Page - 168 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 06/01

episode features a ghost or another supernatural entity from Indonesian folklore. There is, for instance, Kuntilanak, a female ghost deriving from Indonesian and Ma- layan mythology. She purportedly died during childbirth, which keeps her longing for newborn babies and haunting her former home (see fig. 1). Another example is Pocong, the restless spirit whose burial shroud was not untied in time, according to Muslim burial customs. Those two characters, who are central to the first two episodes – «The White Lady« and «The Tied Corpse» – were heavily inspired by and hence serve as illustrations of Indonesian horror tales and the diverse religious tra- ditions from which these tales originated. The game effortlessly implements such aspects of Indonesian cultural plurality. On the whole, the most intriguing moments of gameplay include the player actively experiencing the amalgamation of the vari- ous religious and cultural traditions in everyday contexts. In general, a frame narrative connects all episodes, granting the player the role of a game designer in search of supernatural phenomena for a particular project. A dorm room serves as point of departure. Here, the protagonist starts their inves- tigations primarily by reading emails. Each activated attachment initiates a playa- ble episode that follows the respective narrator’s point of view. When I played the game for the first time, I spent nearly an hour in the tiny dorm room looking at every single item, reading every newspaper clipping lying around, curiously inspecting each and every piece of furniture. In my view, this is one of the game’s top qualities: the extremely detailed depictions of everyday Indonesian life fascinated me. I will return to this point in more detail. Fig. 1: A haunted house in «The White Lady». Press still: StoryTale Studios. Game Review: Pamali: Indian Folklore Horror | 167www.jrfm.eu 2019, 6/1, 166–171