Voodoo Girl: Queen of the Darned
You control Voodoo Girl as she wanders a surreal, idealised mythological Haiti
on a shopping errand picking up ingredients for a new recipe her spiritual
mentor Mama Houngan is cooking up: nothing out of the ordinary — just a
coconut, some blowfish venom, yellow grave mold, eye of newt, Thorazine, and,
oh yes, “the mythical Golden Cauldron, said to be located in the Land of
Dreams.” How about a litre of milk, while I’m at it?
In pursuit of the items on this bizarre shopping list (the Cauldron has been
fractured into numerous pieces, by the way — the game’s not as short as it
might initially seem) you will travel high and low through varied environments
— dodging falling rocks on a cliffside, investigating a cave hidden behind a
waterfall; you’ll gaze upon a mountaintop rainbow and keep careful note of
passages in a subterranean labyrinth (“The Incredibly Twisty Maze-Like Cave”).
You’ll even win a dance contest! Through it all you’ll encounter characters
straight out of Vodoun folklore, from peaceful Rada loa to angry Petro loa and
the notorious Baron Samedi, all along the way to a final showdown with the
Dream King himself! All this subversive occultism in a game with little
violence and no obscene language (so the author’s little brother could play 8)
Voodoo Girl: Queen of the Darned