‘There Swings a Skull’ Seeks Sacrifices to Stem Climate Catastrophe

The scorching sun burns above Anatoli and Pyotr, demanding people die to dull its relentless heat in the eerie There Swings a Skull: Grim Tidings.

Well, the sun itself isn’t doing the asking. A strange gallows has popped up in town, and it asks for sacrifices from the people of Pareildas. It tells them that these sacrifices will somehow calm the deadly heat that’s coming from the sun. As the people are slowly picked off, and burnt-out corpses begin to fill the streets, it somehow hasn’t started to feel like Fall, yet. But the people keep getting sacrificed as if their deaths will somehow slow the heatwave. But how will more deaths stop the sun’s rays? What happens when we stop to ask if any of this makes sense, or if it’s just more pointless suffering?

You’ll spend a lot of time with Anatoli and Pyotr as you walk through the town and get to know its woes. Anatoli works at the train station and just wants to get out of the city. He just wants to put it all behind him and be happy with his husband. But when the sun is scorching the earth, where will you actually go? Pyotr’s an artist who wants to stop what’s happening in town. His works can be inspiring, and provide a call to change, but will it be enough? What happens when people accept that deaths will somehow staunch the sun’s scalding beams? What happens when people don’t care so long as someone ELSE has to die in order to stop the heat? And do those people even care if the sacrifices aren’t actually doing anything?

There Swings a Skull: Grim Tidings is a scathing, yet touchingly funny, narrative tale about ignoring climate apocalypse – hiding from the things we actually need to do to save ourselves as a race. It asks us how much pointless death we’re willing to accept so long as it’s ‘not us’, and asks us to look at ourselves and see if we’re able to make hard decisions to save our loved ones and the world with them.

There Swings a Skull: Grim Tidings is available now on itch.io and Steam.

Joel Couture

Joel has been covering indie games for various sites including IndieGames.com, Siliconera, Gamasutra, Warp Door, CG Magazine, and more over the past seven years, and has written book-length studies on Undertale and P.T.. Joel is constantly on the lookout for digital experiences that push the boundaries of what games can be, and seeks to delve into the creative process, meanings, and emotion labor that goes into the work of artists worldwide.