Today I learned aboutbalut, a street food of the Philippines.
Which is where first-person Filipino suspense gameHapunancan be found.
You play a young street food vendor hawking the eggs on a quiet corner late at night.
Naturally, something alarming is afoot.
There is darkness to be illuminated by flashlight.
There are jumpy moments when you turn to see someone unexpected right in your face.
And there is an exponential uptick of schlock as the 20-30 minute game reaches its ending.
The final scene is strangely goofy, proving as ever that horror and comedy are secretly the same genre.
But like balut itself, there are some unsettling veins hidden under this shell.
Your mother has heard all about these men on the radio.
A rash of “pay-to-kill” murders has been spreading through the country.
You soon discover that the horror of this game is not some otherworldly phantom or monstrous entity.
But the simple brutality of a gun.
Police officers were offered payouts for killing anyone they loosely deemed a suspect of various crimes.
Police and other perpetrators killed as many as 30,000 civilians.
The game isn’t explicit about any of this, but then it probably doesn’t need to be.
The faces of the gunmen wear permanent grins.
It says “SAFE” in big, unconvincing letters.
A reminder that sometimes horror really happens.
Hapunan is currently$3.99 on Itch.io.
That’s the cost of 16 balut.
