GORE SCREAMING SHOW LIVE BLOG

This is a "live" blogging of my thoughts, reactions and feelings towards Black Cyc's 2005 horror visual novel Gore Screaming Show, a game I used to see mentioned on the internet all the time a good fifteen years ago that became a mythical thing I wished to experience one day. I was unaware of this, but a fan translation seems to have begun partial release in 2015, but development stopped once the game received an official release announcement.

JAST's store page briefly describes the game as being about Kyoji, a boy who "seeks to unravel the mysteries that have taken root in his hometown while he was away. Mysteries tied to a young girl named Yuka, and her companion, the horrific Gore Screaming Show."

Each page of this live blog contains only 20 entries to avoid having to load too many pictures at once. Though this is an eroge, I will most likely skip on posting screenshots of explicit nature, or at least censor them heavily, mainly because getting CGs is part of the appeal of playing visual novles, and I wouldn't want to spoil that experience.

Warning: Some of the tags on the VNDB entry for this game that you might want to read before you continue are:

Psychological Horror, Bloody Scenes, Gore, Graphic Violence, Body Horror, Scat, Inflation, Lolicon, High Amounts of Rape

I encourage you to go to the linked website and filter in all tags if you need a more thorough list of what you'll see in this live blog.

1 - 20 (21 - 40) (41 - 60) (61 - 80) (81 - 100)
December 1, 2023 Beginning of the blogging.
Friday Dec 1, 2023 This is my unofficial first post to this blog. The game's been installed for months now but my visual novel time has all been spent live streaming BLVN for my friends. The time has come for me to play one on my own, though. I actually wanted to start GSS in October, for the vibes, but Room No. 9 ended up being my horror game of the month.

Anyway, I won't start the game just now, it's 1AM, but I'll start the thread with an embed of the opening, perhaps the exact same video I watched 15 years ago, lol.



I really love this tune! Distorted Pain by DenKare.
Friday Dec 1, 2023 Gore Screaming Show screenshot. The logo of the game over a black screen, featuring an illustration of a jester hat with what seems to be eyes and an animal's nose attached, placed about the title 'GORE SCREAMING SHOW' in bold red letters. Under it, there's text that reads ''I hate everything and everyone,' the girl sneers. Hatred, despair, envy, bloodlust, pessimism, compassion, persistence and anxiety—burdened with all manner of negative emotion, she muttered to herself.... 'I want to be happy.''
And we're back. The first thing I want to note is that this game is "old" by computer gaming standards so the resolution is a terrifying near-square, not that I hate that format (look at most of my digital illustrations), but tabbing out to save screenshots and type notes on this live blogging shows me a Windows experience I don't think I miss, lol.

I'd like to note the "Image & Text" filter is on by default. Switching between the configuration options gives you a cute voiced line from one of the heroines, depending on which setting you're fiddling with. Who it is escapes me as I haven't met anyone yet, but it's a nice touch.

Partial Gore Screaming Show screenshot of the settings menu. The visible menu is titled 'Gore Filtering Level', and under it are three buttons. Each button says 'Level 1 Filter Images & Text', 'Level 2 Filter Images Only' and 'Level 3 No Filter'. Under these is a Back button. The Level 1 button is selected, and there's subtitles on the screen for a voiced line that read 'All the text and images aren't scary anymore!'.
Other than that the Configuration menu is a lot simpler than what I'm used to in parade games, but it's to be expected and not really a negative. The most important part to me is being able to fiddle with audio settings, and the game has separate channels for BGM, SFX, "voice sound effect" which I'm assuming is stuff like moaning, movie sound and character voice, as well as on/off switches for every voiced character, a setting that always amuses me when I see it.

The opening song is unlocked by default in the music gallery, which I can't recall if it's the standard in other games but I am thankful for it. Onwards to my first two hours of playing this game.
Friday Dec 1, 2023 The game opens with a creepy enigmatic scene of a woman narrating something vague and gruesome parallel of a scene with a girl meeting Gore on her way home and presumably getting eaten by him. I don't know why but I didn't expect Gore to speak. And not only that, but he speaks in a goofy manner. I guess he is a clown.
Friday Dec 1, 2023 Oh yeah, fair warning for possible future players reading this: the game has cool fancy visual effects that might be a bit too much on the flashing screen side of things. I don't know if they're enough to trigger anything, but they're at least enough to make me wonder. So far I've seen black and white/red color flashing, shaking screen, "melting" screen effects, abrupt flashing images. Just a heads up.
Friday Dec 1, 2023 Girl

Partial Gore Screaming Show screenshot. Logged dialogue from the game. Akane: 'So your parents are working abroad?' Kyoji: 'Yeah.' Akane: 'Where?' Kyoji: 'America.' Akane: 'Really, nowadays? Aren't they worried about terrorist attacks or something?'
I don't know how locked into a route the choice to speak to Akane might make me but I'm not using a guide and I'm interested in the guilt she made Kyoji feel right away. Seems she was raped in childhood and Kyoji had something to do with it?
Friday Dec 1, 2023 Casual-wear big sis character with a flighty voice who insists on being called by the pen-name she uses to write for an occult magazine coming to greet Kyoji with a conbini bento dinner? I'm so ready.

Gore Screaming Show screenshot. An event CG of Yamiko. She's an older woman with short wavy brown hair, wearing a low cleavage yellow shirt under a brown jacket, jeans and a white belt. She's holding up a convenience store bag as she smiles at Kyoji, who is not in view. The dialogue box reads 'Yumekawa Himeko, also known as Saitama Yamiko.
Partial Gore Screaming Show screenshot. Dialogue log showing Kyoji's internal dialogue. It reads 'With a real name that sounds like a stage name from a musical troupe and an infuriatingly cliche pen name, this young lady is a writer for the occult magazine 'Abraze'. On top of that, she's his mother's cousin. She's too young to be his aunt, but too old for him to consider her as an older sister. As such, she comfortably fits into the role of a friendly older cousin. According to her, when Kyoji was little and lived here, she often doted on him. —The doting part is entirely according to Yamiko, though. But from his perspective, nothing good ever came from spending time with her.'
Friday Dec 1, 2023 Just highschooler things.

Partial Gore Screaming Show screenshot. Background art depicting Kyoji's room. The bed is pushed to a wall, next to a window with monster figurines lined up. At the foot of the bed is a desk with a lamp and some books, and next to it is an acoustic guitar resting against the wall.
Friday Dec 1, 2023 Girl he's a teenager don't break him

Gore Screaming Show screenshot. A scene in Kyoji's bedroom with Yamiko wearing a sweatshirt and slacks. She says, 'Oh, I wouldn't say you suck. You're just a little inexperienced, unskilled, awkward. You have room for improvement. A bit clumsy, maybe?'
Friday Dec 1, 2023 Gore Screaming Show screenshot. An eyecatch-style screen dividing the days passing in the game. It shows the Gore Screaming Show logo over a stylized background illustration with greenery, and superimposed over the background is an illustration of Akane in a casual black shirt holding up her phone. Under this design is the line 'Next Day...'
Cute.
Friday Dec 1, 2023 You did WHAT

Partial Gore Screaming Show screenshot. Dialogue log. Student A: 'I mean, you always had this image of a brat who always gets into trouble.' Student B: 'Yeah, you'd always climb trees with Kazuyagi, only to get stuck on one of the branches.' Student C: 'And wait, weren't you the one who put a stool sample container full of curry on that teacher's desk once, making her cry?' Kyoji: 'Come on, try to forget about those kinds of stories, would you?'
Friday Dec 1, 2023 This game is NOT kind to the people meant to be taken as annoying or bad, damn. Every "bad" character so far looks like a 40-year old regardless of actual age. It's always off-putting to see artists with a very cute-leaning artstyle with big eyes, small noses, that stick to a specific facial structure and body type as a standard fall into this kind of character design to depict unpleasant people.

Gore Screaming Show screenshot. A classroom scene showing three girls in school uniform. At the front stands a girl with pink hair in pigtails, wearing flashy hair ornaments on her hair and large glasses. Behind her to her right is a taller girl with green wavy short hair, a large nose, very large breasts and overall a large body, eating a bread bun, and to her left is a slim girl, the tallest of the group, with her pale blue hair tied on a stiff low ponytail with a pink bow that shows her large forehead, a hooked nose and a long face with a dimpled chin. The girl in front is drawn normally for the rest of the game's style, but the girls behind her have very small eyes and very pronounced, roughly drawn facial features. The text box show's Kyoji's thoughts, which read 'What's up with them? They look like they walked out of a comic book...'
Friday Dec 1, 2023 Sorry Kyoji I'm with Shinta here. Yamiko oneechan is the most interesting girl so far and this is an eroge, so... Please and thank you.

Gore Screaming Show screenshot. A classroom scene showing Shinta, a boy with short muted green hair in a school uniform that's worn casually, with the jacket kept open and the first button of the dress shirt unbuttoned. He rubs the back of his head with his right hand, grinning as he says, 'Oh, come on, you live with such a pretty lady! Doesn't she like tell you she'll like... show you the ropes?' An image of an imagined Yamiko wearing a half-worn silk robe appears behind him.
Partial Gore Screaming Show screenshot of a dialogue box. Kyoji: 'Nope, nothing like it. Like, do you really think something like that could happen? You've been reading too many porn mags, man.'
Friday Dec 1, 2023 Kyoji's thoughts about Shinta and the way they drifted apart actually made me have a feel. I'm unfortunately all too familiar with the awkwardness of reuniting with someone you were close to and loved but let the friendship slip through your fingers as soon as some distance got in the way.
Friday Dec 1, 2023 Shinta's cute man I hope he doesn't die lol 😭

Partial Gore Screaming Show screenshot of a dialogue log. Shinta: 'Hmm? So it's because you're childhood friends? Hmmmm?' Kyoji: '...What?' Shinta: 'Oh, nothing nothing.' Shinta smirks, his expression brimming with meaning. Kyoji: 'What's your problem? If you've got something to say, just say it.' Shinta: 'I just think that friendship is a beautiful thing, is all.' Kyoji: 'Shintaaaaa, you're acting like an old man.'
Friday Dec 1, 2023 I can't believe Yamiko's story about the cave actually made me jump in my seat.
Friday Dec 1, 2023 Partial Gore Screaming Show screenshot of a dialogue log superimposed over a woodsy scene showing Yamiko and Akane. Kyoji: 'You didn't have to listen if you were that scared.' Akane: 'You just don't get it. I wanted to hear the story BECAUSE it's scary.' Yamiko: 'That's right. People are creatures that consume excitement. And Abraze earnestly satiates that desire. Right?' Akane: 'Right!' Kyoji: (I really don't get it...) The two of them speak almost as one. Kyoji can only stare at them, puzzled. How can women get so terrified by scary stories yet like them so much at the same time?
Kyoji's not a horror girlie.
Friday Dec 1, 2023 Partial Gore Screaming Show screenshot of a dialogue log superimposed over a woodsy scene showing Akane. He has seen wells on TV and in movies, but this is actually his first time seeing a real well in person. Kyoji: 'I wonder what's it like inside. Let's open it up.' Akane: 'Don't. What if the ghost of a woman with loooong hair comes out?'
Not being a horror girlie, Kyoji makes a grave suggestion born from his lack of knowledge.
Friday Dec 1, 2023 Partial Gore Screaming Show screenshot of a dialogue log. She was a strange girl for sure. They tried talking to her, but she just stayed quiet and kept staring at Kyoji the whole time. And when she did say something, it was all nasty stuff. But with that in mind... The way she smiled... It was like the smile of a grown woman. It wasn't the same kind of smile Yamiko has. It had an entirely different character... Kyoji has to admit it. When he saw that smile, he felt aroused. It felt like something in his lower half was shivering. That girl scared him, but at the same time, something in those large eyes sucked him in. He buries his face in his pillow.
Ummmm.

Actually, since we're beginning to touch the topic of little girl characters and sexo, I want to say I'm surprised this game is licensed and sold by an US company, uncensored to boot, when I'm fairly sure there's sex scenes involving the youngest heroine, as well as the rape (?) CG of Akane's yet-to-be-revealed-to-me-by-the-narrative traumatic childhood incident. Which, by the way, I didn't even notice was in the opening animation all along, so for 15 years that video I linked to at the beginning of the thread has been hosted in YouTube with a whole-ass shot of little girl rape, lol.

This is as far as I'll get today. I expected to only play an hour or two at most, but once I hit that mark, I didn't really feel like I had advanced much, so I pushed further for a while longer. Now that I've properly met the enigmatic and foul-mouthed Yuka, I think it's okay to put it down for the day. The CG viewer tells me I've only unlocked 3% of the illustrations in this game, so there's still a long way to go. Besides the fatphobic mean girl character and the lazy-feeling designs for the "bad" characters from school, I've enjoyed it so far. I'm really interested in how Akane and Kyoji's shared experience will be breached, and of course, I want to see more of the horror mystery unfold. I really like the background music so far too, by (checks notes) DenKare and Otonokaze.
Tuesday Dec 5, 2023 Hello again, thread. Last time I was here, Kyoji was mentally confessing to some very sussy reactions to Yuka's child-yet-womanlike smile, or something. I've since spent every insomniac night reading a lot of getamizu fan fiction where Mizuki wrestles with the affection he feels for the inhuman young man he raised since birth and the instinctual fear that, as a human, this monster evokes, so I guess I've been accidentally preparing myself to accept this kind of duality in Kyoji, in some way?
Tuesday Dec 5, 2023 Something I didn't expect while playing this game is to be motivated to look up Japanese historical events, something that's happened twice so far: the first time it happened when I read the "anti-Buddhist movement during the Meiji era" line from Yamiko while she brought Kyoji and Akane along to explore some ruins. The second one happened with this scene, where Kyoji and Shinta discuss their much disliked homeroom teacher, Andou, who shows a lack of interest in actually educating his students beyond parroting what's on the textbooks, making the class drag behind compared to Kyoji's previous school. This man, nicknamed by students as Sandman, has no interest in engaging with students when they're troubled, as shown by his lackluster criticisms towards Kyoji after he's involved in a fight with the privileged bully of the class and his cronies.

Partial Gore Screaming Show screenshot of a dialogue log. Shinta: 'Well, his old man runs a bunch of companies. Maybe he's thinking of quitting as a teacher and finding work at one of them? ...Or, well, that's whatmy mom said' Kyoji: 'He has a really bad reputation, huh?' Shinta: 'Well, apparently the Sandman was apolitical back during the Zenkyoto movement or something. He just took an employment evaluation and ended up being a teacher. He's not doing his job because he likes it. Again, that's what my mom said.'
The conversation doesn't really truly concern itself with Sandman's ideologies, they're talking about this because the teacher is being buddy-buddy with a classmate they both dislike, but I really like this framing of mentioning his past lack of interest in activism and student rights as something Shinta's parents might talk about at home that isn't really part of what Shinta dislikes about his teacher, not directly anyway, but something that stuck in his mind regardless.
Tuesday Dec 5, 2023 Partial Gore Screaming Show screenshot of a dialogue log. Shinta: 'It's all because the only hospital in the area is Sadashima's. Not being able to go there would be trouble, so...' This is a bitter reminder. Kyoji left this town three years ago. While they were out of touch, Shinta went through a lot and came to realize many things. In a sense, Kyoji is a foreigner. It hasn't even been a week since he returned, so he's really no different from a tourist here. Kyoji: '...I'm sorry. I went too far.' Shinta: 'No, but what you said was true, Kyoji. I really am pathetic.'
Nooo don't fight 😭
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