Inunaki Tunnel (

2019

) ½

It seems that with each subsequent Chilla's Art game I play, I get less and less impressed with the developer's work. Missing Children [2020] was technically better than any of his previous titles, including such modern features as saving and more than one map. However, that game was more intended as a mystery story than a horror story. As a result, the disturbing low-fi graphics and bizarre face and character models felt out of place. Worse still, there were only one or two genuine scares in the whole damn thing. Stigmatized Properties [2019] was even more primitive (which isn't surprising since it is the earliest game of his I've played) and though it managed to scare the shit out of my wife I found it rather dull. I appreciate slow, subtle horror as much as the next guy but I need something more than a few mysteriously stacked chairs and a spooky .jpg file at the end to get me really creeped out. I still hold out hope that Chilla's Art will eventually make a legitimately great horror game, but I'm beginning to worry that The Convenience Store [2020] was just a lucky combination of tropes rather than a fully considered work of art. Today's game makes me even more doubtful, because unlike the rest of Chilla's games, it's not just bad, it's absolutely dreadful.

About the only thing Inunaki Tunnel has going for it is its premise. The game is based on a real-world haunting (well as real as any haunting can be, ghosts are of course completely fictional but that doesn't stop people from believing in them), an abandoned tunnel in the Fukuoka Prefecture. In 1988, the abandoned tunnel was the site of a grisly murder, where a gang of teenage hoodlums set a young man on fire. Since then it has been rumored that the tunnel was a hotbed of paranormal activity and ghost sightings.

Stories tend to grow with each telling, so before long it wasn't just the tunnel that was haunted but the whole area. Indeed, stories of a mysterious Inunaki Village began to spread, which despite not having any paranormal component to them are even more difficult to believe than the ghosts of the tunnel. According to the urban legend, not far from Inunaki Tunnel there is a hidden path through the forest that leads to Inunaki Village. The boundaries of said village are marked by a sign that helpfully informs visitors that the “The Japanese constitution is not in effect past here.” If any of the villagers see an outsider they will attack them on sight with their farming implements. Your best bet is to run away but beware, the residents of Inunaki village are famed for their quick speed.

This last bit is where the story stops being spooky and starts being hilarious. I can't help but picture a bunch of Nipponese The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) rejects decked out in tracksuits and runner's shorts, doing pre-sprint stretches with their rusty farming tools/murder weapons lying on the ground next to them. Picture field day at Mibu Village from Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice [2019] and you'll have some idea of how absurd this picture must look.

Obviously, it's ridiculous to believe that the Japanese government would simply allow a village of savages to simply exist unmolested deep in the hinterland. At the very least you can be sure that they would force them to pay taxes, otherwise, Inunaki Village would quickly become the next Cayman Islands. Besides, satellite photography has more or less ruled out any possibility that there could be a hidden village in the forests around Inunaki Tunnel. If you don't believe it you're free to go on google maps and search through the area yourself. I suppose it would be possible for the residents of Inunaki village to partially camouflage their village and make it invisible to aerial surveillance, but why would a bunch of antediluvian primitives think that was necessary in the first place?

Still, all ghost stories are ultimately ridiculous, and the fact that the stories about Inunaki Village and Inunaki Tunnel are somewhat ridiculous is no knock against this game. Indeed, I appreciate the efforts the developer went to make the exterior of Inunaki Tunnel in his game match the real-world location. It gives the game a sense of grounding and weight that enhances the impact of your decision to scale the concrete barricade and reenact the premise of a few dozen youtube ghost hunting videos.

The problem with the game is everything that happens after you depart from the real world and head into the fantasy land of Inunaki Tunnel and beyond. For one thing, the map is way too big and spread out so getting anywhere takes ages. This is compounded by the fact that there are dead ends which result in a lot of tedious backtracking and further compounded by the fact that some of the main pathways are hidden and easy to miss. The result is a game that got on my nerves early on just by wasting my time. It's not like this is an especially long game either, I finished it in well under an hour and about half that playtime was just going from point to point. At its worst, this game becomes a chore, and even the admittedly spooky atmosphere of Inuaki tunnel and the surrounding forest, cannot overcome the sheer drudgery of this opening segment.

Credit where credit is due, the visuals are unsettling, with the whole game looking like a strange PSX bootleg CD you picked up at a flea market. However, the most unsettling aspect of Chilla's other games has been the bizarre faces and creepy character animation, giving even friendly characters a feeling that there is something deeply wrong with them. Inunaki Tunnel has no NPCs though, so it's up to the levels to do the heavy lifting of creating a frightening atmosphere. The abandoned traffic tunnel itself is admittedly pretty spooky, but once you come out the other side and head into the forest the game begins to get painfully generic. The whole thing lacks the pervasive and subtle feeling of wrongness that made The Convenience Store [2020] such a gem. About the only interesting thing that Inunaki Tunnel does is have a barely visible monstrous face leering at you from the shadows and that looks more like a cheap Halloween decoration than anything else.

The game does include an amusing alternative ending where you can chicken out and tun back right at the start, and I'm always a fan of horror games that add that option in. However, if you want a more fully realized short horror game with that option than Dead Secret [2016] is a far better game than this (though even on sale it will probably cost more).