As days go, Hazel is having one for the books. Her mother was lost in a hurricane after they had a fight, there are dangerous black-and-red creatures called haints everywhere, and she discovers that she is able to see and manipulate the glowing strands that control reality.

Don’t even mention the talking catfish.

By drawing on American folk tales and Southern Gothic literature, the action-adventure video game South of Midnight stands apart in a field crowded with Vikings, spartans, samurai, knights and sorcerers.

Its world is filled with mythology that David Sears, the creative director of Compulsion Games, first learned from his grandmother. He grew up in Mississippi in a very ordinary suburb that he said felt like it was “airdropped” into wild swamplands. His grandmother’s disturbing tales about monsters of the South — the game’s haints look like shadowy, screaming tree roots — stuck with him. As he explored the wilderness around his home, clambering up vines to escape boredom, he began to tell himself stories.

“At the time I believed in monsters,” Sears said. “I still believe in monsters, but they were my friends. We went on heroic journeys together. And it’s part of where I learned to spin a good tale.”

American folklore is an oral tradition, making it hard to pin down definitive myths. But that also gave those working on South of Midnight the freedom to create, said Zaire Lanier, a writer and narrative designer.

“The South isn’t a monolith,” she said. “It’s a tapestry.”

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