Author: Michael

The Graveyard post mortem, final chapter

Phew! It took longer to write the post mortem of The Graveyard than it did to make the game! 😉

A lot has happened since the release. One of the major things being that the lady who was a great inspiration for the design of the game, my grandmother, passed away last August. Which is why I wanted to finalize this article today, on All Souls Day.

Margriet was my godmother. She talked about dying all the time. And asked if we wanted any of her stuff. Her table is now in our living room. And we’re taking care of one of her plants. I know she was happy to go. Her husband had died a few years back. Her body was shrinking and practically falling apart (she was almost 100 years old). Yet she remained extremely lucid. Hence her desire for death, I guess.

I wish the final chapter of our awkwardly titled “post mortem” would have been a bit more solemn and quiet, but we had scheduled to talk about the public response to the game and evaluate the downloads and sales. So we’re sticking to the plan.

Please enjoy the final chapter of the epic saga that is The Graveyard post mortem:

Out in the world

Is it art or is it horror?

Before we started working on The Path, we weren’t very familiar with the horror genre. And even now, after lots of research and so much work, it still feels odd to realize that we’re making a horror game.
It’s very comfortable to us to work with the strange and surreal elements in The Path. We have, in fact, always done this sort of thing. But in the past it was called art. And when people from outside the arts world happened upon our work, we invariably got the “what drugs were they on?” comments.

But if such “freaky and weird things” are put in a horror context, suddenly all objections disappear. It’s as if art, when confronted with popular culture, turns into horror. Or as if art is only acceptable in the mainstream when presented within the horror format.

The Cell or is it Damien Hirst?

Do art and horror have something in common?

I guess they both deal with the unknown. And they both contrast the familiar with the uncanny, or look at familiar things in a non-familiar way.

And if art turns into horror in a mainstream context, does horror turn into art in a museum context?

Survival Horror is (not) dead

So whatever happened to our imperfect, psychologically damaged heroes, our creepy little doll rooms, our feeble switchblades, our crawling dread? And why have they been replaced by gun-toting professionals and space marine types – as if gaming needed any more space marines?

Leigh Alexander answers this question in a very rational yet disappointing manner.

Perhaps the Silent Hill series might have attained still more widespread appeal if it had, to be blunt, made just a little more sense

Because contemporary games cost more to make, the size of the audience needs to grow and thus the content needs to be adapted to the tastes of a larger audience. And of course you choose the hardcore gun-toting-space-marine-loving crowd as your larger target audience, because they present the lowest risk factor.

There is another solution however: find a way to make these games cheaper. And stop compromising your vision. And don’t hide your lack of vision behind economic arguments.

Introducing: Scarlet

Today we are revealing the final girl in The Path. Scarlet joins her sisters Robin, Rose, Ginger, Ruby and Carmen as playable characters destined for the fate of Little Red Ridinghood.

Scarlet is the oldest of six. The firstborn. In a family with an invisible mother. Quite a responsibility. One that she faces with determination and a sense of duty and pride. She is 19 years of age. She should probably be enjoying what’s left of her youth. But with five younger sisters, one more unruly than the other, somebody needs to maintain order and stability.
Not that Scarlet doesn’t wish to share the burden. Or a moment of silence. A moment of quiet understanding with a soulmate. A moment of true togetherness. Her loneliness is a secret she will take to the grave. Sooner than she may expect.

We have just finalized this character and have added pretty pictures of her to the website of The Path. There’s new portraits of Scarlet in the gallery and a beautiful desktop wallpaper in the downloads section.

Between her studies and the household, Scarlet doesn’t have much time to write in her Livejournal. But feel free to peruse what’s there.

And once again, we are posting pictures of the creative process that preceeded Scarlet in her current form to The Path’s development journal.

That’s it. Six characters for you to play with.
There’s more characters in the game. But for those you’ll have to wait until the game comes out. :)

New EVIL music from Jarboe

Mahakali

The Path composer Jarboe is releasing something of a Magnus Opus today: a 4 CD set entitled Mahakali.

My new album entitled “MAHAKALI”, ( Kali is the feminine of “kala”- “darkness”, Maha is “great” ) is named after the mythical indian goddess of death and destruction, as mentioned in the Mahabarata and other indian epics.

The idea of a ‘goddess of destruction’ is one that I’ve cherished for a long time. Cedric (Victor, bassist and visual collaborator) mentioned Kali when we were recording because of the thematic similarities to the songs I had already written. As we progressed with the recording, everything seemed to come together around this theme of respect/reverence for strength and simultaneous repulsion/fear of power. Kali’s narrative also discusses Nietzsche’s old adage that ‘in fighting the monster, one must be careful that one does not become the monster’ which seems to be a relevant message.

Get it here!

The Graveyard post mortem, part 6

The success of The Graveyard as an atmospheric piece is due in no small part to the lush soundscape created by Kris Force. Next to producing Jarboe‘s soundtrack for The Path, she’s been an audio-millipede. From working with deep dark experimental musicians to creating whimsical sound and music for blockbuster games like The Sims, her knowledge and wisdom regarding the audible universe seems unfathomable.

So we produced some noise with our questions, to hear how she feels about The Graveyard and what else she’s doing. Part six of our Graveyard post mortem (almost done):

Spotlight on sound designer Kris Force

Maximum age rating for games?

This is something that came up on our Game Design Forum when discussing age ratings for games. A lot of players of The Endless Forest are fairly young. But they are still excited about our upcoming new horror game The Path. Which worries us a bit, since we don’t think The Path will be suitable for a young audience.

As a parent I find age ratings useful for helping me decide whether a game would be suitable for my children. I don’t interpret the rating as a prohibition but as a recommendation. A game with an age rating of 3+ would be interpreted as not suitable for my 12 year old son, for instance. Because it would probably be too childish.

But for myself, as an adult gamer, the age ratings are mostly useless. If I would apply the same logic to myself, then a game rated 18+ would be too childish for me (I’m 40). But that isn’t always the case. In fact “18+” is considered “mature” by the industry. As a result, I often end up being treated by a game in a way that I find completely condescending. More often than not, games -even those rated “18+”-, are designed implicitly with a juvenile audience in mind. As a middle aged gamer, I take offense at being treated like a child.

So I would propose to add a maximum age rating to the current rating system. Again, not in any prohibitive sense (not to make it illegal for the elderly to play games, e.g.) but as a recommendation. Something along the lines of “this game is recommended for people older than 12 and younger than 25” for instance. That would be a major help and would prevent a lot of hostility towards the games industry from older gamers like me.

Introducing: Ruby!

It is time for the new and improved version of Ruby to be revealed. Number five of the six Red Girls that you will be able to play in The Path.

The other girls call her “goth”… It’s one way of killing people: stereotyping them, putting them in a box and throwing it away. But there’s more to Ruby than meets the eye. A young lady by now, 15 years of age. Life has opened up to her as a rotting flower of corruption. She can see through it all but remains an enigma herself.
When asked about her leg brace, Ruby says she’s in pain. But doesn’t specify where it hurts.
Ruby does not long for death. She takes a perverse pleasure in observing the extreme decay of adult society. But what will happen when she ceases to be a witness and becomes a participant instead?

The Ruby character was featured in the early demo of The Path that was a finalist in the Independent Games Festival. But her model and texture have been revised for the final game. The results of which can be seen on the website of The Path. You can find portraits of Ruby in the website’s gallery and another nice desktop wallpaper in the downloads section.

Ruby talks to her Livejournal as if it were a stranger. You won’t find any secrets in it. There is no man behind the curtain.

For a peek into the production process and some making-of pictures of Ruby, have a look at the development journal of The Path.