Sad Satan
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Sad Satan is a shock horror game built with the Terror Engine. It was first reported by the channel Obscure Horror Corner (also known as Jamie Farrel) on June 25, 2015, in a series of five videos. Due to its dark nature, it was covered by a number of different publications, spawning a subreddit community to discuss the game further. Sad Satan was also known for its unofficial, far more disturbing "true" version.
History and publications
After its release, several publications covered the Sad Satan game in an attempt to uncover its mysterious origin. Notably, Kotaku, a video game blog, interviewed the owner of Obscure Horror Corner, who received a tip from an anonymous subscriber to download the game. The subscriber claimed to have found the game on a forum posted by a user known only as "ZK."[1]
After Kotaku's interview with the owner of Obscure Horror Corner, a subreddit called r/sadsatan was created on Reddit to discuss the game's origin and lore. Jamie Farrel later disclosed the .onion address where the game was allegedly found, but users discovered that the link had invalid characters. In a subsequent Kotaku interview published three days later, Farrel admitted that he had intentionally provided an incorrect link because the game contained graphic material and he did not want to be held responsible for distributing it. However, it was later discovered that no such material existed in either the game or the video.
On July 7, 2015, an anonymous user claiming to be ZK posted a thread on 4chan, alleging that the original "Sad Satan" version covered by Obscure Horror Corner was not authentic.[2] The post included a download link to a new version, which contained graphic content including gore and child pornography. However, users who downloaded this version reported that it caused their computers to become unresponsive and was discovered to have a trojan installed with it. One user even noted that attempting to play the game from a USB drive instead of their computer's hard drive caused their computer to fail to boot normally.
After some time, the FBI actually investigated this game and ended up banning all download links. Attempting to copy and paste the MEGA link will give an error screen saying that the file was removed for violating the MEGA ToS.
Content
In both "Sad Satan" games, The player controls their character through the hallway of monochromatic corridors while various audio samples play. These audios include interviews with various murderers and child predators, including Jimmy Savile and Charles Manson, as well as musical excerpts like "I Love Beijing Tiananmen." While the player controls their character through the hallway, images will intermittently appear, preventing their progress in the game. Most of these images often include references to child abuse, particularly those of Jimmy Savile and Rolf Harris. A picture of the convicted child rapist and necrophile Tsutomu Miyazaki was among the other images that dealt with crime. Photographs of Lady Justice, the late Colombian footballer Andrés Escobar, and the late John F. Kennedy before his assassination is also included.
In the gameplay video for the original Sad Satan the player can be seen moving slowly down the hallway. After some time, a girl can be heard counting from 1 to 10 in German. This audio was produced by a Polish number station called Swedish Rhapsody, which was used to transmit messages in code. At 7:39, the game freezes, and KMFDM's Lynch Mob begins to play over loud white noise and distorted audio. Just before the video ends, a reversed version of Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" can be heard, along with the chant "Sad Satan" and a brief glimpse of Jimmy Saville and the late former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. A photograph of Franz Joseph's work also appears.
In Part 2, the video features gameplay mostly accompanied by a slowed-down Hitler speech in the background until it silences and the corridor alters into black-and-white. Later, the player sees a child in the hallway, and when he passes through it, a loud scream is played in reverse, and the video ends there. In some parts, an image of the late former president John F. Kennedy right before he was shot is briefly shown. In Part 3, Charles Manson's interview can be heard at the beginning, followed by a slightly slowed-down voice saying:
| “ | I live where there's no TV, no radio, no electric lights... | ” |
The game concludes with a reversed, distorted audio clip of "I Love Beijing Tiananmen" playing while it freezes on the screen.
In the fourth part, before the original Tsutomu Miyazaki appears in the middle of the video, an image of him is briefly displayed with his eyes drawn in red. A picture of Lady Justice now appears; this could be a reference to a lack of justice. An image of Rolf Harris, who was found guilty of molesting children, appears halfway through the video. The identical image of Tsutomu Miyazaki appears at the game's conclusion, but his eyes have been written in black, and Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" is played backward (like from the end of Part 1). In Part 5, an image of Andres Escobar, a Colombian footballer who was murdered after shooting at his own goal. From there, it is followed by the image of Roman Polanski, who was arrested for the rape of then-13-year-old Samantha Geimer. The video ends with the player stranded in the hallway at this point.
In the "true" version, the player was immediately taken into a hallway of monochromatic corridors, and the images that were displayed were replaced with violent gore and child pornography. G1.jpg featured an image of a child struck by a truck. G2 and G3 are the images of headless corpses that are related to the case of serial killer Richard Cottingham (also known as the "Torso Killer"). G4 is the deformed corpse of a baby. G5 is the image of what appears to be a woman licking a baby's genitalia in a dark room. Other images included were non-graphic ones also used from the original. Some of these images will display right away from the options on the title screen; for instance, clicking any of those options will cause one of the headless corpses to appear on the screen for a few seconds. In the end, the player encounters a dead end, and a heavily slowed-down song plays, similar to how the original ends. There is an accessible "clone" version with graphic images removed. These are the remaining copies that are easily accessible, except for the one Jamie Farrel covered.
Speculation
Since the version from 4chan was made public, there has been speculation as to who created it. In 2017, a man from Lubbock, Texas, named Gary Graves was arrested on charges of child pornography. The man in question is assumed to be the one who was actually behind a Reddit account called ScarebereZK, as well as the YouTube channel with the same name that contains a now-deleted video called "Sad Sad Satan" that, at the end of the video, shows a person who is actually a lookalike of Gary Graves himself. However, it is still unknown whether the claim that Jamie linked "ZK" as the person from whom he downloaded has been confirmed yet.[3][4]
Trivia
- On May 16, 2022, PlanscautZK published a new game called Stranger Than Real Sad Satan on itch.io, but whether this is the same game as Sad Satan (due to similarities) or just an entirely new game done in the Terror Engine is up for debate.
Videos
References
- ↑ kotaku.com/a-horror-game-hidden-in-the-darkest-corners-of-the-inte-1714980337
- ↑ https://archive.4plebs.org/x/thread/16336021/
- ↑ lubbockonline.com/story/news/crime/2017/10/20/lubbock-man-sentenced-federal-child-porn-charge/14840859007/
- ↑ ice.gov/news/releases/married-couple-gets-lengthy-prison-sentences-producing-child-porn
External Links
- reddit.com/r/sadsatan/
- Wikipedia page: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sad_Satan