Editor's note: You can't buy Devotion anywhere currently, for reasons discussed in this article. But we're reviewing it anyway.

In my younger years, my parents brought me to a Chinese shaman called a jitong. These visits both unnerved and fascinated me. The jitong, who lived in a grimy, dimly lit apartment that smelt of incense, would let herself be possessed by a spirit that spoke through her, sharing advice and predictions for visiting devotees. I remember seeing her go into uncontrollable spasms, murmuring indecipherably about what I assumed was divine expression from the spirit itself. An assistant was interpreting her gurgled speech. The visit culminated in the jitong snapping out of her trance about an hour later. She eventually collapsed into a chair, wearing an expression of both shock and relief as the colour returned to her face.

Such occult sights can seem terrifying, but these, along with years of Chinese cultural upbringing, embedded in me a sense of fear and reverence for the afterlife. It was this strange mix of emotions that gnawed at me as I played Devotion, a first-person horror game set in a derelict Taiwanese apartment complex in the 1980s.

Read more