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The Nightmare Fuel page for Chzo Mythit hurts it hurts it hurts.
- The Chzo Mythos games are supposed to be scary, and they are. Creepy music, eerie settings, Eldritch Abominations, the lot. But Yahtzee went Too Far in Trilby's Notes, which is set in a hotel which repeatedly shifts to a Dark World version of itself. This happens at random times; the player will be happily traipsing through the Day hotel, try to open a door, and suddenly the message 'it hurts' will appear. On dismissing this message, the screen will fill up with 'it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts' and suddenly the hotel goes from a fairly pleasant holiday location to a nightmarish bloodstained hell.
- Every time you switch back into the Light World, you have a random chance of a hallucination, seemingly being transported to Cabadath's cabin or the cargo bay of the Mephistopholes from 7 Days. The one where you are cornered in the basement of Defoe Manor, with John Defoe slllooooooooowwly menacing you as the "You are in grave danger!" music plays is particularly scary. And the only response out of the text parser when you are about to die? it hurts. it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts
- What about the first time we see the Nightmare World?! You're just sitting in the hotel room, listening to the conversation... when suddenly, the room suddenly becomes rundown with the bloody remains of the two people you were just talking to lying around, and the enigmatic Tall Man watching you...
- One of the first nightmares you have in 5 Days has Trilby entering the house's bathroom, finding the tub full of blood and when he approaches, a skeleton screeches and pulls him in. Simple, but pretty effective at putting you on edge.
- In 6 Days A Sacrifice, you and Janine flee into the living quarters at the end of the day, and the two of you embrace during the night. And what do you see when you leave the next morning but it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts
- Probably the worst part about the embracing scene is that, for at least part of it, John Defoe's consciousness was in control.
- The Tall Man... No, ANYTHING involving the alternate hotel in ''Trilby's Notes'' can be called Nightmare Fuel.
- It's what the tall man does to people that is really scary. The way he emotionlessly swung that four-headed axe back and forth through an already quite clearly dead sailor... just for good measure?
- Related to the hotel... why is it so criminally understaffed in the real world? Shouldn't a hotel have more employees and guests? Well...where do you think all those bodies in the nightmare world came from?
- After the final puzzle of Trilby's Notes when you force yourself to die to prevent Cabadath from being summoned, if you enter anything into the text parser all you get in response is It hurts. Keep in mind at this point Trilby is DEAD.
- You can get some quality chills (if that's your idea of a good time) by just thinking about 7 Days A Skeptic from William Taylor's point of view. Let's see... You're already freaked out because you think your first assignment is a bit above you, then some innocent-looking object is brought aboard. Then you get taken over and forced to do horrible things to your shipmates. Then he either tears your eyes out or makes you do it yourself once You Have Outlived Your Usefulness. When you finally have control of yourself again there's pretty much nothing you can do but beg the only survivor to fix it before you turn out to have doomed more than just the one ship.
- The scene in 7 Days A Skeptic where you find the dismembered torso of Serena in the vent... only for her to suddenly enter the hallway you are in, while you are still STANDING OVER HER DISMEMBERED CORPSE then leaving without a word.
- The Fates Worse Than Death that Chzo inflicted on Cabadath, Theo and the Trilby clone.
- At least Cabadath and Theo were still able to move around and exercise some agency afterwards. The Trilby clone just ended up trapped in Chzo itself, begging to be killed. In comparison, everyone who was killed by the Welder and the Tall Man were the lucky ones. Cabadath and Theo seem to be content with their lot in life. In fact, Cabadath's main motivation throughout the series is to maintain the status-quo. This only makes the above example worse, as it implies that Chzo can warp the minds of ordinary, non-masochistic people until they want a fate worse than death.
Our Lord. Protect Him Always...- Why isn't the Trilby clone also brainwashed? Because pain is much more potent when it's unwanted.
- Alternatively, the Tall Man isn't happy in his position as Chzo's right-hand abomination, he merely tries to retain it because he fears that whatever Chzo would do to him once he has outlived his usefulness would be far worse. Not sure whether that's any less horrifying.
- There's also the question of whether the Trilby trapped inside Chzo is a clone or not. He claims to be a clone when you find him, but then he also claims that maybe he has convinced himself that he's a clone because his pride wouldn't let him admit this was his fate.
- The beginning of 6 Days is solid nightmare fuel: Theo is painfully injured and trapped in an underground facility (belonging to a creepy pain-worshipping cult) with no way to escape. And that's before the Tall Man shows up and starts slaughtering people...
- What happens to Janine and John Defoe is pretty goddamn terrifying. She's the first body John Defoe's ever had that could talk. When she's talking as the "other self" that begs to know how many times Trilby has to be killed before he'll leave "her" alone, that's actually John Defoe using the Mind of someone else to decipher what's happening. It's a nightmare on both ends: imagine entering a superior mind in an effort to understand the culmination of two hundred years of your own torture, only to come up with nothing, and then imagine having an inferior mind overtaking your own while your personality gets shoved into a corner, watching through your own eyes as if through a mask. Also, Defoe is possessing Janine for at least some of that sex scene. Janine losing herself while trying to reach out and gain some emotional stability is bad enough, but John Defoe was essentially losing his virginity in the body of a woman, to the same man who is going to cross him as the Bridge.
- We only have Sir Roderick's word for it that John Defoe was anything but normal when he was born, and he was chained up in the basement shortly afterward. Chained in a basement shortly after being born. He's constantly referred to as "retarded", but he probably wasn't: he was feral, with no human interaction but random, unprovoked beatings by his insane father, and occasional visits by his brother. But that's not the nightmare part. The nightmare part is that he lived to be a teenager under those conditions, without starving, freezing, dehydrating, committing suicide, or having any of the house staff performing a Mercy Kill on him out of sheer pity. Someone was taking bare-minimum care of him, possibly to keep Roderick's rage away from Matthew.
- A surprisingly well-executed surprise death in 7 Days: throughout the game, you repeatedly go in and out of the ship through the airlock while putting on or taking off your EVA suit. If you try to re-enter the ship while carrying the idol, you go into the cabinet to put your uniform back on, same as ever, except you now come out dressed as the Welder. Congratulations, you've been possessed! Have a Nice Death. What arguably makes this worse is the death screen showing John's terrified expression behind the welding mask, indicating he may in some way be aware of his predicament but unable to stop himself.
it hurts
