerate any spoilers whatsoever. We Know the Devil functions primarily at an allegorical level, and you’ll get infinitely more out of its story if you understand what’s going on. When I talk about this game, I’m not going to spoil what happens, but I think it makes sense to accurately describe its premise.
We Know the Devil is divided into ten short chapters. For the most part, the game is entirely linear. The only element of gameplay is that the player is required to make seven choices, and these choices only affect the ending. Essentially, the player is put in the shoes of one of the three main characters and given a choice between the other two characters. The ending you get is based on which of the three kids is left out of the pairings the most frequently. Essentially, you’re choosing who dies at the end (although they don’t actually die).
To get the true ending, you have to balance the pairings evenly. Unfortunately, you can’t do this on your first playthrough, as the game doesn’t give you the key choice that makes a perfect balance possible. The first ending you get will therefore be strange and upsetting, but it’s the unpleasantness of this ending that serves as the cipher for decoding the allegory.
A major weakness of We Know the Devil is that the setting of the game is poorly defined to an extreme degree. Unless you understand the allegory, it’s difficult to understand what’s going on. This confusion is exacerbated by the inanity of the character dialog, a great deal of which is trite chatter. In fact, a lot of the writing feels like a parody of an indie comic about depressed edgy teens, and my first playthrough of the game left me cold.
Although some of the horror elements were intriguing, I didn’t understand the larger narrative. Why were these kids at camp if they didn’t want to be there? If they had cellphones, didn’t they have cars? Why couldn’t they just leave? Why were they refusing to communicate with each other? If “the devil” is real, why were teenagers being forced to patrol the woods at night? Were they conducting some sort of ritual? And for what purpose?
None of these questions are answered, and the first ending I got didn’t make any sense in terms of plot, character development, or narrative themes. I didn’t understand why people have lavished so much praise on this game, so I googled “We Know the Devil ending explained.” That’s when the story became much more interesting.
Essentially, each of the three main viewpoint characters represents a different type of queer identity. The ways in which these characters fail to communicate with one another are representations of how young people attempt to keep themselves in the closet, and the way in which “the devil” gets one of them at the end is a representation of how a secret queer identity might manifest in an unhealthy way. The summer camp is supposed to be analogous to a Christian camp for “problem teens,” and the ritual night in the woods is an analogy for how such organizations put campers in difficult situations in order to break them emotionally, after which they can be “fixed.”
To me, the queer identities of the characters were obvious from the start. Still, a character being gay or trans is completely normal to me, and I know very little about Christianity in the United States. All of the allegory therefore went completely over my head. Once I picked up on what everything was supposed to represent, all of the seemingly random symbology started to make sense and fit together nicely.
Admittedly, the allegory is clever. Still, I wish the story and characters stood on their own without it, and I would have appreciated if the setting were better explained for the benefit of players who don’t come from that particular cultural background. All that aside, I enjoyed the game’s gentle and sketchy visual portrayals of its characters, and the descriptive writing that frames their conversations is quite good and occasionally even beautiful. On the whole, I’m grateful that I had the opportunity to experience this story, but I wish I’d done myself a favor and read more about its cultural context first.
https://pillowfight.itch.io/we-know-the-devil
We Know the Devil is a horror-themed visual novel about three teenagers at summer camp. Although the world of the game is close to our own, there are key differences, one of which is that “the devil” is real. One of the kids’ duties as campers is to reinforce the magical wards protecting a forest, and your job as the player is to help them make it through the night. We Know the Devil has four endings; and, depending on how quickly you read, it takes about thirty to forty minutes to finish a run.
Since you can’t get the true ending on your first playthrough, I might recommend going into the game without consulting a guide, but only if you’re the sort of person who absolutely can’t tolerate any spoilers whatsoever. We Know the Devil functions primarily at an allegorical level, and you’ll get infinitely more out of its story if you understand what’s going on. When I talk about this game, I’m not going to spoil what happens, but I think it makes sense to accurately describe its premise.
We Know the Devil is divided into ten short chapters. For the most part, the game is entirely linear. The only element of gameplay is that the player is required to make seven choices, and these choices only affect the ending. Essentially, the player is put in the shoes of one of the three main characters and given a choice between the other two characters. The ending you get is based on which of the three kids is left out of the pairings the most frequently. Essentially, you’re choosing who dies at the end (although they don’t actually die).
To get the true ending, you have to balance the pairings evenly. Unfortunately, you can’t do this on your first playthrough, as the game doesn’t give you the key choice that makes a perfect balance possible. The first ending you get will therefore be strange and upsetting, but it’s the unpleasantness of this ending that serves as the cipher for decoding the allegory.
A major weakness of We Know the Devil is that the setting of the game is poorly defined to an extreme degree. Unless you understand the allegory, it’s difficult to understand what’s going on. This confusion is exacerbated by the inanity of the character dialog, a great deal of which is trite chatter. In fact, a lot of the writing feels like a parody of an indie comic about depressed edgy teens, and my first playthrough of the game left me cold.
Although some of the horror elements were intriguing, I didn’t understand the larger narrative. Why were these kids at camp if they didn’t want to be there? If they had cellphones, didn’t they have cars? Why couldn’t they just leave? Why were they refusing to communicate with each other? If “the devil” is real, why were teenagers being forced to patrol the woods at night? Were they conducting some sort of ritual? And for what purpose?
None of these questions are answered, and the first ending I got didn’t make any sense in terms of plot, character development, or narrative themes. I didn’t understand why people have lavished so much praise on this game, so I googled “We Know the Devil ending explained.” That’s when the story became much more interesting.
Essentially, each of the three main viewpoint characters represents a different type of queer identity. The ways in which these characters fail to communicate with one another are representations of how young people attempt to keep themselves in the closet, and the way in which “the devil” gets one of them at the end is a representation of how a secret queer identity might manifest in an unhealthy way. The summer camp is supposed to be analogous to a Christian camp for “problem teens,” and the ritual night in the woods is an analogy for how such organizations put campers in difficult situations in order to break them emotionally, after which they can be “fixed.”
To me, the queer identities of the characters were obvious from the start. Still, a character being gay or trans is completely normal to me, and I know very little about Christianity in the United States. All of the allegory therefore went completely over my head. Once I picked up on what everything was supposed to represent, all of the seemingly random symbology started to make sense and fit together nicely.
Admittedly, the allegory is clever. Still, I wish the story and characters stood on their own without it, and I would have appreciated if the setting were better explained for the benefit of players who don’t come from that particular cultural background. All that aside, I enjoyed the game’s gentle and sketchy visual portrayals of its characters, and the descriptive writing that frames their conversations is quite good and occasionally even beautiful. On the whole, I’m grateful that I had the opportunity to experience this story, but I wish I’d done myself a favor and read more about its cultural context first.
