The Strangest Developer You've Never Heard Of | The ARKHOUSE Tour

In this video, I clean house.

0:00 Intro
0:55 Mirage of Dragon
15:48 Castlevania: Seal of the Curse
34:44 D1896
54:49 Cube Gothic
1:11:40 Saturn Quest: R.U.N.E 3000

Music Used:
Protricity - Secrets of BrinStar
Everything else is credit of Arkhouse Radio

[DoshDoshington]

For all the people mentioning Fear & Hunger. I played it in like 2019 before it was cool and was planning to do a video on it around the time I did La Mulana, but then it got popular and now I'm not so interested in covering something several others have already.

[espian]

God the contrast from art to gameplay is insane. All the art is insanely good, it almost feels like the games are only there to advertise how good of an artist this guy is.

[nobodyfornow]

Arkhouse needs a team, in my opinion. He has a very clear vision of what he wants the world to be, what it sounds and looks like, but he struggles in implimentation. I feel like if he had collaborators to bounce off his shortcomings with their strengths, say a level designer or someone with a mechanics focus, I think he'd be an absolute powerhouse of visionary indie games.

[preza]

So the reason for the "giant flying satan duck" at 25:20 is I'm guessing it's an obtuse reference to the "Graveyard Duck", which is inexplicably mentioned in a line of dialogue from a random villager in the original Simon's Quest who says "Get a silk bag from the graveyard duck to live longer." Nobody knows what the hell this is referring to and it's not a mistranslation because the original japanese line uses a word that unambiguously means "duck (waterfowl)"

[dangernoodle]

These games may be a trip but man this guy is a really talented artist. The character portraits in mirage of dragon and d1896 look straight out of H. R. Gigers work and his pixel art looks solid too

[Xombium]

This is an art director in desperate need of an actual dev team

[Jaydee-wdwr]

I love Factorio as much as the next guy but please never stop this kind of content, basically nobody does videos like this.

[hexlart]

Mirage of Dragon feels like the King in Yellow. An esoteric story that's incomprehensible to mortal minds and drives you insane.

(I actually think the connection is deeper than that though, the silence memory screen almost reminds me of the yellow sign)

[inthiccwetrust]

The dev is a super talented artist, like the character portraits and their animations are fantastic

[ingvarsuigin]

I absolutely died at the name "Abirvalg" because it's likely a reference to Bulgakov's "Heart of a dog", where a dog gets transplanted human organs and transforms into a human for a time. And this was his first word, a fish shop sign, read backwards.

[AmaryInkawult]

I gotta say, the artwork in most of these games is as breathtaking as it is grotesque, especially the "dragons" in the first one. There was a lot of care and passion put into every single detail of these creations. And to hear this dev made their own music to boot? They were definitely an artist first when making these games.

[evillee]

never stop making videos about weird/obscure games

[jamesusher]

In reference to killing death in Castlevania games, I like the show's interpretation that "death" or the grim reaper is actually just a parasite that feeds off of the souls of the dead; so in killing death, you don't like, remove the concept of entropy or death literally. You just free the souls of the dead from torment or something similar.

[Peytoneli]

I actually laughed out loud when H.A.L. 9000 showed up on screen, the juxtaposition of Dosh having no idea what is happening mixed with the insanity on screen is hilarious

[TheJasonCD]

Came for the Factorio, stayed for the incredible coverage of games I never even knew existed.

I hope you keep this going for a good long time, Dosh. This is absolute gold.

[RougeMephilesClone]

Oh, I think I remember one of these! It was a random Alpha Beta Gamer longplay I clicked on because the art style was interesting. Then it got to the end, and revealed it was a fan prequel/retelling of Castlevania 1! Wildest thing ever, and it was during Konami's period of separation from gaming so I had a ton of respect for it. Let's see if I'm remembering the right game here.

EDIT: Yup, it's Cube Gothic. There might be video evidence of an older version of the game that had explicit references to Castlevania in it, which (if real) were removed in case Konami was paying attention again. Absolute madlad developer to hide that at the end of a paid game, and the "dedicated to old Konami" is still intact.

[Coreagrus]

1:02:32 - 1:04:40 Leaving this timestamp, because I love your musings and this is the best stretch of them yet. There are a handful of feelings I couldn't quite convey that you put into words for me there. Thanks Dosh. Keep doing what you do.

[castorc]

The man's attention to detail is great. That first maze segment in Cube Gothic was a Castlevania map graphic, with the colored squares being the traditional markers for special rooms like Save, Teleport, and Reverse. Love seeing that kind of stuff. What a great use of a simple visual element to catch fans of the franchise.

[HeisenbergFam]

Amazed this man didnt go insane after playing wild games for 12 years, unless he's already insane

[andrewphilos]

All of these games were super cool in skrunkly ways, but... oh my god. A bullet hell game where your only method of attacking is TOUCHING the enemies? I can't decide if that's genius or horrifying. It's evil, certainly.