Connor Sherlock’s indie title The Rapture Is Here And You Will Be Forcibly Removed From Your Home is a story of the end of the world, with players living out their last minutes on Earth before its destruction.
Available for free for Mac and PC on Gamejolt, TRIHAYWBFRFYH is an exploration game with accompanying narrations taken from the works of H.P Lovecraft.
Sherlock’s intent was to capture the sense of powerlessness and awe of the horror writer’s work, rather than the gribbly, tentacled splatter gore that is usually a hallmark of Lovecraft adaptations.
“Lovecraft’s stories hinge on trying to describe encountering something fundamentally unknowable to human beings,” Sherlock said, speaking to Polygon. “Awe, loneliness and wonder are as important as horror for this. Video games tend to focus entirely on horror, or worse yet, quickly give way to action and gore and use the terrible things Lovecraft describes as mere cannon fodder.”
The short duration of the game, a mere twenty-two minutes, was another design choice. ”The world ends in 20 minutes’ puts the player into the correct frame of mind of exploring under a vague pressure,” explained Sherlock. ”It also communicates that it is a short game that respects the player’s time, which feels like a must in an industry where there are many, many more games to play than people have time, even if you only count free ones.”
Here’s the atmospheric trailer.
