Page - 154 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 07/02

154 | Christian Wessely known. Apparently, it took eight years from idea to finished game5 – to me the result was worth every day. Just as in Samorost 3, the message one can draw from this game is that creativity, empathy, and charity can overcome the strongest challenges, and that reconciliation is possible even with feared foes. Yet one remaining an- tagonist has to be destroyed before it destroys the community; there is no possibility of getting around annihilating it. This echoes Girard’s concept of religious sacrifice as the rightful, justified act of violence in a ritualized con- text, where the victim is constructed as the root of all evil – the scapegoat – so that the violence can discharge against it, thus ensuring the survival of the community.6 But what is more: the game is, in a nutshell, the paradigm of “the hero’s journey” according to Joseph Campbell.7 Campbell describes a hesitating hero who is summoned to save a society whose life-granting balance is se- verely disturbed; and the hero – after learning special skills and receiving magic items – is able to fight first the antagonist’s crew and then the an- tagonist itself. Having restored the balance, the hero can go back to the everyday – the cycle is finished, and yet returns to the beginning. And this is what this game presents to the player. The Amanita crew have managed to create a game that is in several re- spects fascinating, not only for its artistic quality but also for the message they managed to weave into the details of the game. From the very be- ginning, the uncanny feeling that is purposely created in the labyrinth of walkways, stairs, elevators, and funiculars is interwoven with small sparks of light. Light is the essential ingredient of change for the better, both fig- uratively and literally. Thus, Creaks can be read as a mythological story about courage, trust, and hope, about the eternal fight of good against evil, of darkness against light, and about the overwhelming power of benevo- lence which is capable of including, and bringing relief to, those who at first glance do not merit it. And thus, although by no means a religious game, Creaks is a story that provides one with clues to the transcendent. 5 Sigl 2020. 6 Girard 1977. 7 Campbell 1973. www.jrfm.eu 2021, 7/2, 149–155