Title:Phantasmagoria 2: A Puzzle of Flesh, sometimes also referred to as Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh (which is how it is listed on AO3) or just Phantasmagoria 2.
Media: Video game
Approx length: About 6 hours
Where to find it: It is available through Steam or GOG. There are also playthroughs on Youtube, such as here.
What is it, in summary?:Phantasmagoria 2: A Puzzle of Flesh is a cheesy full-motion point-and-click horror game released by Sierra in 1996 that deals with (with varying levels of success) queerness, kink, mental health, and abuse. While the game is technically a sequel to the 1995 game Phantasmagoria, there is no character or plot overlap, and the game is a standalone.
The player plays Curtis Craig, a 26-year-old introverted office worker at a pharmaceutical company in Seattle. Curtis is experiencing gory hallucinations, causing him to worry about his sanity. At the same time, some of his coworkers are gruesomely killed, and Curtis is a suspect. He starts to look into if there is a connection between these deaths, his hallucinations, his own past, and the company he works for.
In the middle of all this is Curtis's love life! There is his girlfriend, Jocilyn, who wants more commitment than Curtis is ready to offer; Therese, who is aggressively pursuing Curtis and introduces him to the kink scene, which he is intrigued by; and Trevor, Curtis's best friend, who is gay and who Curtis admits to his therapist that he has a crush on.
This video essay has a complete (spoilery) plot summary and a deep dive into the queer stuff in the game.
The gameplay is point-and-click puzzle solving. It is mostly not very difficult, but some of the puzzles are not intuitive, especially towards the end when both the puzzles and plot get pretty bonkers. There are walkthroughs online if you get stuck.
What do you love about it?: I think that the cheesy sci-fi and horror elements, the queer main characters, the kinkiness, and the wild plot all lay a rich ground for fic possibilities! The game takes on a lot of ambitious topics and is at times clumsy, and at other times doing some pretty interesting things. I love how totally unique it is, and how it is both very of its time and also doing things that no other games were doing in 1996.
What sort of things are you likely to request for it?: Something with Curtis and Trevor, but I am pretty wide open beyond that!
Content warnings (ie, rape, incest, racism, gore/violence): Horror and gore, character death, abuse, mental illness.
Phantasmagoria 2: A Puzzle of Flesh (video game)
Title: Phantasmagoria 2: A Puzzle of Flesh, sometimes also referred to as Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh (which is how it is listed on AO3) or just Phantasmagoria 2.
Media: Video game
Approx length: About 6 hours
Where to find it: It is available through Steam or GOG. There are also playthroughs on Youtube, such as here.
What is it, in summary?: Phantasmagoria 2: A Puzzle of Flesh is a cheesy full-motion point-and-click horror game released by Sierra in 1996 that deals with (with varying levels of success) queerness, kink, mental health, and abuse. While the game is technically a sequel to the 1995 game Phantasmagoria, there is no character or plot overlap, and the game is a standalone.
The player plays Curtis Craig, a 26-year-old introverted office worker at a pharmaceutical company in Seattle. Curtis is experiencing gory hallucinations, causing him to worry about his sanity. At the same time, some of his coworkers are gruesomely killed, and Curtis is a suspect. He starts to look into if there is a connection between these deaths, his hallucinations, his own past, and the company he works for.
In the middle of all this is Curtis's love life! There is his girlfriend, Jocilyn, who wants more commitment than Curtis is ready to offer; Therese, who is aggressively pursuing Curtis and introduces him to the kink scene, which he is intrigued by; and Trevor, Curtis's best friend, who is gay and who Curtis admits to his therapist that he has a crush on.
This video essay has a complete (spoilery) plot summary and a deep dive into the queer stuff in the game.
The gameplay is point-and-click puzzle solving. It is mostly not very difficult, but some of the puzzles are not intuitive, especially towards the end when both the puzzles and plot get pretty bonkers. There are walkthroughs online if you get stuck.
What do you love about it?: I think that the cheesy sci-fi and horror elements, the queer main characters, the kinkiness, and the wild plot all lay a rich ground for fic possibilities! The game takes on a lot of ambitious topics and is at times clumsy, and at other times doing some pretty interesting things. I love how totally unique it is, and how it is both very of its time and also doing things that no other games were doing in 1996.
What sort of things are you likely to request for it?: Something with Curtis and Trevor, but I am pretty wide open beyond that!
Content warnings (ie, rape, incest, racism, gore/violence): Horror and gore, character death, abuse, mental illness.