Drowned God - Conspiracy of the Ages 

Wow how is there this much discussion of Drowned God in the 2020s?? I literally wrote the Wikipedia article for this, and though it was a labor of love, I thought I was practically the only person who remembered this game. Glad to see so many other people enjoy and remember it today.

The Egyptian stuff is in Mesoamerica because Harry believed Osiris and Quetzalcoatl were one and the same. The game tells that the destruction of the 10th planet (by the Ark of the Covenant I believe) send aliens to Earth, where they lived and thrived in Atlantis. The Egyptians called the first to arrive Osiris. The asteroid impact created the flood (in biblical terms) on Earth, which destroyed Atlantis and sent the aliens to mesoamerica. I feel like part of the (actual) legend of Quetzalcoatl involves the ocean, but I can’t remember… I feel like Harry intentionally made this game obtuse and highly symbolic with the hope players would get together and talk about it. That’s probably why connecting to the internet is in the game, so players could talk on message boards. Unfortunately the public had really soured on adventure games by this point and the internet was too new. At least we’re here 25 years later! Great video, thanks for making.

There’s so much to talk about with this game, but there’s something right off the bat with the music that deserves mentioning. When you walk into the spiral staircase inside the Bequest Globe, you get that awesome, disconcerting music. This is actually a “composite rhythm” in musical terms, since it’s a combination of the sounds coming from above and below. When you walk in the sound is perfectly balanced, but looking and moving up and down biases the sound towards what you’re looking at, above or below. Walk around in there and you’ll see what I mean. Amazing music *and* a plot device? This game is special.

"Am I the king of depravity? The lord of the flies? The wickedest man in the world? I'M A CAT AND THE WORLD'S MY RAT." 50:27

I miss 1994 to 1997. Cuse it was that weird period between 2d and 3d. So much experimental games. Good times

My Dad would always talk about this game, trying to connect with my nerdy younger self. I joined freemasonry a few years ago, and this game came to mind when reading about various misconceptions/theories about masonry. Just watched this video and it's interesting seeing bits and pieces of esoteric topics sprinkled in the game. There's even a picture of a tiled floor and the Brazen Pillars, which is huge masonic imagery. Awesome video!

A bit of behind-the-scenes context for the game: Harry and his team originally wanted Chesed (the island in the Bermuda Triangle) to be the first world explored, not the second. Additionally there were supposed to be nine separate endings to the game, one for each of the nine Sacred Numbers one could be assigned at the start. The last world, Chokmah, was meant to be a full-blown realm and was supposed to go from the diner and caravan into the underground bunkers of Area 51 and somehow connect to the Great Pyramids of Giza. This is borne out by some map/mosaics you can view in the Din realm in the "Theatre of Memory" lobby, behind the two giant dolls there. Because the game as released was such a butchered mess, and because Harry insisted in private correspondence his belief that the game code for that element was complete, a sequel was planned that would be a full playthrough of Chokmah. I had the good fortune of exchanging letters with Harry in mid-2005, and while he was unhappy with how his original vision for "Drowned God" was so wrecked by what was ultimately released, he was still proud of the effort. Thanks for this well-presented and thorough review.

I remember playing this game in 96 on my uncle's computer when I was 13. To say it had a strong impression on me was an understatement. He was always into mysticism and the secret of the stone but never impressed anything upon me. After playing this game (which i never finished) I felt there was a message about the world I hadnt even experienced yet and it kept my eyes open for a long time. People dont understand how eerie and creepy this game was with its brilliant sound design. Maybe the compression and emulation makes it hard to understand but back when I played it from disk everything was clear as hell to understand. Thank you for making this.

I'm so used to discussions of this game devolving into RU-vidrs mugging for the camera shouting, "ZOMG MURDER!!! OMG!! MURDER!" like a 12 year old edge lord who thinks real life death is a creepypasta and shouting about it is fun and quirky. Having encountered so many of those, I was basically without hope that anyone would actually make a video on the game that had a thoughtful analysis of its' contents. I have never been so glad to be so wrong. Thank you for your analysis and for treating the unfortunate deaths of the game's creator and his wife with restraint and good taste. I don't have any idea why you don't have more followers when your content is of such high quality.

Weird, old games like this have such a wonderful place in my heart.

/x/ checking in

I remember my dad playing this game when I was super young, I loved the strange and beautiful direction the estranged creator took. Tbh if anything lore wise could be taken with any salt, I’m always surprised by how much research Horse and his staff conducted. Horse allegedly had a sequel planned but since his demise we probably won’t see it, but I’m so happy that someone else took the time to make a video about this game. My fascination with this gem runs deeps.

no happy ending or hope at all then, very dark but interesting game, i had the demo on the old windows 95 game sampler disc when i was young, always wanted to find out about it.

Harry used to do artwork for The Scotsman. His FINAL piece before his death was called "Atlantis Rising," and has themes from Drowned God in it...an image of ruins rising from the ocean while a surprised bull-man...yes, a manimal, as seen in Chesed, watches. You can still find that piece of artwork out there if you look.

I think that ♀ symbol is more about the astronomical sign of the planet Venus, like these signs: ☿♃♂♄⛢♆♇♁

I'm not gonna lie, my favorite part of any environment in this game, is the sky in chokma, there's just something so goddamn bizarre about the red and orange colour that makes it stick out in my mind

This game was odd to follow, I appreciate the amazing and well-made treatment of it in this fantastically well made video however learning about the creator and his end certainly put a vibe underneath it all. Thanks for bringing it to us, odd to follow!

I first heard of this game from an ad in PC Gamer back in the 90s. The best way you can sum it up is as an Ancient Aliens fever dream. It's like all the things AA Theorists actually believe summed up in a way that only makes sense to them.

Very enigmatic videogame, enjoyed this playthrough a lot! Also that dancing Crispin Glover clip made me lol pretty good

For a lot of games in the 90s, you had to have an actual sound card to process the sound. Something that is kind of lost on modern hardware.

I had this game as a child as I loved the point and click myst style games. I would play them with my dad. We had this game but there was a bug and we could only play the first hour or so. I always found it curious and bizarre. Fun to come back after all these years to see more.

It's really nice to see a game as obscure as this covered to such detail! If you haven't played, I'd recommend the other games released by Inscape, Bad Day at the Midway and The Dark Eye. Both have a surprisingly simular surreal and twisted atmosphere.

I wish I could afford to pay you to make these forever. I love retrospectives and analyses on old games like “Harvester” and “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream”, and I’m always searching them out. Even though I searched time and time again I’ve never seen your videos before until a couple days ago. You do absolutely fantastic work and I’m really hoping that you get the recognition you deserve! If RU-vid finally sent me in your direction, maybe there’s more to follow!

I’m still not sure what’s going on but I think Baphomet is pretty cool. Such a cool design that raises interesting questions, and I can actually hear what he’s saying! I wish I knew who voiced him because the game doesn’t tell you who voiced which characters.

Just found this channel through the i have no mouth analysis and after hearing his thoughts on point and click adventures i used to play, im now inspired to finally play through the syberia (as of right now) trilogy. I have had those games on my bucket list for years.

The game in the pyramid temple, placing counters then moving them to connect 3 is 9 mens Morris- which goes back to the middle ages. Nice to see it included!

I wonder what happen to everyone who worked on this game. Probably nothing but I’m curious if they still acknowledge their contribution on this game.

In the months since this video has come out I’ve made a transcript of ALL the dialogue and ALL the written text with the raw files, and even then I couldn’t get everything, (there was another person called Folkin who did some too) but I tried.

This game is so bizarre that I thought some of the joke edits you added were legit part of the actual gameplay xD

The person at 1:05:50 is Count of Saint-Germain. He was rumored to be immortal.

Look up Jack Parsons, L Ron Hubbard, the Philadelphia Experiment, and Genesis 6. It'll put a lot of this game into the proper context. Also, I doubt very much that Harry Horse killed himself. Also, they're turning the freaking frogs gay!!

The speech from the mask-character at the end. Azariah Kyras's speech from Dawn of War II is very very similar. I now strongly suspect someone at Game's Workship played this. "The truth is there is no truth. Only the ragged march of CHAOS!" "What is this path. This meaning. This purpose...It is nothing. There is no meaning. No purpose. We murder, we kill. It is mindless savagery. Thus universe is mindless!"

Was bizarre finding out a book I got free in a box of cereal and loved as a kid was written by a dude that did... that.

ARealHuman finally returned! This is why spooktober is the best month of the year

Just found out I WASN'T subscribed to you after randomly thinking about your System Shock video while I had the Mandalore Gaming video about it in the background. Then I find out you have new videos I haven't seen since. You deserve more subs imo. Great content.

This may be the coolest game of all time.. kinda life changing, honestly

Mandalore retweeted this review and now I have to binge watch all your content! Subed and liked.

WE MISS YOU AREALHUMAN!

Excellent video! I just thought you’d be interested to know that MJ12 stands for Majestic 12, not Magic 12! It’s a reference to a supposed secret committee that exploited alien technology after the Roswell UFO incident.

It's so bizarre having been someone that spent 10+ years in the occult world (ex-Thelemite, Crowley's "religion", ex-member of his reformed initiatory group the OTO or Ordo Templi Orientis) seeing all this stuff in a game... but so much of it is straight up wrong... Crowley didn't form the Golden Dawn (something I hear a lot and have no idea why people think is true) he joined it and was largely responsible for it falling apart. Crowley took all the Golden Dawn material and unified it with Thelema to create the A.'.A.'. (which can stand for a few things but usually Argenteum Astrum). That's the only Order that Crowley formed. Otherwise like with the Golden Dawn he'd enter an occult system and destroy it or reform it to make them his own (like he did with the Ordo Templi Orientis). Once he was in control of both the A.'.A.'. and the OTO he made the A.'.A.'. something akin the the secret society within the secret society of the OTO. Side note it was The Book of Lies that pops out in the game that got him into the OTO to begin with... oh and the letter that mentions the Tower on Wheels is probably a reference to The Invisible College which if you search on Wikipedia you'll see is represented as a Tower on Wheels and it was a precursor to The Royal Society of London and has its roots in the original Roscicrusian Manifestos which yes does mean the modern Royal Society is directly tied to Rosicrusianism. The Golden Dawn was created by Mathers and a few other Masons who were part of the SRIA (a Rosicrusian Order open only to Master Masons). The thing in the game about the ritual at Boleskine House at Loch Ness is also totally wrong as Mathers wasn't even there for Crowley to "leave him for dead", quite the opposite Crowley abandoned the ritual (The Abralemin Rite, which Mathers helped translate) because Mathers requested he come to Paris for Golden Dawn business. The closest thing I can think of to Crowley putting people in danger for his insanity was in Italy at his decrepit Abbey of Thelema which got so absurd and grotesque it led to the death of Raoul Loveday and umm a woman doing things with animals... Mussolini actually kicked him out of the country for what he did there. Declassified British documents show he was working for the English government and it's quite likely he took down the Golden Dawn because it was becoming a source for Irish nationalism and he took over and reformed the Ordo Templi Orientis because it was, to a more or less degree no one really knows, being used by German Intelligence (pre-WW2). I really wonder what sort of books Harry Horse was reading to get his information... I have a sneaking suspicion he fell victim to Operation Mind F**k which was started by a group called the Discordians who, especially through the works of Robert Anton Wilson and his Illuminatus Trilogy and articles in Playboy of all places intentionally wove a confusing meld of real occult history and utterly made up conspiracy theories (many of which are unironically believed by millions today and is where most modern concepts of the Illuminatistuff come from rather than the historical Bavarian group). I absolutely adore Robert Anton Wilson, he's one of the few people from the occult world I still have any respect for after being in the world and learning far too much about people like Crowley but if you didn't get that his goal was to weave humour and seriousness to, loosely in his words, "make people not become agnostic about God but about everything" it's a recipe for insanity... someone literally held a pizza store hostage and asked the cops for a copy of a Robert Anton Wilson book and was caught while eating pizza... So Discordian stuff mixed with crazy stuff written by people who knew a thing or two but not much about the occult world much have driven him totally bonkers... I feel terrible for his wife... and for him... but mostly his wife and pets. Getting involved in occultism is something you gotta take responsibility for as you're playing with fire, quite literally pushing the limits of dissociating from consensus reality. There's some stuff in here that is somewhat on point like Newton was an occultist and I suppose if you consider Spinoza esoteric then so was Einstein and aspects of the Kabbalah stuff is alright I guess... and yeh Jung did write about the "modern mythology of UFOs" but it seems Harry bit off more than he could chew researching all this, likely with bad sources. I wonder if he was part of any strange cult? I mean the Typhonian Order did connect Crowley's depiction of Lam with aliens so that might be a candidate...

His death is extremely shady. I don't believe it was suicide at all

I started watching this when it premiered, got sick from covid and forgot, and just now remembered I haven't seen most of this video. What a nice surprise!

1:03:30 Baphomet and the Man in the Iron Mask are some of my favorites in this game.

If i am not mistake they planned at least 9 endings and more worlds/factions, but due to budgetary issues(or outside pressure...) only 3 was in the final version

today is a good day

I think you might enjoy the old point and click adventure game Discworld Noir. It's probably my favorite, it's got excellent writing and voice acting, and the gameplay isn't obtuse most of the time. Also, thank you for this video!

A man who dislikes the tories...this channel keeps getting better

I have to have watched this video 30 times back. Great coverage, such a strange, interesting game.

Im really enjoying this my dude. And im gona watch your other point n click stuff. Hour n a half is perfect length for this stuff. And love your pacing bro

I want to thank you sincerely for this amazing walk-through commentary on a game that, to this day 25+ years later, still haunts me. Insert Disc 1 I've played games my whole life and went through my fair share of 90s adventure games...Myst, 7th Guest, Tex Murphy, The Black Dahlia, etc...but it was something multi-faceted that made the Drowned God sink it's hooks into me. Could be timing...X-files and other alien and government conspiracy stuff was really popular at the time, questions of our true origins, and of course the freak production values and vague explanations that required you to fill in the blanks. Insert Disc 2 I loved how also the historical time capsules and subject matter was varied yet focused. And of course Keitherr (as above, spelling unguaranteed) was such an "Agent Smith" authoritarian man in black big brother, and the Nephilim (down below) were these hippie non-GMO foods but certainly GMO when it came to humans. All bickering over the same thing. Update your game on your dial-up modem to get certain puzzles to work... Insert Disc 3 In parting, thanks for such the amazing coverage for a one-of-a-kind game. The story of Harry Horse is tragic, such brilliance, yet such disturbance. I would totally be open to a re-make. Thank you though sincerely for now. Legion

This was *FANTASTIC.* What I wouldn't give for a Remake!

Once again amazing review of a interesting game I never heard of. Keep up the great work!

Interesting game. Must be hell to play it without a walkthrough.

If someone were to remake this and publish it on steam, it would be an instant hit

delicious finally a video essay to use as background noise while i tend to my minecraft farm

What a nice video for the Halloween season :) I love the aesthetic of these old, Myst-like games. The 3d rendered graphics just look so pleasing and this game is certainly quite interesting to boot! Thank you for the vid :D

The board game in the mayan temple with the squares is called nine mens morris. hard to find, but a fun game. I think its in asassins creed 3

28:09 We have this as a board game in Germany. It's called "Mühle" (mill) over here. The english Wikipedia says it's known in english speaking countries as "nine men's morris". Also it says it can be dated back to at least the roman empire...

YESSSS LESS GOOOOOO!!!!!!! I recently came across your channel and my god do I love it!!!

Thank Azathoth for your videos, they are my absolute favourite to watch while I'm in bed or just chilling out Keep going, man! No one does it like you

This seems like a lot of content for just a game. Great video

15 mins in and im LOVIN IT! both hilarious and relaxing. should have more subs. i need more of this awsome shit!

Wonder if those friends that provided the quote were ever named. Seems odd they found him "demented" and saying such a thing. A detective might say it's too good to be true. I've known a poor man who actually stabbed himself in his temple trying to end it. However, slashing at one's own genitals multiple times is a hard one to wrap my head around.

Wish the closed captions for this were better. The autogenerated ones struggle with gameplay audio which isn't the best due to all the voice filters,effects and music happening at once with not-exactly-the-best audio mixing, and considering there's so many strange names and words being thrown around, it's very crucial to understanding what's going on.

The game played at 28:30 is called "Mühle" in Germany. Its a Boardgame.

You know your civilization of mammals REALLY got in an evolutionary dead-end when you see one of your congener (or fellow human) censor some 2 pixel boob from a virtual card in an old game by himself, without even anything forcing him but a Pavlovian reflex... Sad.

Have you considered doing a video on Garage: Bad Dream Adventure? Just found your harvester vid today, good stuff 👍

1:01:00 we got two more years 😳

Always come back to this great video but I don't think you realize that with the Bob Lazar story, and now with the scientific community, element 115 is real.

Thank you for this analysis/retrospective. S-tier content

Shocked how little viewers you are getting! Great stuff!

“Din: The Death Star” Darth Vader: “See? I TOLD you the Death Star would be completed on schedule!”

1:03:19 "...one of the DLCs for train simulator" I chuckled

Crowley didn't found the golden dawn, he founded the silver star.

Great video! It just makes me want to buy whatever the advertisment tells me its crazy! good thing this guy doesnt have a sponsor or id be in trouble

The game at 28:09 is called "mill" or "Nine men's morris " (or according to wikipedia sometimes 😎cowboy checkers😎)

Dude, the nWo has been talked about since the 70s and probably behind that, the public first incling of it was Raegan talking about "a new world order" back in the 80s. "Get with the program, kid..."

7:00 Don't threaten me with a good time, ARealHuman.

The creator of this game killed his wife and then their pets and then chopped off his own twig and berries and then stabbed himself 47 times

Just commenting so you get more views. Great Content as always

Glad I found out about this game. The whole thing has a twin peaks season 3 feel to it. If you know you lnow

51:20 "ok, this cutscene is finally ending-- wait nevermind! Retreat!"

The ending of this game was always confusing. You were told more than once that one of the lodges is lying to you. The judgement card makes it pretty obvious that Kether is the one lying as they hold the "firebird" and launch it. And yet they were both obviously lying to you as you get the "Fool" card no matter who you chose. HOWEVER...Cayce says pretty explicitly that you need to make your choice "between" the two lodges, which is the third ending that is literally "between." Is this the Dreamgate? A real pity the game was cut short at this point.

RIP ARealHuman He died doing what he loved: [REDACTED]

That was a trip and a half. Great video sir.

"Chaos! All hail Discordia!" FNORD

The symbol assigned to you at the start of the game is a planetary symbol. So the one you got was the symbol for Venus.

I've never even heard of this game. Very interesting stuff you showed off.

This game is so much more profound than people realize.. Having such an understanding of the laws of hermetics, tarot, ancient civilizations and the occult are why this man is dead, I surmise. People like this often "disappear" with the simple explanation of suicide. The themes in this game are more pertinent to reality than most would like to think.

Seems like theres some crossover with the Illuminatus books, which are kind of a rosetta stone for conspiracy fiction. I'd highly recommend reading them, very ahead of their time. The reveal from the upper room of the lack of a true conspiracy and the cry of "all hail discordia" is basically ripped straight from the book

This game seems like a /x/ post.

I always love your videos man, great work!

My most played game of that era.

Great work, creators and players.

A great deal of this comes from the 1991 book "Behold a Pale Horse" by Bill Cooper.

Azrael tear(1996) has a similar vibe.

Another great review glad I found your channel I enjoy this type of in-depth long form review, good work thanks

The makers seem uncomfortable because this game is an image of what Harry Horse really believed; and regardless of what they themselves thought of that they could recognize it as great art. I can imagine them feeling like they were exploiting and exaggerating someone's delusions...as it turns out, possibly to lethal effect.

i wonder if harry horse channeled some of it without realizing and put it in the game

Thank you, ARH. You made my day.