Why are creepy games always set in Washington? 

>looking for a new game >ask Simone if her game is creepy or wet >she doesn't understand >pull out illustrated diagram explaining creepy and wet >she laughs and says "it's a pacific northwest game, sir" >buy the game >it's both

As someone from the pnw, I feel the media doesn’t overrepresent it’s spookiness but does misrepresent it’s spookiness. It’s spooky in a different way.

As a lifelong Seattleite who has never travelled much, i took for granted how frequently you just run into a patch of woods, or at minimum a bunch of trees. most suburbs have trees all throughout their city center, and even in downtown you are rarely much more than a mile away from a trail leading through a few city blocks worth of woods, a large park, etc.

now if I want to get my cultural studies hat on (a carhartt beanie never once worn to do physical labor) part of the reason why the PNW has the spooky, cryptid reputation is becuase it was one of the lat US frontiers during the advent of mass media, and ethnography, so a lot of the stories from the isolated logging camps got published when creepypasta was called men's adventure magazines.

i think gravity falls nails the eeriness but also the absurdity of pacific northwest legends/sideshows

It’s funny how the media never really portrays Idaho as spooky even though it is by far the scariest place in the pnw

It's spooky but more weird in a comfortable way. Like we're all at peace with the weirdness

The Twin Peaks and X-Files nods in Alan Wake speak to such a specific taste that I’ve never been able to pinpoint. This video is for me.

I'd also like to credit Life is Strange for being brave enough to showcase the absolutely devastating forest fires

Driving through Tacoma at nightfall is a bit like LARPing Pacific Drive…..

The ending section made me want a horror game set in the pnw that mixes a cyberpunk-y tech dystopia and the creepy off putting supernatural vibes of twin peaks, et al.

It's creepy and weird how many Subaru Outbacks are in the PNW.

Omg, is Simone from Port Townsend?? I’d know that old military bunker complex I used to play in while visiting my aunt and uncle anywhere!

It's always fascinated me seeing non-native perspectives on the PNW. I remember being in the valley with some people, and a few of them specifically mentioned how creepy it was, and reminded them of Twin Peaks. The only thing i had to offer was that we picked salmonberries and sxwosem (I literally can't remember the english name for them at the moment lmao) and had a wind dry rack just up the hill.

As a Spokane resident I completely understand why it's not a big location for spooky stories. There's too much plains, you can see stuff coming 😂

I need basically zero excuse to watch a 20+ minute video about Twin Peaks so thanks Simone!

I live in one of the towns Twin Peaks was filmed in! We went to the diner from the show for my mom's birthday. It's super crowded, you need a reservation to get in most of the time. It's kind of funny that sign at the beginning said the population was 50,000. That's more than double the combined population of all three towns they used in filming. That's not really a small town anymore. That clip from The Killing is kind of funny, they said they had a lot of rain to make it feel like the Pacific Northwest but as someone from there, they got the rain wrong! It does not rain like that here! At least not that frequently. Total amount of rainfall in Seattle isn't that high, it's the frequency of very light rainfall that's really high. They show a scene where they're holding umbrellas, a lot of people never use umbrellas here. Because it makes more sense to just wear like a coat that can take light rain instead. Oh I also live very close to a ghost town. My sister's been there. But we moved here recently I haven't had a chance to go to it yet.

As a fellow Washingtonian, Simone is making me very proud.

No mention of Gravity Falls at any point. For shame.

Oh man, thanks for the reminder of how hilariously over-the-top rainy "The Killing" was. Seattle isn't nearly as rainy as its reputation (less annual rainfall than many other major US cities), but it is overcast a lot.

Fun Fact: Washington holds the world's largest temperate rainforest (meaning outside of the Tropics). There are only like 7 scattered across the world. I think this is a big reason why supernatural stories get set there, it's a place where the growth seems unnatural and our monkey brains feel like danger could be hiding within an arm's reach of us.

I hope that the indigenous representation become the norm in these games in the fallowing years, my school district just made taking a BC first people’s class mandatory for graduation, so hopefully more creatives my age and younger can make this happen. (Pro tip: if you ever go to Vancouver or the Vancouver area try and see some of Bill Reid’s works, the Spirit of Haida Gwaii, aka the jade canoe is one of my favourite statues ever.)

as a lifelong washingtonian and horror fan, i do get where the creep factor comes from! i feel like the fact that we have hanford right across the mountains is underrepresented, and it always gives me pause when i think about how close we live to a nuclear cleanup zone. i'll be driving home at dark hours and the roads will cut through the trees, the same trees that obscure oncoming cars until you see their headlights glowing right around the corner. sometimes i get confused and lost and mistake one forested bend for another (but maybe that's just me and my terrible navigation skills). you can find a million trails along defunct railroad tracks or abandoned mining operations, a stark contrast to the genuinely gorgeous forests and mountains they lie on. abandoned, rotting homes are rapidly reclaimed by vengeful blackberry bushes, even in the middle of town. the rain will stop and start seemingly on a dime. every town is woven with nature at least a little bit. you drive down certain highways and are greeted by mount ranier looming over the horizon, reminding you of how small you truly are. the beaches are usually grey and rocky, unlike the bright, sandy california coast most are familiar with, and the grey skies and clouds really make you feel the chill of the salty ocean breeze right down to your bones. as i write this, i can hear the frogs call out from the wetland right at my backyard. the forests here are old and wet and mossy, ancient places that whisper of even more ancient creatures that may roam within. i stumble upon inspiration all the time! i love it!! i'm totally that weird local that speaks of the things betwixt the trees and does strange rituals at night by the moonlit shore. please keep setting games here. it makes me extremely happy. i will place a dark curse on you if you do not. i would be thrilled to see a game that grapples with the juxtaposition between the seattle area's modern tech culture and the forests that lie just outside. i think the shift to working from home really exacerbated the loneliness that already permeates classic pnw creepiness. it'd be amazing to have a game about an average lonely worker in a little ordinary suburb get swallowed up by two opposing beasts - one the urban, corporate tech dystopia enforced by amazon and microsoft, and one the natural-supernatural coming to reclaim what has always been borrowed. neither can truly be understood, as they were never designed for you in the first place. maybe i'll have to make that game someday... i think this video also made me understand part of why i loved citizen sleeper so much. a large part of the story was about fighting to live in an overwhelmingly corporate world, and finding safety and solace in an impossible forest without giving yourself up to its current. citizen sleeper is an amazing game. everyone should play it.

Gravity Falls and the adaptation of Coraline were so validating in terms of animation that takes the Pacific Northwest as a place where fucked up magical towns with oddballs seriously. I'm a writer who grew up in the Willamette Valley and Oregon is such a rich setting for weird and creepy stories, so most of my novels take place here. The closest I can think to our current brand is Appalachia? Which I want to see more use of, PNW should not be alone in our oddity. AND HOW CAN I FORGET GOING UNDER! EDITING TO REMEMBER THAT GAME EXISTS!

Something I never appreciated until I moved away is that the forest has a certain magic to it. It's a place where nature is more in control then other places. Out on the planes, you could build a house with little struggle. To make a habitation in the PNW is to activly fight the forest for the plot of ground you want. Everything is in a state of being reclaimed. The trees themselves are covered in moss and sometimes mushrooms. And it's always connected to water, wether thats the rain, the sound, or the coast. It's the edge where humanity and nature live. The supernatural isn't to hard to imagine being possible.

Lifelong Portlander here. I think that your commentary on the woods is pretty on point, I know I was definitely raised to respect them and all that they hold, but to not stray too far from the beaten path. Also, exploring the old forts and derelict towns/camps growing up was not something that I had specifically pinned as being a PNW thing, but it absolutely makes sense in retrospect. Also, good deflection about the weird stuff that goes on in those places, its better if the outsiders don't know...

Thank you for the Spokane mention. There’s nothing interesting here, the town peaked 50 years ago with a World’s Fair everyone forgot about. It’s just scrublands, hospitals and mediocre colleges.

Live in the PNW on the Canadian side, I love living inside of an episode of X-Files or Supernatural!

Holy crap! I took a media studies course from Professor Groening at UW back in 2015. It was an excellent course, and he is an excellent professor. So cool to see him pop up in this, and glad to see he's still teaching at UW. As a Seattle native since 2005 it's great to see some PNW love. And yes, big tech is ruining the vibe up here, so they can go away. But another great video from Simone!

Port Townsend?! Bremerton here, waving back to you…and giving you a knowing look.

it’s from the wet

Definitely played in all the Ft. Worden tunnels as a kid. Would climb into small spaces above some of the bunkers' ceilings and slam doors behind tourists to make them think it was haunted

Dead Boy Detectives also was set in the Pacific Northwest for most the season, specifically Port Townsend Washington.

Seeing the abandoned WWII bunkers was the Washington-childhood-core shot I needed; shoutout Fort Warden, gotta be my favorite definitely-haunted place to play Capture the Flag

One of your best, Simone. This rules.

Twin Peaks’ soundtrack being free to use in videos is such a boon for creators.

These are the types of videos that reminds me why I am subscribed to Polygon. 👍

I moved to PNW a year ago from TX and I love the doom and gloom, the rain and subtle uneasiness I feel when I look out into the forest at night Its best place

Polygon video team always kills it with their longform essays. Love it.

The greater internet is not ready to deconstruct 'The Seattle Freeze'

3:22 I didn't understand Twin Peaks when I tried to watch it. Now that you've explained it to me properly, I think I'm ready to try it again. Cool video!

I’m debating whether we can claim The Shining as a creepy PNW movie because the real hotel that was the exterior of the Overlook, the Timberline Hotel, is in Oregon

what has gone unspoken of regarding pnw? banana slugs... found everywhere; in the forests, in the food, in the coffee.... 🐌 ;^)

I love when there is a Simone video it always improves my day :) also the soapbox bit made me laugh irl thank you

As someone who lives in Spokane, thanks for the shoutout! But the image you guys showed is the from the Channel Scablands which are a couple hours west of us here! That region still has some breathtaking landscapes that reveal the geological history of the Missoula Great Flood, but Spokane looks nothing like that! I love living in the PNW and this video is terrific!

My mom was such a Twin Peaks fangirl back in the day that she married a guy named Dale and moved to North Bend, one of the towns where it was filmed. Without Twin Peaks, I literally would not exist!

One more comment lol. Even though Twin Peaks was one of the earliest “water cooler shows”, the very first was the night time soap “Dallas” in the 80’s. A lot of people that weren’t alive or old enough at that time don’t realize how big of a deal it was, especially during the “Who Shot JR” storyline. It was must-see tv before NBC coined the term, and everyone stayed home on Saturday nights to watch it, and then spent the following Monday mornings at work discussing all the newest events from the show. I also recommend it to anyone that loves well written drama. Don’t let the “soap” label fool you, yes it has plenty of typical soap opera tropes, but the characters are so intriguing, the stories are so well crafted, and the series as a whole is so perfectly paced that a lot of people would love it even if it doesn’t SOUND like something they would be into lol

I really enjoy your video essays. Keep up the good work!

Outside of the big cities, there are a LOT of skinheads and neo-nazis in the PNW. We had a few close calls going on tour through there.

I've lived in the PNW my whole life and I must say it's pretty spoopy

Hey, hawk is pivotal! I agree though, past that. The indigenous peoples here are broadly ignored in twin peaks and elsewhere.

I would very much like a DLC to this video that focuses entirely on Northern Exposure, which was set in Alaska but was filmed in central Washington. It has a cast of quirky characters, magical realism, supernatural creatures living in the woods, and best of all, lots of Native American representation! Streamable right now on the otherwise evil Amazon Prime.

Biggest surprise from moving to the PNW after (but not because of, mind) seeing movies like The Ring and Twilight is learning that those filters aren't as hyperbolic as they might seem. Sometimes this area just kinda, does that. Especially in early spring.

It only took 4 seconds and I am already SO invested in this video thanks to that editing and Simone's expression! 😅

Simone always manages to get me hyped for things I never looked into, thanks for the video! 06:47 just a small lil funfact: while I'm sure they did some touch-ups in post, The Ring was shot with different blue tinted camera-filters, to give it its look from the get go. There was a thorough video about it somewhere on here, but I can't remember by whom. EDIT: It was by WatchingtheAerial !

2:23 *sees that about half of those games are my favourite* Thank you for the other half of recommendations, just in time for Steam Summer Sale. :)

I also grew up in the Pacific Northwest but only the stuffy suburb parts, not the cool spooky woods parts >:( got a good chuckle out of the "Visit Beautiful Spokane" bit

In Oregon; found a body in the woods when I was a child.

You mentioned Alan Wake 2 and summoned me to this video I think xD! This is a great and very fun video!

This was a delightful break from watching Twin Peaks and an excellent segue back into watching Twin Peaks, thanks!

Hey heads up if I’m remembering my Pacific Northwest Indigenous Art class correctly the Seattle Seahawks logo IS in fact problematic as they copied a sacred dance mask without asking (the one in the photograph shown) and the tribe that it originated from (iirc the Kwak’wakawakw who don’t even live in Washington they live in canada) has asked them to alter or change the design to no avail. The thunderbird design could be easily done in a Coast Salish style (tribes that actually live there.) and in fact many have already done this redesign. Sadly the Indigenous art shown in Twin Peaks and the other examples you gave are specifically Northern Formline styles and totem poles which are not from Washington but from tribes in British Columbia like the Haida, Tlingit, and Tsimshian whose artwork has long overshadowed their southern cousins due to the history of collectors causing members of coast Salish tribes to have to imitate the northern styles to sell their works. Totem poles are not actually part of the culture of coast Salish tribes though story poles have been invented as a recent idea to create similar pieces in their own styles. In fact the totem pole in Seattle was stolen from Vancouver island (though I think the original no longer exists)

shoutout to bellingham and its high per capita serial killer representation

"...and british columbia. these regions were relatively late additions to the US." *nervously looks towards border*

I always love the personal spin of Simone's vids, it really draws you in.

3:32 That's David Lynch as a child, right? Right? Somehow, right?

Another banger from Simone, great as always ♥

As a huge Twin Peaks fan who was just a hair too young to be into it during it’s original broadcast run & caught it during the Bravo reairings a few years later, it’s easy to forget that this utterly bizarre Lynch show wasn’t some cult phenomenon in its day, but a massive mainstream hit. Which still sort of blows my mind.

It’s funny how the forests get this ‘dangerous and creepy’ reputation from the media when it’s like the safest natural environment to be in in the country (at least near Seattle). Theres no poisonous spiders or snakes, and it’s a very mild climate with a Mediterranean pattern (short, but very dry summers). Bears, cougars etc are more near the mountains or very isolated areas but you’ll probably never see one near where people actually live.

Ive started watching frasier recently and i actually recognized that clip you showed! I'm glad my research paid off

Heck yeah Washington mentionnnn that’s me! I love Pacific Drive and Alan Wake and all that fun spooky stuff, and just plain strange. I like to think it’s our gorgeous mountains, water channels, and only northern hemisphere rainforest aesthetic ❤ Also I’d never really thought of Washington as dark, grey, yes, but we have a LOT of light imo, I always called it our fluorescent skies when it’s cloudy 😊 I love it here and couldn’t imagine living elsewhere! This video was super fun

I love the Pacific Northwest music so much. Psychonauts 1&2 and Thimbleweed park are my favourite Pacific Northwest vibe games.

This was a fun watch before my Seattle/Portland trip next week. Time to get creeped out.

I work in big tech and I think we ruin things where ever we show up.

god dang i like this video essay. well done simone !!

Seeing Lighthouse: The Dark Being unlocked memories of playing that game as a kid. Small wonder I got as into horror as I did.

Port Townsend shout-out! Those bunkers are cool as hell

Thanks for the Spokane shout out.

A really excellent video. Loved it.

Simone gives all the effort of BDG and makes it so much more grounded. Great ep!

Ever since I first watched Twin Peaks, I've had a urge to go explore the forests of Washington.

I would love media to focus more on the indigenuous representation in the PNW, and not just through the aesthetic and fashion but also the history and people. There is also creepy mythology in native american cultures.

I appreciate the work that went into this.

Haven't finished the video yet, but I'm already HYPED, as a Washingtonian and creepy PNW aesthetic-lover. Also: SO happy to see some rep for Pacific Drive!! It's so fun to drive through areas that feel like places I've actually been to. Also: I had Prof. Groening for Television Studies when I went to UW! He's a hoot.

I remember having to run cross country runs in middle school through the woods. Vaguely threatening fits the description well. Shoutout to Comox, BC.

A low-key trope in many of the mentioned media include: the (pacific north)western diner. Especially as a place of tension between its function as the local public house (full of strange and surly "regulars") and its function as a roadside restaurant for travellers, truckers, itinerant FBI agents, Arizonan transplants...

oh wow i actually just started watching twin peaks for the first time recently. very cool timing! i’ve lived in a small washington town my whole life (southwestern washington specifically), but i’m honestly not sure if i’ve ever found it creepy. the points you made here helped me understand how it might be perceived that way and how it got that reputation, though. the part about colonists/settlers and the whole “feeling of not belonging” makes a lot of sense. and there were even a couple facts i didn’t know about, like i’ve been to one of those abandoned military sites before but i wasn’t aware of how common they are. or maybe i learned that at some point and just forgot lol it always makes me happy to see washington portrayed in media or to hear people talking about aspects of it that i’m familiar with (logging trucks frequently driving past in twin peaks, certain types of terrain, etc) and for as much disdain i may have for my hometown as it currently is (i have to see a lot of trump flags driving through it lol), i do still really love the place as a whole :] one last remark, the stuff about seattle is so surreal to me. i’m not super familiar with it, but me and my mom have driven there occasionally to visit relatives since i was little. seeing more and more billboards and tall buildings pop up the closer we got was always exciting when i was younger. it’s hard to imagine how much it’s changed since then, especially since i haven’t been in the city proper in quite a while, just close to it. okay i’m done rambling sdfghj

It’s all the Pacific Northwest tree octopus doing this.

Loved the quick but information rich land acknowledgment ngl.

It's fascinating how the PNW™ as a concept is so much the colonists' experience of the PNW. Fear of the unknown and a sense of not belonging? That's unique to the colonial experience. Meeting a sense of unease and distance when it comes to newcomers? Check. And as the last place the colonists would have gotten to geographically it's probably the place in North America with the most surviving anthropological ingigeneity, which uncaring colonists would probably just characterise as the supernatural anyway.

I’m currently sitting in a tiny town on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state where I grew up and the woods here aren’t really very scary. I’ve hiked alone in the dark a bunch of times and it’s far more peaceful than scary. Less people tends to mean less danger and the Olympic National Forest is one of the most untouched by people places on earth. Even with wildlife the Olympic National Park has never had a deadly cougar attack and black bears are not aggressive. The biggest danger is getting lost or hurt on the trail without anyone knowing what you’re doing or where you are.

3:00 I’m going to go ahead and pause right now and tell every single person reading this, if you haven’t watched Twin Peaks before, DO IT NOW! It’s one of the most original, peculiar, creative shows ever made, and a perfect entry point to the world of David Lynch.

It's interesting that Shadowrun, released originally in 1989, primarily set in the Seattle of the year 2050. Fun that they mixed the supernatural with the encroachment of tech-oriented megacorps that far back.

Personally, I'd argue any place not in a crowded city can be spooky. Looking at you area surrounding PennWest-Clarion AND Penn Hills Pennsylvania.

I'd like to add that IIRC the Icelandic delegation was the suggestion of an Icelandic producer; Sigurjón Sighvatsson, the co-head of the production company Propaganda Films.

banger video as always! hope you guys are good.

After seeing it on the list, I was hoping there'd be more discussion about how eerie The Yukon Trail is. Getting scammed out of your precious money from the "Find the Nugget" guy in Skagway is spooky!

I'm kinda intrigued that, in discussing the modern Seattle, there wasn't a mention of Boeing, which does also massively influence, and likely welcomed in, Microsoft and Amazon.

Lovely video!

Whenever simone gets a professor on with no warning i know the vid will be amazing

i think it's funny, as someone from central/eastern washington, how almost all media set in washigton is in approximately 1/4 of the state