We Know the Devil, horror visual novel

[Hipolito]

"The devil is only the shadow of man cast from the light of god."

So postulates We Know the Devil, a horror visual novel about three teenagers stuck at a Jesus camp for troubled kids. Although the kids hate the camp and its smarmy, hypocritical camp counselors, they do fear god and the devil, considering both to be actual entities that could visit the camp at any moment. As the story progresses, the three have to do things that would temporarily leave one of them alone. You decide which one gets isolated, which affects the ending you'll get.

Each character has his or her own brief ending. After getting those three endings and feeling rather disappointed by the game, I checked my Steam achievements and saw there was still a "true ending" I hadn't found. So I went back to the game and figured out how to get the true ending. The true ending was great and worth the effort of getting. But I think the story would have been better if, rather than making you restart from the beginning to see each ending, it combined all the paths into one plot which doled out each minor ending before showing the true ending.

Another thing that bothered me about the game was the writing. Sometimes it felt like a few lines had been mistakenly omitted, making the dialogue hard to follow.

It took just 2 hours to see all the endings. Still not feeling that I understood the game, I looked at what others had written about it. I now see that the game is a commentary about how religion "others" people who are different, such as LGBT folks, to the extent that those who are straight are on god's side and those are are queer are with the devil. Which means that maybe human compassion and friendship are more the devil's domain than god's.

Now that I understand the game's message more, I admire it. I think it would make a great movie, the type that would cause holier-than-thou types to picket movie theaters. (When was the last time that happened? I miss those days.)