I picked up Boss of Gehenna to play now in the middle of a trip and was captivated by its backgrounds, well-crafted portraits, and silhouettes. The colors are vivid, and the contrast works perfectly to convey the implicit tension of desire from the very beginning, while the journey itself is short, enjoyable, and fluid. But I want to discuss the story, which caught my attention on several points.
Husk is a house of mirrors: each corridor reflects a different face, and moving in any direction alters the way the image is perceived. Husk —or simply XXX— reveals herself as a device caught at the intersection of lucidity and delirium, particularly when plunged into ephemeral pleasure that deprives her of all pain, or when immersed in perpetual denial caused by abstinence, living amid the decay manifested as pain. In both cases, she confronts the discomfort of facing her past—sometimes with foresight, sometimes lost in the consequences of time on her own approach to the world. Everything unfolds in excess, without moderation, structured through a violent rationality that organizes the bonds and choices defining her even before she presents herself as an individual.
The maternal manifestation —not merely as a gift but as the first conventional circuit of material and emotional dependence— both nourishes and suffocates. It deposits the promise of a future yet to be defined or imposes the consequences of avoidable risk, because it perceives time and its bifurcations as ways to account for inevitable losses: both in aging and in irreconcilable choices, repeated in stagnant eternity, producing disillusionment and distress if they fail to generate visible, tangible progress.
Husk’s face is both enigma and solution, coming up in the satiation of addiction, which restores contours and colors to the world. Yet, distant from her natural state, the demands of the present dissolve her face into a dark haze, perpetuating an infinity of gray perception—everything erodes, everything is lost, everything disappoints. Addiction can, in part, help her find herself, but in abstinence, yielding to it risks losing her attachment to reality as she has learned to manage it, leaving unclear what truly binds her and what truly frees her.
Husk navigates the world hierarchically, compelled to sacrifice and bear its weight, or surrendered to the vertigo that diverges from survival, in a paradoxical enchantment that amplifies the risk of excess and magnifies negative consequences. Like someone blind from birth who has never known colors, Husk exists between intermittent states: fully seeing only under the refuge of addiction, leaving her natural condition uncertain—the inevitable blindness of higher limitation, or attachment to what is already lost, emptied, yet still dictates her survival.
I found the character rich, and the way the game exposes the machinery of affect and consciousness is authorial. It grants Husk the space to see, breathe, and continue an experience she both loves and suffers from.
Thank you for sharing this work—it was a nice experience!
P.S.: If I had to associate a song with Husk, it would be Tua by Liniker (unfortunately without an official English translation, but available online). The song speaks of self-discovery, surrender, and finding the strength to move forward—and it reminded me deeply of Husk while playing.