Civilised and Monstrous Mourning: Tres Angustias and Altasgracias Central to the games’ aesthetic, mechanics, and cultural touchstones, is the image of the ‘monster’, and in this post I will discuss how the game’s representation of female monstrosity allows the player to consider the horror of the monstrous as it was experienced in Medieval Spain as a sign of divine intervention, Golden Age Spain as an object of curiosity and sympathy, and finally how this postmodern amalgam of historical feeling might speak to us today. ![]() One of the effects of this mash-up of historical eras is to invite players to consider the similarities and differences between the periods Blasphemous aligns with one another in its fantasy setting. Level designer Enrique Colinet discusses the challenge of representing Spain in an indie video game format, while Enrique Cabeza, Art & Creative Director on Blasphemous, has spoken on the importance of capturing Seville and southern Spanish traditions specifically. Alongside the natural goal of immersive gameplay, the developers at The Game Kitchen had the additional task of providing enough recognisable Spanish historical touchstones to make the game a showcase for Spanish history and culture, balanced with the specifics of Sevillian religious iconography which was their primary focus.įigure 2 – The Knot of the Three Words © Blasphemous Wiki (left) – The Columns in the Mosque of Cordoba, © Nicholas Vollmer, Wikicommons (right) Playing with the Past, London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013), whereby developers of historical games “blend…historical representation with audiences’ expectations to produce a historical experience that feels factual and generates immersive gameplay” ( Burgess and Jones, ‘Exploring Player Understandings of Historical Accuracy and Historical Authenticity in Video Games’, Games and Culture, 0, (2021), ). This blending of historical influences reflects the phenomenon of “selective authenticity” ( Salvati and Bullinger, ‘Selective Authenticity and the Playable Past’ in Kappell and Elliot, eds. There is, however, another set of visual and thematic sources at play in the game which invite consideration through a different set of preconceptions.īy drawing on artistic influences from Diego Velasquez, Jose de Ribera, and the iconography of the Spanish Inquisition, The Game Kitchen have created a world which can be interpreted through the aesthetic and cultural frameworks of the Spanish Golden Age. ![]() Sevillian traditions like the Holy Week floats which date back to the 14 th century give their likenesses to the monstrous Amargura, and the iconic arches from the Mosque of Cordoba, built in 785 are reproduced in the Knot of the Three Words antechamber to the Mother of Mothers cathedral in which the game’s second act takes place.įigure 1- Armagura, © Blasphemous Wiki (left) – The brotherhood of “La Estrella” In their procession by Seville crossing the bridge of Triana, during Holy Week on April 13, 2014, © Addison Magazine (right)Įlements like these allow Blasphemous to speak through a medieval language of relics, saints’ lives, and affective piety, as I have mentioned in my previous article. One strand of historical influence on the narrative architecture of Blasphemous is unquestionably medieval. ![]() Where my first piece, ‘ Feeling History in Blasphemous: Affective Piety and Our Lady of the Charred Visage’ explored the relationship between religion and empathy in the game, using the historical concept of affective piety to explore the narrative’s approach to medieval religion and sainthood, this piece will explore the way the game uses monstrous representations of women’s bodies to explore the differences between historical approaches to ‘otherness’, and the different ways in which sympathy and repulsion acted on ‘strange’ bodies between medieval and early modern Spain. He can be found on Twitter Blasphemous II currently on the horizon, and the latest DLC, Wounds of Eventide, having been released in December of last year, I’d like to bring you some further thoughts on historical emotion in The Game Kitchen’s 2019 Metroidvania masterpiece, Blasphemous. His PhD was on reading practices in 18 th century women’s correspondence networks and he is currently researching the parallels between historical readers and contemporary video game culture. ![]() Jack is Content Editor for the Electronic Enlightenment project based at the Bodleian Libraries, Oxford, and holds a PhD from Swansea as well as a BA and MA from University College London.
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