Page - 169 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 06/01

The central episodes do not follow a linear plot: how each episode ends depends entirely on the player’s actions and behavior, particularly on how they interact with their surroundings. Hence, the time it takes to complete an episode can vary con- siderably and most players will explore each episode repeatedly and by every con- ceivable means. Overall, the episode endings – and, quite frankly, the degree of scariness – primarily depend on the player’s regard or disregard for certain cultural taboos. This is, in essence, the gist of the game, and herein lies the source of its name, too. As Mira Wardhaningsih explains: The name Pamali comes from the Sundanese (an Indonesian tribe that comes mainly from West Java) word pamali, loosely meaning taboo or prohibition in English. It is one of the most common words, as we actually grow up hearing pamali over and over again. […] Examples of pamali that we’ve implement- ed into the game are “you shouldn’t take a bath at night, or ghosts will come to you”, or “you shouldn’t throw scissors away because they will protect you against evil spirits”.3 But how exactly do these pamali, these rules for dealing with the supernatural, be- come effective in the gameplay experience? At the beginning of each episode, the protagonist is given certain tasks they need to carry out. In the first playable folklore part, «The White Lady», the player takes the role of a young man returning to his family home after his father’s death. Hence, his duty is to make preparations and, among other things, to clean the property in order for it to be put up for sale. «The Tied Corpse», Pamali’s second folklore part, is about a new graveyard keeper who is tasked with burying a body and tending to the graves at night – activities that are accompanied by numerous taboos (see fig. 2). The player interacts with all kinds of objects and from a first-person perspective explores in detail the eerie game world that is reinforced by an equally uncanny musical backdrop. A lot of times, the player can comment on objects, and players are given the choice to do so in either a polite or an abusive manner (see fig. 3). As Holly Green from Paste Magazine pointed out, Pamali successfully subverts genre conventions with this broad-ranging possibility for interaction with objects: most point-and-click (horror) games limit the player to interacting with objects that are solely of immediate relevance to the player’s objective.4 In Pamali, however, protagonists can spend countless hours in the tiniest of rooms because seemingly every single object on the screen can be investigated, 3 Trattner 2019, 120–121. 4 Green 2019. 168 | Kathrin Trattner www.jrfm.eu 2019, 6/1, 166–171