Sister Ray - The Horror of Living Wild

If you are already addicted to certain drugs, trying to go cold turkey without medical support by trained doctors and nurses may be a death sentence.

It is for this fact alone that we recognize addiction is not a moral failure or an act of social anarchy, but a disease. And it was a truth I was severely reminded of when I first played Sister Ray A Trip On The Wild Side.

Ray, a drug-addicted, starving artist, just on the brink of eviction and homelessness. She just got the news that her father has died in a car crash. So did his wife. You haven't spoken in years even though he lives just on the other side of town. But your half-sister is orphaned, and you come up with the bright idea to adopt her. Your best friend calls. To make you feel better, she's planned a wild, 6-Day long bender. Just you, her, and every drug under the sun.

You come out of it on April 1st, the date of your court visit to claim custody over your half sister. You are on the brink of death, and you need some uppers. Now. If you plan to be both alert and alive enough to fill out paperwork.

What followed was a harrowing series of dialogue choices. Quick time events representing your ability to maintain composure in front of others. Timers that will force you down the wrong path if you don't respond quick enough. Every time you talk, eat, drink, take a medication, and just try to go to the bathroom is met with an onslaught of positive and negative status effects clouding the air around your head.

Sister Ray is Disco Elysium if the only stat in your head was ElectroChemistry. Noisy punk music sends the heart racing when you're trying to concentrate. The calming tones of night give false security when you fail to have a good night's sleep. Move over FrostPunk and This War of Mine, Sister Ray is deceptively far more stressful.

Sister Ray also does not advertise itself as a horror game. To a certain extent, this makes sense. It doesn't have the aesthetics of fear-inducing media. Dark shadows don't pose an immediate threat. There are no monsters around the corner. Yet I still think it fits.

My theory of horror revolves around an emotional cycle. As horror is an emotion-oriented genre. If it isn't causing you to experience fright, then it isn't doing the job of the genre. Simple as that. But emotions are transient. They need to be guided into coming and going to be affecting. Which leads me to the Horror Cycle theory. Horror isn't just the emotion of fear but a progression from Rest, to Dread, to Shock, to Panic, back to Rest, and back out again. Dread is Anxiety, the worry of something to come. Shock is the jumpscare, the instinctual spike of adrenaline that makes you act. Panic is self-preservation, taking many actions frantically until you are, at last, safe. And thereby capable of rest. A reset that allows you to dread the next scare to come.

Sister Ray commands two of these emotions, and commands them masterfully. Through immediate and unreasonable levels of systems management, the player isn't ever dreading what's to come. There is no time for dread.

You have 4 conditions to manage: Health, Looks, Composure, and Withdrawal. Withdrawal can only be managed by doing recreational or prescription drugs. Drugs cost money. Money is earned through theft or art. Drugs also reduce Look, Composure, and Health. High withdrawal reduces health constantly over time. Art is made through minigames. Minigames are disrupted and even outright foiled by negative status conditions earned from high withdrawal and low composure. Cigarettes temporarily maintain your composure to get through making art or tough conversations, but decrease health, look, and composure once they run out. Food restores health, but costs money. And if your Look is too low the convenience store won't allow you past the front door to buy food.

Look is maintained by self-care. Self care acts take time and thus increase your withdrawal. High withdrawal creates conditions which prevent you from using the bathroom or enjoying a shower. So no Look recovery. Failing to sleep means no health, no look, and no composure recovery, which, you guessed it, happens from high withdrawal. Sleeping is a long time spent away from doing drugs, and also increases your withdrawal. Cosmetics temporarily hold up your looks, but they're expensive. And, guess what, only sold at the convenience store. You need to have high look and money to buy what you need to maintain your Looks when low on everything else. The clock ticks forward even when you do nothing.

Also you need to remember to pick up your half-sister Lilah from school at 4pm. Which is a 30 minute bus ride away. But a 60 minute walk when you're with Lilah, because she has a traumatic aversion to motor vehicles due to your dad's death.

Did I mention there's also relationship management? Console your newly adopted grieving child. Does her teacher, who hates you, approve of your living conditions? Keep your drug addicted best friend from withdrawal or overdose. Do you also take in the underage, homeless prostitute knowing the social worker is visiting sometime this week? Your drug dealer needs your help avoiding the cops, else he disappears. Some guy at the bar tries to date you if you convince him you're going sober. Does the Goth Witch Baddie Pharmacist Technician like you too? Do you still like yourself after stealing from homeless people to afford drugs and/or a sandwich?

Oh yeah, and if you don't submit 3 paintings to the art exhibition before April 5th, you might as well kiss your hopes and dreams goodbye, idiot.

I spent every minute of my time playing Sister Ray in a low state of Panic. Every successful dialogue QTE, art minigame, or good night's sleep gave me a fleeting moment of rest and relief. Only to send me back in.

My attempt to focus on everything causing me to miss the chance to say Good Night to Lilah twice in a row. My poor condition causing me to be unable to wake up to get Lilah to school, and not realizing it was the afternoon already. Thereby also failing to pick her up from school, and failing to make any money that day. I kid you not, I actually forgot to get bus fare from my apartment before leaving after I told myself not to forget the bus fare. I had to run back to the apartment to get it, and thankfully didn't lose time doing so.

Both my composure and my health hit 0 at the end of day 3, and I failed my first game. This was a horrific experience. Not a prickling fright from which to run, but an anxious, crushing pressure. Made joyous and hopeful by isolated seconds of success.

Disco Elysium, by comparison, made sobriety look easy.

Safe to say, the game has me hooked. I want nothing more than to jump right back in. Do better by Lilah than I did last time by being a worse person, at least to start. Explore more of what the game’s stats mean to Ray's daily life. But I must be more responsible to my own life's duties, and pressures, before I can take the plunge.

The addictive quality of this game which transforms every decision into a morbid thrill. The gamified mechanics of modern survival. This is how a walk on the wild side Becomes Horror.

Thank you for watching,

Take care of each other,

And Stay True.