Devotion

About Devotion

Devotion is the second game by Taiwan's Red Candle Games, the makers of Detention. It is a first-person atmospheric horror game, drawn from East Asian folk culture and elements of Taoism and Buddhism, set almost entirely in an apartment complex in 1980s Taipei.

You step into the apartment to 80s music and an idol show on the television. It looks like a nostalgic home, but the rooms change as you look at them and the place slides toward something else. Each part of the home stands for a different year in the life of the Du family: a screenwriter father, a mother who was once a singer and a daughter who wants to sing on television. By reading letters and diaries and examining what they left behind, you piece together what each of them prayed for.

There is no combat. You explore, pick up items, carry them between the years and use them to solve puzzles, while the home grows stranger and more frightening. The fear builds from dread and from what you come to understand, with a sound design that uses East Asian instruments and Taiwanese music of the period. Red Candle names P.T., What Remains of Edith Finch and Layers of Fear among its inspirations. The theme song is written and performed by the Taiwanese band No Party for Cao Dong.

Devotion came out on Steam in February 2019 but was removed from Steam within a week after a controversy over an Easter egg. Red Candle re-released it in March 2021 on its own store, where it is sold DRM-free for Windows and Mac. It suits players who liked Detention or want slow, story-driven horror built on a culture they may not know.

How to play Devotion

1. Buy the game on Red Candle Games' store and download the Windows or Mac version.
2. Walk through the apartment in first person and examine objects, letters and diaries to learn about the Du family.
3. Pick up items you find; some are needed in rooms that belong to a different year.
4. Return to the lobby to move between the parts of the home, and use your items to solve the puzzles that open new areas.
5. Keep going as the home distorts; the story comes together from what you read and see.

Tips

• Read everything you pick up: the letters and diaries tell the story and often point to the next puzzle.
• If a puzzle seems stuck, think about whether an item from another year of the home would fit.
• Play with headphones; the game leans on its sound and music.
• If you have not played it, Detention by the same studio sets up the culture and the kind of slow dread Devotion builds on.

Questions