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Horror in Adventure Games (Guest: Dave Lloyd)
50 Plays1 month ago
Can you do horror effectively in adventure games? We invited Dave Lloyd, writer and designer of the critically acclaimed game The Drifter, to discuss horror tropes and mechanics, and how they translate into the leisurely pace expected of adventure game players.
Warning: Contains spoilers for The Drifter (as well as The Excavation of Hob's Barrow).
Check out The Drifter on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1170570/The_Drifter/
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Transcript
Introductions and Episode Theme
00:00:30
Speaker
Hi, I'm the Space Quest Historian. Welcome back to Backseat Designers. I am joined, of course, by my esteemed co-hosts, a man whose hobbies include accosting various pieces of forest wildlife and accusing them of being communist sympathizers, Mr. Frederick Olsen.
00:00:44
Speaker
You actually wrote this. I did. Are you proud of me? Yes, he's very proud of me. And also joining me is my other co-host, a man whose hobbies include dressing up as a man-sized pigeon and standing outside the windows of local retirement homes, Mr. Dr. Gareth Millwood.
00:01:06
Speaker
And the topic for tonight's discussion, well, this has been a fair moment. Wait, hold on, hold on, hold on. I nearly let that go. Did you call me Mr. Gareth Millward? No, Mr. Doctor. Yes, yes. I got both your titles in there.
00:01:20
Speaker
In which case we can carry on. You rancid pedant. um Yes, so the topic for tonight's discussion is horror in adventure games. And it's been a fair moment since we've done one of these, or as as you say, a hot minute.
00:01:34
Speaker
ah So we're not entirely sure how this works. and Okay, fair disclosure. I'm the one who's not entirely sure how this works anymore. ah I'll just do the Gareth thing, lean back 45 minutes and then jump in right at the end.
00:01:47
Speaker
But we are joined, of I should say, um
00:01:54
Speaker
inconspicuously.
Guest Introduction: Dave Lloyd
00:01:56
Speaker
What's the word? We are certainly joined ah by a man who is at present experiencing the horror of talking to us at five o'clock in the morning.
00:02:05
Speaker
Was it six or five? I think it was five. was five. Yeah. That was five. Oh, God. I'm so sorry. I was looking for a word. I was about to say we are joined, unfortunately. And I thought, nah, that doesn't come out right. i was Because it it meant that he was the unfortunate one to be joined by us when it's been so long and I've forgotten how to podcast.
00:02:24
Speaker
What I'm loving about this is that it's nine o'clock in Denmark right now, and we are clearly more tired than he is. 9 p.m., and it's 5 a.m.
00:02:34
Speaker
for poor Mr. um Well, you might as well introduce yourself. ah You did a little horror game recently. He's Googling the name now. Hi. I'm Dave Lloyd.
00:02:46
Speaker
I'm on the podcast. Hello. Hello. uh good good to talk to you uh again mr lloyd uh you are if not part of the hoof then perhaps the mr power hoof is that yeah correct well there's there's two of us so yeah i'm i'm half i'm one half of power that's it are you power or hoof it's an ongoing dilemma yeah i haven't worked that out So how how do you think I did on the intro?
Complexity of Horror in Games
00:03:17
Speaker
Is that possibly the worst intro you've ever heard, or is it a close second?
00:03:20
Speaker
That was pretty good. three Three minutes to get to the intro. That was good. that's good yeah mean since since Since we're not doing seasons, I think there's a good chance we'll eclipse it down the line. Let's let's wait and see if we can do worse.
00:03:32
Speaker
I don't think it's impossible. No, I think I can break my own record. um See, the trouble is I actually have chronic fatigue, so I'm infinitely more tired than all of you. And as such, my my brain shuts down and my vocabulary goes vocabulary goes down the toilet along with my pronunciation. And Gareth and I never knew the difference.
00:03:52
Speaker
That's true. But the thing is, we've been talking for months about doing a horror episode. And, um you know, full disclosure, originally we were going to talk about another, you know...
00:04:03
Speaker
We were going to center the discussion on one recent game that we hadn't had all played. And ah for the longest time, that was going to be ah the excavation of Hobbs Barrow by, I can't remember the name of the developer, but but finally, not just me. No, no, no, but this is not chronic fatigue. This is just me being an idiot. It's published by what did I, so I got at least half of it. Right. Yeah. Cloak and dagger sugar dagger games. Sean and John.
00:04:30
Speaker
But in the meantime, Trolls alerted us to The Drifter by Power Hoof, which um has our name in the credits. So, of course, that takes precedence.
00:04:40
Speaker
and We're absolute shills here. that's That's no secret. But really, let me just preface this by saying that I enjoyed your game very, very much. And it's very rare I encounter a game where I kind of you know sit back with my family. I'm a married father of two and and think...
00:04:59
Speaker
can these people please go to bed so I can play my latest adventure game? But that's what the drifter did to me. And I feel horrible about it. ah Thanks so much. Awesome. it was um I also enjoyed it very much. And um um I think I might have mentioned this. And I was actually kind of surprised that you sort of slid into my DMs and said, ah you know, here, but um you can play
Creating The Drifter
00:05:24
Speaker
my game. I don't expect you to do anything like video wise or podcast wise or anything with it. I just want you to play my game. And I'm like,
00:05:31
Speaker
ah I've heard of your game. It's received rave reviews across the board. Everyone loves it. And you're sliding into my DMs, throwing me a free copy. What the hell is wrong with you? yeah i mean because i Yeah, because it was it was like the first time I tried to do a big, long narrative point-and-click thing, and I'd sort of come through the AGS stuff, like um likes Francisco Gonzalez and Dave Gilbert and stuff, but like i didn't it was my first one, and i was like i don't I kind of want it to be as good as possible. um
00:06:03
Speaker
And so, yeah, it was a bit like a deep dive going into like the the podcast and stuff and just like listening to ah all the things, all the gripes and things and like the the stuff that you guys hate and the stuff that you like, you know.
00:06:15
Speaker
um And yeah, trying to work out how to do it right the first time as opposed to learning from experience because especially when it took me six years to to make one game, it's like I don't want that six years to be like for my first crap game, you know.
00:06:27
Speaker
Yeah. Well, that's certainly not how it panned out. Now, I've i've been aware of your games for quite a while because we've both participated in the Adventure Jam game jam ah for for a couple of years, for a number of years, actually.
00:06:41
Speaker
And you always always seem to consistently beat everyone at their game. You've won like twice, three times, something? Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, a few times. Yeah. No, the thing I really appreciated was... ah When we talked about doing you know this is really really matterta ah sorry troll so when we talked about doing this this episode, for the longest time we seemed to disagree on whether you can actually do horror on in an adventure game.
00:07:09
Speaker
And this isn't really marketed as horror, right? You call it a pulp point-and-click adventure game. and and and And what I really appreciate is that there are so many facets to it. It's not just a horror story in that sense.
00:07:25
Speaker
There's a lot more to it. and And I think the trouble with horror is that people are thinking in terms of, you know, modern horror, jump scares, monsters around the corner, which, you know, spoiler alert, the drifter most certainly has, but it has more than that.
00:07:42
Speaker
And, and, um, I just think you nailed it. And, you know, horror can be a more complex genre than I think keep people keep it give it credit for. But it's also almost imperative that you kind of, you know, dig a little bit more into those facets when you try to do something as complex as an adventure game.
00:08:03
Speaker
Yeah, and that's something that was very different with doing the game jams. was the game like ah The game jams can be sort of a one plot point, kind of one note. like You have a cool character set up and then you have a you know ah payoff or whatever.
00:08:17
Speaker
um But yeah, well i once once I started making a big one, kind of becomes apparent that, yeah, you can't just do that because it just doesn't pad out that way, which is partly why it took like six years instead of, you know, a few weeks.
00:08:31
Speaker
um Gareth, go ahead. You haven't said anything for 10 minutes. Well, you know, I like to lurk. I like to lurk and then see what happens. God, i've I've missed your squeaky chair.
00:08:43
Speaker
There we go. let's i will get so That sounds so wrong. It honestly just sounds like you're directing hardcore porn in the background. There we go. i will get I will get a new chair. I promise.
00:08:53
Speaker
Well, he can't do that because they're they're introducing an age verification thing soon, so... Ah, yes. You're going have to be 18 years of age to listen to this episode. shit I have to grow my beard out.
Balancing Horror and Thriller
00:09:05
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Right. What was your question? All of that stuff is true. So yeah. So yeah, with all the money we're going to make off the back of this podcast, I can buy myself a new chair. um but One of the things that does come across though, Dave, is that, mean, ah it's incredibly well written over the course of the entire plot. It obviously it has a beginning, a middle and end, and it it kind of flows through, but you have broken it down into chapters. Is that something that you took from ah kind of a game jam approach that you basically wanted to make nine little games or was there something different you were thinking about when you chose that kind of uh structure no i think it just kind of panned out that way um and the the chapter breaks felt like a nice like i kind of wanted people to feel like they could take a bit of a breather um and it so it's partly that and it felt like a because i wanted us to feel a bit like a novel like sort of vibe as well um so that kind of
00:09:56
Speaker
Yeah, so it wasn't ever really designed as like a chapter by chapter thing. And I am doing that with this fantasy one I'm doing, Talwinium, which is basically a bunch of game gems um stuck together when when it's done or will be.
00:10:08
Speaker
But yeah, and for the Drifter, wasn't quite that. um But yeah, definitely the Drifter, I felt like I definitely thought of it more as a thriller than an adventure game. I'm sorry, than a horror game. Yeah.
00:10:19
Speaker
And, yeah, it's it's kind of hard to define the differences. But I think, um I mean, usually if it's ah if it's a horror film, then it's a lot easier to define because, you know, everyone dies in the horror film, whereas in a thriller, they're like the hero wins, you know, and it just gets killed at the end.
00:10:34
Speaker
Something that I wanted to bring into this episode is that that that a horror genre that I think work works really well with adventure games is the one that goes, the world is not what you think it is.
00:10:46
Speaker
ah Games like The Last Door have done this. And um you also mentioned on your website being inspired by John Carpenter. And I think this has a real Prince of Darkness vibe to it.
00:10:58
Speaker
And the core of Prince of Darkness is... You know, the world is not what it is. Satan is in a via in a giant ass vial in a basement in a church in Los Angeles. You know, that's sort of not full on Lovecraftian, but with aspects of it. You know what I mean?
00:11:13
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. Stuff like, yeah, like, i don't know, Rosemary's Baby or something is one that I always think of as this. like good one It's just, i don't know. It's not jump scares. there's It's just kind of creepy, unsettling stuff the whole way through and then goes hard at the end. Yeah.
00:11:28
Speaker
Yeah. It's, it's, ah it's actually a good segue because, uh, I've, I've been buttering you up for the past, uh, 11 minutes and so of my two co-hosts, even though I didn't put them up to it.
00:11:38
Speaker
And I've been buttering you up for a reason, which is because I'm going to land the contrarian point of view here. um And and you sort of you sort of preempted me by saying it's not a horror game, it's a thriller.
00:11:49
Speaker
Because my whole point of wanting to do this episode in the first place was to make the argument that you can't do horror effectively in adventure games. And so reason why um the reason why I i say um I was going to go into your game a bit is because while you may describe it as a thriller game, sir, it does indeed have horror elements in it, at least from from my point of view.
00:12:13
Speaker
Now, ah Frederick is absolutely right. The horror genre is not just about jump scares and woobly, woobly monsters. ah There are a lot of it. I've watched a lot of horror movies. My wife and I used to watch a horror movie every night before we had our son.
00:12:25
Speaker
ah So we've we've watched our good and bad horror movies, and and we happen to know it is a multifaceted genre. But the point about horror movies, at least to me, is that you're following a protagonist who...
00:12:38
Speaker
is who who is not yourself you're sitting there as a passive observer shouting at the screen why did you do that you fucking idiot uh whereas when you're in control of a horror protagonist naturally you want to survive whereas when you're a passive observer you kind of just want to see them get torn apart or at least uh you you don't want to be the one making the decisions that will eventually result in their outcome whether good or bad And to do that in an adventure game, you're put in the position where you have to make those decisions. And here's where I tie it into to the drifter. While I concur that the writing was beautiful, the art style is beautiful, the music is fantastic, and the writing is exceptionally good.
00:13:19
Speaker
And the story have absolutely had me gripped from start to finish. All of that buttering up is true. But there are some action sequences in there where you will repeatedly fail until you do something right. and at and the first once, maybe twice of of you failing, it's still scary and it's still like, oh god, what do I do?
00:13:39
Speaker
But by the third, fourth, and fifth time, and in my case, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth time, you fail, it stops being scary. Skillishing. skip Fuck off. So...
00:13:50
Speaker
So a long-winded way of of of pondering the question is Dave, do you what what is your take on the ability, just in general, for the adventure game genre to do horror effectively?
Mechanics of Fear in Games
00:14:05
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think that's probably a mechanical or like a ah design issue with horror. like for I think of like the probably the best horror game I've played is Amnesia Dark Ascent in terms of being scared playing it.
00:14:17
Speaker
And like i I was terrified playing that. Like I started playing it, was like, oh, I'll get scared and I'll put the lights out and I'll play it with headphones on. And by the end of it, I was like, I can only play this with all the lights on on and all and the sound turned down really low. Yeah.
00:14:29
Speaker
um But the only thing that wasn't scary was when I actually got killed by a monster. Suddenly it's just like, oh yeah, that's right, I'm just playing a game. Like if I open a door, there's a monster there and it's terrifying, I'm trying to run away. But as soon as I get killed, it's like, yeah, it's suspense disbelief is gone, you know. I'm just like, oh, that's right, it's a video game.
00:14:45
Speaker
um Yeah. Yeah. That's the thing, right. To, you know, to quote Bela Lugosi, there are far worse things awaiting man than death. And I think that holds true. And I think you've, you've, you've sort of solved this in the drift, or at least to my mind by making, you know and we should probably have mentioned early on that if you intend to play the game, you should have shut this off like five minutes ago. i Sorry, ah please shut it off now. But you've, you've kind of solved it. i They have. They have already. No one listens to this.
00:15:15
Speaker
yeah Well, you've solved it by making death a a part of the plot. ah it's it's you know Dying is integral to understanding what the hell is going on with this character.
00:15:27
Speaker
yeah Yeah, and that was part part of that, like trying trying not to take you out of the game when you die. So you're not showing the like, yeah, reload, like restart set. like um Yeah, that thing. Quit, whatever it is.
00:15:40
Speaker
Did you have any any ah inspirations in the mechanics of doing that? Because I thought it was really interesting to juxtapose with old skies, which I'm sorry to say I have yet to complete, but I intend to.
00:15:54
Speaker
And it's funny how old skies handles it as as more of a, it's almost ironic and apologetic about the fact that you can do this.
00:16:04
Speaker
Whereas you, you've, you went balls out with some really visceral, violent writing that I really enjoyed. You know, that's where the pulp comes from, I guess it, Yeah, for sure. Did you have any inspirations for that?
00:16:17
Speaker
No, I don't kind of, I didn't, well, at least, yeah, I'm glad I didn't kind of, like I did build the plot around, around that mechanic, but I didn't make that sort of the big focus of the whole thing, I guess, as 100. Yeah. At least it's not, it's not like the whole, the whole like plot is just going back in this time loop that, and you're doing it the whole, all, all like constantly the whole time.
00:16:40
Speaker
because um when I started it, I hadn't seen that that much, but there's been so many games that come out since, like Deathloop or 12 Minutes, and then yeah Old Skies in the same year as well.
00:16:50
Speaker
So yeah, I'm glad it wasn't like, oh yeah, this is my my one trick that I'm doing the whole time, because then I would have been like, oh yeah, that's like kind of like other people doing that too. um I just love the idea of you like sitting there scrambling going, oh shit, the time mechanic. Oh god, i'm i'm I'm late to the ball in that one. What else can I do? Oh yeah, in insect hobo monsters grown in a reactor. I'll go for that one. No one's done that.
00:17:13
Speaker
For sure. But I think I think one of the reasons why it does work, i mean, Fred's already alluded to it by the the pulp aspect
Influences on The Drifter
00:17:22
Speaker
to this. I think the the way that everything is drawn and the way the voice acting works, when it when it first started, I thought, okay, this is very over the top, but within about 30 seconds, like, okay, this is the direction we're going in.
00:17:34
Speaker
We're strapping in and we're going with it. The only other thing that I can think of that is even similar to that, that I've seen even approaching recently, ah was Mad Max Fury Road, where we'd had all of these um all of these movies, particularly the superhero movies, where every five seconds somebody would be gurning at the camera going, oh, this is a bit meta. Whereas that film just went, nope, we are strapping people to machines and then this woman's being milked by a machine and this is this is what is happening. You either get on board or get the fuck the cinema.
00:18:08
Speaker
Coincidentally, also Australian... Well, that was going to be my point. Like, is is this an Australian thing? Has Australia just decided, nah, fuck it. And they're going to go down a particular route. do you think that there's something particularly Australian about this game or is it just power hoof?
00:18:22
Speaker
This is us being racist. There's definitely, like, there's a kind of whole genre of Australian cinema called Ausploitation or like Australian New Wave Cinema. I gotta get in on that.
00:18:33
Speaker
Amazing. That's very much like that, like where Mad Max came from really, like that era where the government was in Australia was like, oh, we'll fund um people to try and kick sort of like a game, ah like a film industry.
00:18:45
Speaker
And then all the filmmakers were like, awesome, let's make some horror movies. And they're all like, like super cheesy. They all go hard and like, and they're like pretty low budget, but then they had some money to throw around. So they're like, they're always really fun to watch.
00:18:59
Speaker
Oh yeah, this is a good time to interject. I've noticed, because like I said, I've watched a lot of horror movies and I've like i watched a lot of horror movies from different parts of the world. And I've been able to categorize them into like the three major types ah based on geographic locations.
00:19:16
Speaker
You've got American horror movies. They're typically about either... you know serial killers, home invasions, or giant government conspiracies. ah You've got European horror movies, which are usually more subdued and they don't have a lot of lighting. and ah But again, not terribly different from American horror movies.
00:19:32
Speaker
You've got Japanese horror movies, which are usually about the supernatural. They're ghosts or spirits or whatever. They're just terrorizing people. And then you've got Australian horror movies, which are typically about nature wanting to kill you.
00:19:43
Speaker
Now that must hit pretty close to home, wasn't it? You're talking about the long weekend. Long weekend. There was also one called, shit, what was it called? um a Dark Age, I guess. No, no, I actually i actually had it written down. Give us moment. Long Weekend's amazing. It's basically about like all the nice nice Australian animals like killing trying to kill these people who are camping, who are like trashing the bush or whatever. It's amazing. So basically just a weekend in Australia.
Themes in Horror Adventure Games
00:20:09
Speaker
Yes.
00:20:10
Speaker
Now, the one I was thinking of is called Uninhabited. It's a terribly received Australian horror movie that's about, you know, a couple that arrive on a so-called uninhabited island. Turns out it's inhabited by all sorts of weird shit.
00:20:22
Speaker
um Voodoo cults and ghosts and all that. And they they make it through the entire thing. Obviously, one of them gets killed. The other one staggers onto the beach at the end, her clothes tattered, covered in blood.
00:20:34
Speaker
And she goes, finally, I'm free. She steps into the ocean and then steps on a stonefish. and Roll credits. I think it's ironic that you didn't, well, you said European, but as we all know, ah Great Britain voted to leave Europe. I've been watching a lot of old Hammer films. like That's my guilty pleasure, like to 1970s. You bring it up in ease every single show we do.
00:20:58
Speaker
Yeah, I do. I do. um But, you know, the thing is, I consider a lot of those a lot more literary. You know, you can you can watch like a Hammer Frankenstein film that actually has no clear hero. Everyone's an asshole. And it's it's much like reading a novel, you know, it doesn't it doesn't really feature the don't go there thing. It's more a case of, gee, I hope this asshole fucking dies, which Which usually they all do.
00:21:28
Speaker
I you you know ah i think that particular sub-genre is interesting because I think that's where the adventure game arguably thrives. I really appreciate what the Drifter's doing with the action sequences that you mentioned.
00:21:46
Speaker
But when I thought about this particular episode, my mind went all the way back to like Bram Stoker's Dracula novel, which is interesting because the narrative is pieced together from diaries and letters and people recording shit onto wax cylinders and letters and all kinds of stuff. And...
00:22:06
Speaker
it's It's not until fairly late. if you yeah No one goes into Dracula blind nowadays, of course. But back then, if you had no idea what this was about, you could go a long way in that into that book before you realize, oh, shit, this guy's a vampire. He's moving to England.
00:22:23
Speaker
And I would really like to see something like that done in an adventure game. To me, Dracula would be the ideal multi-character adventure game if the fucking thing hadn't already been done to death.
00:22:34
Speaker
You know what? I would really love to see us doing like an episode on children's games or an episode on edutainment games and somehow, and and just count down the seconds until you somehow bring up Hammer Horror movies again.
00:22:46
Speaker
Try me. Anyway. Go ahead, Gary. Yeah. No, I was interested in what Fred was saying about um ah narrative and who's telling the story because this is one of the things about this game is that we find out very early on that the the narrator, the main character who often is reading out almost like from a pulp novel what he's about to do, what he's thinking, all these that kind of things, we find out quite early on that he's also unreliable.
00:23:15
Speaker
So we're not entirely sure what's going on and what's not going on. I found that device to be particularly ah interesting. i wonder if Dave had stolen that from somewhere or whether that was something that he's been trying to develop for a while. it was That was something that was in the first game jam I did, the first adventure jam I did.
00:23:32
Speaker
um this game, Peridium, which was, yeah, like ah about this character. well I guess it was like, it was kind of very much like the thing. You didn't know if the protagonist that you're playing as was crazy or not.
00:23:45
Speaker
And he's talking about like these, yeah, like this stuff buried in the ice, like these sort of fungal stuff, fungal spores. And he gets sort of, um yeah. And then he starts having these like crazy episodes where the screen will just flash and suddenly you're hanging by the neck from the, the, um,
00:24:00
Speaker
ah like with a power cord around your neck kind of thing, and you've got cut yourself down. um And that was also where I first kind of realized that I could kind of get a bit of that excitement like I have in those sort of action sequences in the Drifter.
00:24:12
Speaker
um But yeah, the unrealable unreliable narrator there worked really well um for... like, I guess, yeah, for for doing that thing where you are like playing as this character, but at the same time you're kind of not the character. The character has their own motives that you don't know what they are.
00:24:28
Speaker
So I think you definitely can do that yeah with like just, and it's so fun writing with an unreliable narrator. Like you just like write what they're thinking as opposed to the sort of, I guess, Sierra style thing of like um but just like saying specifically what is happening from a third person, I guess, or like a second person or whatever it is.
00:24:46
Speaker
Yeah, this would not work with Gary Owens as a narrator. He could make it work. it is It is interesting. One of the things i really loved about The Drifter was how it it it subverts your expectations, not because not not just because the main character is is unreliable and not just because you're not a cipher for the main character. He is his own person and you're along for his right, but also that all the supporting characters are either start out ah evil for the most part or good.
00:25:17
Speaker
And at at some point they ah the the game just, or the story just sort of flips them and goes, this is now the good guy. He's now on your side. and and And you keep pulling that trick with like the detective and the the bucket head killer and all of that right up until the end where you come across and dr roth who turns out to be the main antagonist but at first he's he's another one where you've been told the entire game oh this this man is pure evil this man is all fucked up the walls and and and yeah and he comes in and he goes i'm actually the good guy now here's why and he makes a convincing argument and you go oh oh the game just did it to me again i'm on to you game and then right at the end yeah he turns into alien hulk and tries to murder you
00:25:57
Speaker
I mean, that's something that I feel is it is a horror trope that isn't utilized enough these days. It was utilized more in the old days, in the kind of stuff that you were influenced by. like ah I'm not going to mention Hammer again, obviously, but because now I'm insulted, but a really good example is...
00:26:14
Speaker
dr loomis and the original uh halloween films who is at first very heroic very sober scientist and if you watch the original series obviously the films get worse and worse but that's you know what it is the blight of horror movie sequels but the guy also turns out to be more and more off his rocker it's like by the end of it you're like i don't trust donald pleasance with anything let alone my life yeah So I guess so circling back to how horror can work in an adventure game, we've discussed unreliable narrators. We've discussed ah ah characters that appear one way and turn into something else. And at at some point you start...
00:27:00
Speaker
you know, and in a good way, not being able to trust the narrative in a sense, like the narrative keeps pulling mind fucks on you. um But I kind of want to circle back to this idea of survival and and i up in an adventure game, because honestly, there there have been a lot of really, really great horror stories told in survival horror games, which I feel is a genre that is more ah you know akin to putting yourself in the shoes of a protagonist.
00:27:28
Speaker
ah You got your Resident Evils, of course, and you got your of ah Project Zero or a Fatal Frame, which is one of my favorite examples. However, I'm completely unable to play those because they involve a lot of inventory management and obviously some combat, even though you're encouraged to run away from from danger for the most part.
Maintaining Tension without Action
00:27:45
Speaker
And I was i was wondering... If you want to have that sort of, you know, excitement and and fear for your life without having to constantly go over the same motions in order to work out what the escape route is from any given dangerous situations.
00:28:01
Speaker
um Obviously, Dave, you went for the let's just rewind time and and maybe an NPC who's present in the scene will nudge you gently in the direction until the ghost of your dead son just goes, Dad, get the fuck on with it. I'm i'm bored.
00:28:13
Speaker
Yeah. what Were you entertaining any other sort of mechanics where you wouldn't you know and necessarily constantly put the player through the same motions?
00:28:24
Speaker
Yeah, like in in the in the game jam thing, it was the very first game jam. You couldn't die, so you'd just like be stuck hanging until you finally figured it out. So I thought that would be a good idea to let the player die.
00:28:36
Speaker
But I'm not sure that that is really necessary to heighten the the tension and stuff. um A bunch of players, and this is, yeah, again, not a big spoiler, I guess, for for towards the end, but there's a section where like you can't go back in time anymore.
00:28:50
Speaker
And I was designing, I'm like, oh, this is a bit of a design flaw, because now obviously everyone will know, ah well, you can't die now. So theres all the tension is gone. Yeah. But um and but and not everyone is like, says the same thing, but most people who play it said that was the scariest bit because now they know if they die, they die for real.
00:29:09
Speaker
And so, i you know, as a designer, you're like, yeah, but like surely that you just see through the like the smoke and mirrors or whatever. But it was interesting that that was the most tense like time for a lot of players. Yeah.
00:29:20
Speaker
But that's why the story takes itself seriously, right? At that point, you're so engrossed that, you know, I i thought the same thing, you know, if I don die now, I'd better have a save game or or better have autosaved or whatever. I was so engrossed in what was happening during those climactic scenes that it didn't actually turn on me that you can't die.
00:29:41
Speaker
No, and and another thing was, I was convinced that in some of those action scenes, you were on a very strict and unforgiving timer, because, you know, there's the there's the bit with the swarm in the office, and that's that's one of the few instances where I had to look up a walkthrough, because I just could not get through it, and I thought, the timer is just too strict here, there's just no way I can get through this, I need to know what the exact specific steps are.
00:30:04
Speaker
And then I griped about that ah to Dave in ah in ah in a DM and he said, you know what, there's actually no timers in the game at all. You're just a dumbass. Well, he didn't say that outright, but that was that was between the lines.
00:30:17
Speaker
You did the right thing, Dave. It's the same with J-SW4, the zero grav thing. There's actually no timers. It's fine. No, that's right. there's There's just action triggers. Well, yeah. well You know, at that point when I when i reached it, Trolls had mentioned the no-timers thing, but obviously I got the gist of it when when I was held up by ah the bucket butcher, Maxwell Holden, and he took an awfully long time to prepare one syringe, let me put it that way.
00:30:48
Speaker
That's one I specifically had to add some extra ah like timing to basically stop the player like panicking and clicking stuff um and and progressing to the bit where you just get injected or whatever.
00:31:01
Speaker
Because, yeah, our testers would be like, oh, crap, and they'd really quickly click stuff. Yeah. but one thing you couldn't The one thing you like you shouldn't do is just like randomly click because then it'll just progress. you know And so no i need to stop that happening.
00:31:14
Speaker
So I made it. so yeah You can click like for the first few seconds. You can click wildly. And then it's like, okay, now if you're still clicking wildly, up he'll turn around and eject you. yeah He's got such a wonderful voice. You know, I was hoping he would start, you know, saying stuff like, why do I keep getting air bubbles
Voice Acting and Humor in Horror
00:31:31
Speaker
in this? I make a terrible Adrian Vaughn impression, by the way, but that was the best I could do at short notice.
00:31:37
Speaker
but you knowt Do you know what the the voice actor reminded me of? There's a YouTuber called Larry Bundy Jr. who does fact hunts. um he was He was on the channel Awesome. Oh, you know him yeah I mean, look at that guy. if If that guy had an Australian accent, he sounds a bit like the Bucket Butcher. But yeah, that casting was was brilliant because he just he just sounds like doddering old children's entertainer who's gone a bit ah bit loopy.
00:32:01
Speaker
And he sounds nothing like the main character, but it's the same actor. So that that was the final thing of the game to blow me away. That was the credits. that was Yeah, that was that was the character that we were very unsure whether we should recast. It was very hard to work out.
00:32:15
Speaker
the right kind of voice for him as well. We didn't really know what we were doing. No, no, see that, that is a, that is an excellent horror trope where you go, okay, this character who is ah a completely, utterly frightening, menacing figure, but he's got this, ah like one of the, one of the odd things about, one of the things that unnerves you is that he doesn't have like this,
00:32:38
Speaker
menacing gravelly voice or or that he's not completely silent like uh the shape in the halloween films and all that that he's actually got this sort of personable almost likable voice and you go that that just implies that anyone at any point can go absolutely loopy and dig things out of their skull and strap people to iron pipes and's it's a bit of a humorous character isn't he uh you know the I know that that, you know, a really, really dark character who, you know, you can't help but laugh a bit. I i certainly did when he blew up.
00:33:12
Speaker
Major spoiler there. but And then the way the aftermath of that was played was like, shit, I'm not sure I should have laughed there. That makes me the psycho.
00:33:24
Speaker
But I really feel that's something that's underused in horror too. You know, humor. Yeah. One of my favorite other favorite horror films, I have a lot of favorite horror films. is It's a Hammer film.
00:33:34
Speaker
The Exorcist 3, which is both a really, really disturbing, also a criminally underrated movie, but very, very funny. It's not Exorcist 2, which is funny for all the wrong reasons, but if you haven't watched the third one, please do, because it it's... It has a brilliant wit to it.
00:33:53
Speaker
And, you know, my hot take is that a lot of today's horror fiction is firmly stuck up its own ass. And it's a shame because you do need a little bit of levity in there every once in a while. And it can be as dark and sardonic as you want to, but it works, you know, and I think it works with the bucket butcher.
00:34:13
Speaker
Yeah, I think i think the the fact that people laugh there and you're not alone there. i At the first I was like, oh, maybe I've done this wrong. But then I think like pretty much all my favourite horror movies have a moment where like someone there's some like really gruesome death and but natural response is to laugh.
00:34:29
Speaker
It's like yeah yeah if you go to a theatre and watch it in a theatre, everyone laughs when like something super surprising and happens. And that's like I love that in old 80s horror stuff. It's awesome. Oh, no. There's there's ah an an example that immediately popped to mind. One of my favorite horror movies, and you guys can lambast me all you want, is Event Horizon.
00:34:48
Speaker
And there's there's one bit when they go into the spaceship and they you know there's a jump scare where a corpse floats in in front of them and and they get the gravity going and it it falls to the ground, shatters all over There's blood and gore everywhere and the corpse looks absolutely horrified. And one of the astronauts just goes, oh, a corpsicle.
00:35:07
Speaker
And it just that just ah just takes the tension off for just a brief moment until you realize, oh shit, we're still on a haunted spaceship. Yeah, perfect. So yeah, and I actually think, especially with that sort of dry gallows humor kind of thing that the Drifter employs, and and obviously was one of my favorite elements of stuff like Beneath the Steel Sky, which also had horror elements, even though it didn't doesn't appear to have that at the outset, which oddly, now that I think of it, is also based in Australia.
00:35:35
Speaker
So i say I think there's some connective tissue going on there. I mean, when i and I mentioned this in our group chat, when I got to the part where you you know you start interacting majorly with the bucket butcher and you realize who that character is, that just gave me serious beneath a steel sky vibes, you know that sort of voice, that sort of persona, which is deeply serious, but also kind of wonky and funny.
00:35:58
Speaker
It's very much cut of the same cloth. And that's ah that's a big compliment to me. Yeah. Was there any, I mean, I know Beneath the Seal Sky was not ah built in Australia, ah made by by English people, um but they did send you off to the colony. So so is was there any sort of, that was another example of BSD racism, but but is there any sort of um ah inspiration from that sort of dry gallows humor going on with with your style of writing?
00:36:28
Speaker
I mean, there's definitely a much bigger influence from British stuff and BBC in Australia just because we had that all on TV as we were growing up. You're welcome. So it's definitely a part of it.
00:36:42
Speaker
um Beneath the Steel Sky, I never think of – it doesn't feel Australian to me, even though it says it's set in Australia and it starts kind of in the sort of Australian setting maybe, but it's like – Yeah. It's, it's never felt like an Australian game to me for some reason, just cause. No.
00:36:57
Speaker
Well, there's there's only one character actually has an Australian accent, which is also a bit strange. Everyone else has regional English accents. Yeah. It feels very British to me, like in a good way. I love it. Like, yeah. Yeah.
00:37:07
Speaker
And the only hint that is actually set in Australia, apart from the kangaroos in the opening cinematic, is some of the station names when you get into the underground have, I mean, they they are, i think they're in Sydney.
00:37:18
Speaker
I think there's like, there's Sydney train stations and it's sort of a blink and you miss it kind of thing. Well, I mean, the fastest beer is a big giveaway. Yeah. Right. There's, there's that one as well. ah But anyway... We shall call you Budweiser.
00:37:33
Speaker
and Triple XB. Circling back to effective horror in in adventure games. Again, i have to harp on this because, I mean, i've I've played adventure games where I was
Narrative Depth in Horror Games
00:37:45
Speaker
scared silly. I've just finished playing the Pandora Directive, and there's one sequence in Pandora Directive where you go inside the abandoned Roswell military complex, and there's this... Oh, yeah, I skipped that.
00:37:56
Speaker
green alien fart cloud that chases you through the hallways and it's on, again, a very strict timer and you have to get this thing in a containment pod and it makes this ominous didgeridoo-like sound whenever it comes down the hallway.
00:38:07
Speaker
um It fucking freaks me out. But At the same time, it's it's again one of those, it's scary the first time and second time maybe. And then once she once you get killed by it enough times, it stops being scared, it becomes more of a nuisance.
00:38:22
Speaker
And that's like that's the one element, work ah the basis of my argument, where why you can't do effective horror in an adventure game setting. But I'd say that's the same for Silent Hill. like if The same thing kills you 10 times. You're not scared anymore. You're just like, I've got to get this through this stupid boss guy or whatever.
00:38:38
Speaker
yeah Yeah. And I guess, you know doesn't that mean that that you know watching the same horror film or reading the same horror novel 10 times in a row means that what's scared you will not?
00:38:50
Speaker
But it I think it can make you giddy with excitement to a certain extent because you know that that thrill is is coming. um no no no I don't think stuff like the Space Quest 4 zombie is scary the first time, actually surprisingly scary for something in a comedy game.
00:39:06
Speaker
It's a cyborg. There's a vast difference there. I hated that as a kid. I was so terrified of that happening. Well, i think what makes that effective horror is you don't know when that's going to happen. It's just like, I know at some point this fucking thing is going to come and scream at me. I mean, yeah, the the thing that... One of the things that definitely made ah The Drifter less horror and more thriller was like, I'm showing the monster and stuff.
00:39:31
Speaker
Whereas it's if I was trying to make it full on horror, I reckon... can i could I would just like not show this monster thing or I'd just show little hints of it because that's always... like Building that suspense is where the scary stuff is. It's not yeah it's not showing you and it's not killing you because that's that's the bit where you laugh in a horror movie where the serial killer kills someone in a hilarious way. you know That's funny.
00:39:53
Speaker
It's it's before they've tried before they've captured someone or before they've caught you. That's the scary bit, I reckon. and Yeah. No, it's one of the things that I think works about the game in general, though, that once you there are parts where it is tense and then maybe the tension drops once you've experienced it a few times and had to try a few ah different things.
00:40:13
Speaker
But one of the other things that keeps the tension up and made me feel uncomfortable throughout the entire thing, which I think is part of the horror genre, was I could sort of tell at times the character's going to have to do something that I really don't want the character to do, like...
00:40:29
Speaker
run away from his obligations or really let somebody down or do do something that I really didn't want him to do. And sometimes he got just to that brink and then came away. Sometimes he did it. And sometimes there were different choices to be made.
00:40:43
Speaker
You're so British. no The character had to say something rude to someone and you didn't really want him to do it. Well, I really did not want to do that. No, no. But i but i think that this breaks etiquette.
00:40:55
Speaker
but da yeah I just can't abide it. But like I can. i think i think that's one of the things that works with that sort of pulp genre as well, is that there are, ah Frederick said it earlier, that there are other there are scarier things than monsters sometimes.
00:41:10
Speaker
And I think that's one of the things that I think I will go back and play the Drifter, even though I know what the monsters are, because there are other parts of that tension. I'm sure there's other things that I'm going to pick up from it when I play it again.
00:41:21
Speaker
Yeah. um One of the things that I find um particularly interesting about rewatching horror movies, going against what what Frederick says, if you rewatch a horror movie, it's not scary anymore.
00:41:32
Speaker
It's not necessarily you know the gory or the jump scares or the you know the horrible stuff that we know is going to happen. It's when there's a theme to it or when there's there's something ah like... like um like an underlying theme to it that that disturbs you to the very core.
00:41:50
Speaker
Like, just let's say the Hellraiser movies, for instance. It's not scary that Pinhead shows up and sticks needles in people's faces. that's That's not the scary thing to me. The scary thing is that this person voluntarily um went into hell and had spikes drilled into his head because he couldn't tell the difference between pleasure and pain. That sort of thematic thing of it or or re-watching Akira for instance where where the the scary thing is not that the dude turns into a giant bubbling baby monster at the end although it is fairly impressive um it is the fact that he is he's he's been teased all his life and he just has this overwhelming anger and rage inside of him that that's just causes him to flip out at the end that somatic underpinning is is what terrifies me and keeps me coming back to
00:42:37
Speaker
these sorts of movies and why I keep wanting to watch them again and again. And I think with The Drifter particularly, ah whole um the the whole bit about the monster, it it looks very cool. The whole bit about the untrustworthy narrator who keeps screaming at the top of his lungs every time he rewinds and all that, those are interesting set pieces. But the thing that's going to keep me coming back to The Drifter is the whole thing about his his his dead kid, and ah ah especially that one harrowing scene towards the end where he's about to sit down in the machine and the ghost of his dead kid is pleading with him, don't erase my memory.
00:43:12
Speaker
I was like, shit, fuck me, that is so good. that's that's That's like the core of that game to me. The monster is is great. the year ah Growing the weird insect monsters inside a reactor is a cool set piece, and the dude turning into the Hulk at the end was looked really cool. But that one scene where there's just the ghost of a dead kid telling you not to erase his memory, and you know he's just a figment of your ah imagination, um but that that was just so good.
00:43:43
Speaker
ah Chef's kisses to that one. There's the thing in horror movies where there's like the kitchen scene that's always at the start of the movie. And that for me is always my favorite part. Like, like, or like, i don't know, it's not my favorite part, but it's like, it's, I always love that bit where you just get to see the characters sitting around the kitchen table and you know, something horrible is going to happen at some point, but like, yeah, that kind of just grounds everything. And yeah, it's a, it's a great trope, I think. Yeah. So, so I think if you, if you're going to build horror intention,
00:44:12
Speaker
let's say, in an adventure game genre, where, again, the trouble is not building suspense and tension in an adventure game. Gabriel Knight has done that fantastically well. of A lot of horror movies, Pandora Directive does it really well the first time you walk into the Roswell complex and all that.
00:44:29
Speaker
But as soon as that bubble is about to burst, you have this this this problem in ah in adventure games where you're still, as as the player of adventure game, you're still you expect to be able to take your time and work out a cerebral solution to a conundrum. And instead, most games fall into the the pitfall of going, okay, for the next five minutes, we're now an action game, pay attention.
00:44:54
Speaker
um So I think an an effective way of building tension and horror and eventually having that bubble burst without resorting to um action sequences and time sequences and all that, not a jab at you, Dave, um would be to to have have these thematic underpinnings that and invoke pure dread. And one of the things we talked about in that ah fateful DM was body horror, where you have...
00:45:18
Speaker
where the horror isn't an external force trying to kill you
Mystery and Ambiguity in Horror
00:45:23
Speaker
it's something that you there's there's a mutation or a transformation going on inside the protagonist that is eventually going to come out might even force them to do things that they don't want to do or reality starts breaking down around them and that is the true horror that you are trying to escape um so I don't think there's even a question in there I think that's just a statement Frederick has his hand up sorry Yeah, I mean know what what you said segues nicely into what I was going to say to a certain extent because you kept bringing up the you know the set pieces, the monsters and and Dr. Roth's final form.
00:46:00
Speaker
And something that I really appreciated was that by the end of the game, I don't necessarily know... what the Malingi are. I don't know if they were all real when I encountered them or if they were all hallucinations.
00:46:14
Speaker
I don't know exactly what happened with Dr. Roth. And one of my pet peeves about not just horror, but in general is that everything these days seemingly has to be explained or interconnected or whatever.
00:46:28
Speaker
In films, you have cinematic universes. If even an ass hair is crooked, people will complain. in In games, you have copious audio locks hidden every fucking where so you can piece the puzzle together perfectly.
00:46:44
Speaker
And I just really appreciate that a lot of the classic ah examples of horror fiction that I enjoy leave a lot of questions unassered unanswered. And in some cases...
00:46:55
Speaker
they leave even a lot of inconsistencies, maybe from, you know, film to film or game to game or book to book, but also internally. And I really appreciated that there's there's stuff left for me to think about in this game.
00:47:11
Speaker
I don't know exactly what what happened. You know I don't know what was real and what wasn't. And it's it's nice to enjoy something that lets you think because that's where the scariest stuff is, right?
00:47:25
Speaker
the the The blind spots that you try to peer into with your own mind. I really like like in Hobbs Barrow. That was awesome because that that was a game which I just kept thinking about after.
00:47:37
Speaker
Because there's so many little hints, but like you know that there's the kind of it purple stuff that you're crawling through that's meant to be sort of you know causing you to have hallucinations, but then you then that's not really mentioned after that and you don't know what's going on.
00:47:52
Speaker
and they're like yeah I thought that did a really good job of that. Yeah, i was I was going to bring up Hobbs Barrow as well, because so one of the one of the things about the ending of that game, okay, now spoilers for Hobbs Barrow, was that you could make the argument that at the end she uncovers this this tomb and it's full of these purple flowers that we have been told previously induce a lot of hallucinations, and they're just growing everywhere.
00:48:17
Speaker
So she's she she could be hallucinating the entire thing with you know the final temple and the demon and all that shit. And and at the end and and then then there's that ah emotional somatic underpinning of her wanting to be daddy's best friend and wants to continue his legacy. And at the end, she just ends up bashing him over the head with a vase because the demon told her to.
00:48:39
Speaker
um And we don't know whether that's all in her head or or was it whether she can really explode nurses on command and stuff like that. that's ah That's why I would keep going back to Hobbs Bear as well.
00:48:50
Speaker
and not And also because, you know, for a game that actually does have a big bad monster at the end, they chose not to show that. They just had a bit of growling and a scared face and that was it.
00:49:02
Speaker
But it's also interesting that one point that we talked about internally in the BSD group chat about that game is that, you know, i don't remember the story entirely now, so you guys will have to fill me in. But as far as I remember the big reveal, here are the bad guys, here are what they are going to do to you. And this drunk guy listened in on all of it and he's going to tell you that was brought into the game fairly late due to tester complaints. and Yeah. It's definitely the weakest point of the game. So whoever suggested that, shame on fucking you. No, seriously, you should be ashamed.
00:49:39
Speaker
Because if you had like, you Hobbs Barrow is very evocative of the Wicker Man, the original Wicker Man, not the bees. Yeah. which we shall not talk about here further.
00:49:50
Speaker
But if if the Wicker Man had such a scene where the bad guy turns up and explains the plot in agonizing detail, it would have just landed on its ass. And it's it's such a shame. And I really, really wish at one point we get a special edition of Hobbs Barrow where you can opt to play it without that scene because it's it it really does a disservice to something that up until then I thought was absolutely fantastic.
00:50:17
Speaker
It's like the the special edition is just exactly the same game, except for like 30 seconds of it. ah kind I'm not even joking. I'm not even joking because every, you know, every film has that one scene where you go, Jesus Christ, I wish i wish they cut that out.
00:50:31
Speaker
Or I wish Harrison Ford would have, you know, done cocaine before he did the narration. That's Blade Runner, if you were wondering. oh yeah. but Yeah. He didn't want to do that. But but yeah, um I mean, you're you're absolutely right. And then there there are instances where there were scenes in the movie where you go, that would actually have it given the characters a lot more depth or there's there's some connective tissue missing there.
00:50:53
Speaker
Okay, so um if I may move on slightly, gentlemen, um because I just realized we have a guest in the podcast. um So you've set um that the ah The Drifter is not a horror game.
00:51:10
Speaker
It's a thriller game. And it has elements of, you know, pulp fiction, not the ah Tarantino movie, but, you know, actual pulp fiction. And it has, you know, the fantastical elements and it has the emotional depth and all that. But it's not a horror game. It has horror elements, but it's not a horror
Future Themes and Game Design
00:51:26
Speaker
game.
00:51:26
Speaker
If you're going to do a balls-to-the-wall horror game, what sort of elements would you employ? ah what what are What are your horror influences? Obviously, you must have watched some horror. What are your horror influences and what would you put into balls-out horror adventure game?
00:51:44
Speaker
well Yeah. um Like I don't know the thing. So one of the things I really liked about Hobbs Barrow was it was very, like it was wearing its influences on its sleeve. So it was just that folk horror. It's like this, we want to make a folk horror game and that's what we did.
00:51:57
Speaker
um So I think it is good to just like look at a very specific genre of horror because it's such a wide thing. Uh, And like, just, yeah, make something that's very like that. I don't know. Yeah. Like, like you were mentioning body horror and like, yeah, Cronenberg thing would be amazing.
00:52:11
Speaker
um Yeah. that that and something Something very Cronenberg would be awesome. um I definitely, I still love the, I still love like the, like sort of, we went for like the carpentry kind of thing and a lot of strong lightning and like that music and stuff. and But yeah, the Cronenberg, the vibes of like the creepy body horror.
00:52:31
Speaker
And like you said, that playing into the and unreliable narrator stuff works really well. and that Yeah. So, but really, yeah, I mean, it's it's all about them the music ah and the sound stuff, like, and that, the way that feeds into, like, basically all those little things that, like, just signal to you, like, oh, something bad's about to happen.
00:52:52
Speaker
Yeah, so I think ah yeah can work in it can work in any genre. And it's always interesting to just explore a genre that you haven't seen done in ah in a point and click um because there's so many. um And like, you know, it's like it's like and it's like it like writing a novel. like this It'll work in any genre, I think. um You just got to kind of play around with it and and sort of feel it out.
00:53:13
Speaker
Well, okay, so let me let me pose a challenge for you. let's say Let's say for some reason you went absolutely mad and decided, I'm going to do the first ever zombie horror adventure game.
00:53:24
Speaker
so So how would you go about building suspend and not have it turn into like ah a Day of the Dead, let's grab a shotgun and just blast our way through kind of thing? I mean, The Walking Dead, sorry, I've done that there.
00:53:36
Speaker
Oh yeah. well Well, but that, that had quick time events. And if there's one thing I would, I would absolutely implore you never to put in a game is quick time events.
00:53:47
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. um Yeah. i mean, that's why I didn't do that. That's why I was like, okay, I'm not going to put any timers in this game very specifically because of that.
00:53:57
Speaker
Right. Well, gentlemen, if I know Frederick's going to say hammer or, um, But Gareth, if if you were going to suddenly have the creative urge to make a of a horror adventure game, I'm not even sure you actually care much about horror fiction in the first place, but what what what would be some of the elements that you would like to see in an adventure game that, you know, was just balls out horror?
00:54:25
Speaker
Well, I've had a lot of it inflicted on me by my wife. Sorry. um i have I have consumed the horrors in the past. it was one of the things again It was one of the things I really liked about the game, because, like oh, that looks a bit shallow, or, oh, that looks a bit... Now that I know it's called osploitation, a lot of things now make sense.
00:54:47
Speaker
um I think I would focus on ah being and of you as the player not being entirely sure what's going on and also try to get that sense of dread that the wrong decision might not kill you, but it might be even worse than that.
00:55:05
Speaker
and that there'd be consequences to making the, in inverted commas, wrong decision, but it never being entirely clear what the right or wrong decision is. Maybe this says something about me more than anything else, but not knowing what the right thing is makes me feel very, very uncomfortable.
00:55:21
Speaker
No, I agree. And I think it's one of the things that actually I like about that the game that we're talking about today, but I think it's something that I would definitely try to make us a key game mechanic throughout. Yeah, like sort of ah ah even like sort of a branching path situation where, ah not not to go like full telltale of Clementine will remember that sort of shit, but that but in a sense that you're you're influencing the story and you can do something that will pan out and in a terrible way down the line, or it will um but you know it might come out victorious.
00:55:53
Speaker
Hey, that reminds me, actually, there's one scene in in The Drifter where I was i was like, wait wait a minute. um And that's the one scene where at the end, ah when where he actually convinces you to lie down on the table and, and you know, get your head fixed.
00:56:08
Speaker
Yes, I hated that. I hated it welcome um Yes, and and that's that's the bit where the dead kid shows up and says, don't erase me, Dad, and all that shit, which which was effective. But the way he was led into that scene, I kind of went, well, the dude doesn't trust anyone around him as far as he can throw them, even at this point.
00:56:24
Speaker
And yes, he has just ah you know sent his sister plummeting ah to to her death because he can't tell reality from ah from fiction or his own head. But still...
00:56:35
Speaker
he seemed to jump into that ah solution of lying down in the chair fairly quickly. ah Could you talk us through what the, um apart from having pushed his sister to the death, what was the what was the motivation for him? and And why wasn't there an alternate option where he could just go, fuck you guys, I'm gonna i'm going to see if there's an alternate solution to this. I'm goingnna i'm going to throw myself off the balcony and and arrive 15 minutes earlier and and just simply see if I can do something differently.
00:57:03
Speaker
Yeah, that that scene. Originally, that scene was a lot weaker. Like, the sister didn't die. You almost push her off and then pull her up and she's fine. And she says, oh, look, we've got to, you know, you almost killed me. Let's go. We've got to sort of cure you of this hallucination-y stuff.
00:57:19
Speaker
um And that didn't work. like So it definitely needed... It needed like something that there was no way to fix. you know like you She's dead. And like yeah, like that's bad. We need to stop that from happening. So that was yeah that was the reason.
00:57:34
Speaker
But I was i was i was wondering, because because he doesn't trust Dr. Roth. And so lying down on that table would... I mean, how how does he know? He's not going to scramble his brains. Yeah, he he doesn't...
00:57:46
Speaker
You're right. Yeah. Like he, he doesn't really want to do it. And then, but I had, had to give a ah reason for the player to do it. And I guess there's no other way to save the sister at that point. She's already dead. So, I mean, what could it lose? Right.
00:57:58
Speaker
ah Well, yeah, that's a, that's a good point, I guess. And then it was actually interesting, later so later on in the game, yeah ah Roth sort of sort of does its you know says his piece and you're supposed to be there to stop him.
00:58:10
Speaker
But he's like, look, you know we can make all this right. We can just go back in time and fix it all. um And the that's a time where I do actually give the player a choice. It's probably the only, it's not really a branching thing, but it's it's one of the only kind of things where you can do it either way.
00:58:25
Speaker
ah And it's because it was kind of a bit of like the character's critical kind of critical choice. Do they want to keep you know trying to change their past and stuff or do they want to accept what's happened? you know um i'm curious what what you did in that in that part.
00:58:40
Speaker
Well, that's interesting. I didn't know because because I figured if you kept on ah believing his his bullshit and kept on lying down in a chair, you would just repeat the same section over and over again. I didn't realize that it actually goes and ah in a different direction.
00:58:54
Speaker
I just went, yeah, I'm not not doing this again. it kind of it It ends up exactly the same. but did you but So you sat down and and fought like did what he said the first time? Because you had a gun at the first time, you know what i mean So you can just shoot him, like try and shoot him straight away. I did that. I did. I shot him and then he hes he snapped my neck, strapped me in the chair and and yeah shit went south. and then And then I came back and I went, well, if I ever i try to shoot him again, even though he's he's saying, oh, we can go back even further.
00:59:20
Speaker
I just said, nah, nah, fuck it. I'm just going to try something. So so so you a lot of people follow along and just do what he says and like, he's like, oh come on, get in the machine. We'll make everything better. And then they said, go okay. i go along with it All right, this time. So it's quite interesting to see what people do. So yeah, this time it'll be fine. Yeah. You, you were like, definitely like, nah, cool. i'm going to ah like, I've got a gun. I'm not listening to you.
00:59:41
Speaker
Yeah. I think I did that too. Yeah. The first time I tried to shoot his ass. And then the second time was like, yeah, I'm i'm not going through all that again. Um, Okay, so so one thing, i ah because I've been talking a lot of shit in this episode, and I just have to point out that I i really, really enjoyed the game.
00:59:59
Speaker
and And one of the things, apart from the whole dead kid scene and all that, the one thing and i that has also been pointed out in some reviews that I think the game did really, really well was that the main character's motivation...
01:00:11
Speaker
ah even when he realizes that he can you know jump back in time and here's this dude offering him to go back however many years in order to to fix things, even at that point, the main character is just like, there's no way to fix what caused my trauma in the first place. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to go back and just simply unravel everything.
01:00:31
Speaker
I'm going to make sure I don't meet my wife and I don't even have the kit in the first place. There's no like going back and fixing things or being there for your wife and and you know just... being a good family man and redeeming yourself. He's just like, no, I'm just going to nuke this shit from ground zero.
01:00:45
Speaker
I thought that was an interesting sort of, ah you know, we do you do you don't you don't typically expect that from a ah character who is obviously going through some sort of character arc.
01:00:56
Speaker
Like he has to learn how to live with his past and all that shit. And yours just went full on nihilistic. jump Nope. Fuck it. I have all this opportunity in the world. I'm just going to fucking nuke the site from Orban.
01:01:09
Speaker
It's very Babadook, which is also Australian. you Let's not deal with our grief. Let's shout at our annoying kid until our grief manifests itself as a giant ass monster and scares the shit out of the viewer, which is what it did to me. Yeah. Yeah, I'm about it up.
01:01:25
Speaker
Yeah, that was a good one. And until I think there was the Babadook was really, really again, it was one of those where the tension just keeps ramping up. That bubble just never actually pops until right at the end when, when, you know, the the thing shows up and they defeated by shouting at it a lot.
01:01:40
Speaker
And I thought, ah, damn it. Ah, if only you had, um, yeah, well, yeah, you can only, you know, you can't win every time. It was a really, really good movie up until those final five minutes. Oh yeah, absolutely. And, and I, I suppose one of the things I also really appreciate about the drifter is that the bubble always seems to almost be about to pop and it just keeps building and building. I think if, if, if anyone is listening to this and wants to take away something from a person who admittedly talks way too much and really ah like incoherently, but has watched a lot of horror, if you're building a horror adventure game, one thing I would, I would suggest is keep the bubble going.
01:02:22
Speaker
ever steadily growing. And if you can somehow manage it, Don't pop it at the end. just Just leave the the player hanging with that enormous sense of dread even after the end credits roll.
01:02:36
Speaker
And I think the Drifter came very, very, very close to that. It did pop the bubble at the end, ah which was but but and but it but it had a satisfying conclusion, so i'm i'm not even mad about that.
01:02:47
Speaker
And I thought it was an excellent game. And it had fun doing it. I mean, going back to to you know the Babadook, it was... The gravity of everything that came before, you know, the ending cannot quite sustain that. And it would probably have been better to end it without that denouement. You know, the drifter has fun and it's almost sort of a body cop ending. You know what I mean?
01:03:10
Speaker
It's like, and let's go get ice cream ending, basically. And at that point that was like, whew, you know. Great. Okay. Tension relieved, finally. So I didn't mind it. I thought it was a great little touch that was, very again, you know very reminiscent of some of the influences that I could pick up in this.
01:03:29
Speaker
That was definitely looking at thrill ah ah how thrillers work and seeing, yeah, the you get the payoff in a thriller of like, things wrap up nicely and neatly kind of, which you don't get in horror. In horror, it's like, you know, the, you know, Freddie comes back right at the end. still You know, that's like, that's the very tropey, like horror thing.
01:03:48
Speaker
Yeah. Which I love as well. But yeah, that was, yeah, it was interesting, like seeing the differences and how they work when I was like researching kind of how these stories work, you know, it's cool. Yeah, and i and I was going to bring up the point that I can say this shit because, as we've established, The Drifter is not a horror game.
01:04:05
Speaker
It has horror elements, but it is fundamentally a thriller. And I think you did wrap it up in ah in a very nice way, in a very and neat little bow. And it had a very, like, 1980s action thriller-ish ending where everyone can breathe a sigh of relief and the main character has actually completed his character arc instead of leaving all the little threads dangling and all that.
01:04:27
Speaker
I'm just saying, if you're going to build a balls out of a horror game, never pop the bubble. Can I say which horror franchise I would like to see turned into an adventure game? The thing. Because it's not Hammer.
01:04:38
Speaker
Well, it's not the thing because you've tried writing that and it never gets off the ground. no but i tell how but how are you How am I going to get the rights to a John Carpenter movie? um The guy gets stoned regularly. i think he's pretty affable and approachable. Yeah, he's just going to hand off the rights to some idiot Danish guy who has never ah published an adventure game in his life.
01:04:59
Speaker
Stranger things have happened. Now, really, I mean, a couple of episodes back, we were talking about Doctor Who adventures and another character that predates Doctor Who, actually, that the BBC also did, is Quatermas by Nigel Neal, which is kind of a precursor to Doctor Who, but Earthbound. So this...
01:05:21
Speaker
ah scientist who always seems to find himself in the midst of societal collapse or an alien invasion or a grisly body horror because one of his astronauts that he sent up into space comes back and he's not all well, you know, not going to spoil everything. But yeah that's what I really appreciate about old sci-fi and horror, apart from the stuff I've mentioned, is the leisurely pace You know, people can only run so fast.
01:05:52
Speaker
The clock can only tick so fast. And these are paced very leisurely, which I think would just, you know, work very well for an adventure game. You know, the invasion is right around the corner, but we've got time for a cuppa, if you know what I mean.
01:06:07
Speaker
you know what? That's actually one of the things I really, um I was impressed with, with The Drifter is because like you say, adventure games ease you into things and horror typically has, I mean, we mentioned Rosemary's Baby.
01:06:18
Speaker
Nothing happens in that goddamn movie for an hour and a half until it just goes absolutely bonkers at the end and leaves you going, what the fuck just happened? And that' that that stays with you. one of the things that really impressed me about The Drifter is instead of easing you into it like Hobbs Barrow did, like easing you into it it just goes full tilt right from the start and it never lets up yeah ah that that was that was really and and having that sense of urgency in in a point and click adventure game that's typically known for its leisurely pace hot damn dave i don't know how much cocaine you did when you were writing that first uh first third of the story but you you just went bonkers didn't you
01:06:57
Speaker
Yeah, I wanted to go hard. And yeah, it was definitely like subverting the the sort of the slow pace point and click trope as much as as much as possible. But that's probably ah that probably came out of doing the game jams, honestly, because like because those were so short and and like you know that they were like things happen so fast in those because there's not much time. I think that probably helped in terms of like how was able to pace it. Yeah.
01:07:22
Speaker
Well, do you know what the, the worst part is I, I keep remembering that, uh, that game jam game that you did as perineum, which is not the actual title. of That's another horror game.
01:07:37
Speaker
That's a body horror game. Oh yes. There was that one horror movie, which actually turned out to be fairly decent. It was just called teeth. And it was, yeah ah but the yeah okay, look it up. You don't need me explaining what that one was about.
01:07:52
Speaker
Anyway, ah to close off the episode, let's just, let's just pose that question, which just came out of the blue. and Let's pose that to, to Dave. Um, What horror franchise of of any, ah pick anyone from any time period, do you think would work?
01:08:07
Speaker
um Let's just say you got the rights to anything you wanted. what What horror franchise would you consider? That's hard. um Yeah, the thing is like obviously a pretty obvious one.
01:08:20
Speaker
Yes!
01:08:22
Speaker
But yeah, I don't know. The Fly could be pretty cool because like yeah if you're – yeah, in terms of body horror stuff, if you're like slowly – if this is slowly – and because it's very you know very kind of – I can imagine there being lots of puzzly stuff like in the lab and all that.
01:08:36
Speaker
I was actually thinking, have you ever seen Darkman? don't know if it's really a horror movie. It's more like – weird old comic book movie. So it's basically like a, it's kind of a comic book thing, but it's about this, this character who's, um, he gets like killed by the mob and lit on fire and everything.
01:08:51
Speaker
And then he's like horribly disfigured and he's got, but he's got superpowers. Yeah. He's killed in a lab explosion, like typical Marvel kind of style thing. but like It's like super horror-y vibes and he's super gross and,
01:09:02
Speaker
um But he has to like cobble together he's like kind of his like lab stuff like Batman has, but he's like doing it by like breaking into places and stealing stuff. and i was When I watched that, i was like, oh, that'd be really cool. um Kind of adventure game protagonists where you're trying to break into places to be able to cobble stuff together so you can like but will keep keep living as well and not die, but um but then also try and track down these baddies. you know It's called Darkman. That's awesome.
01:09:29
Speaker
Yeah. ah That's a good one. Do you know what you just reminded me of? um Dark City. um Yeah. yeah of which which was sort of Which also does that thing where it just pops the bubble at the end and people just stand there screaming at each other, unfortunately. But but everything leading up and until the last five minutes this is just absolutely fantastic. and the and And here's the thing about like Power Hoof games in general is that you guys nailed that visual aesthetic, that sort of grimy visual aesthetic. Like your backgrounds are all very, very detailed and very animated. They're not static like you would expect most ah adventure games to have.
01:10:05
Speaker
They're really atmospheric. And I think you guys could do wonders with... Sorry. Oh, I thought that was ah that was Gareth's chair finally collapsing. yeah Frederick died. I fell asleep because Trolls talks too much.
01:10:19
Speaker
I know. Okay. And anyway, the the last one I'll bring up is The Ninth Gate, which is basically already an adventure game in movie form. So you could just, you could very because he's detective. He goes, there's there's even a scene where he just sits down and goes, what can you tell me about this book? And I went, oh, Gabriel Knight just showed up.
01:10:37
Speaker
um So yeah, ah that would be my pick. Okay. Well, it's is there anything you want to leave us with, Dave? Any words of wisdom that you have? Because we've been talking about what everyone should be doing, and that's why we're the backseat designers. We don't know what we're talking about, but that's that's what we do. That's why we're in the credits. That's why we're in the credits. We taught Dave everything he knows.
01:11:00
Speaker
I was going to say, I'd like to take up at least 55% of the credit for this game. ah Deserved. Fancier, fancier cover was all Gareth's suggestion. That is the kind of thing I would say, to be fair.
01:11:14
Speaker
That's a brilliant achievement, by the way. But yeah, having actually um designed and published ah a very successful adventure game, I feel like if Dave, if you have any suggestions for, you know, ah aspiring game developers who might be delving into the the sort of genres, themes, horrors that but you... I mean, one of the, yeah, I think that one of the things that I think worked really well was just like,
01:11:37
Speaker
yeah, going hard on everything and not like pulling punches and sort of, yeah, I think trying to think of stuff that would make you kind of go, yeah, kick ass, that'd be awesome, like, and and try and stick that in somehow.
01:11:51
Speaker
And that's what kind of, yeah, I think that works really well for this. And thats that's what makes it really pulpy. ah Like, ah not trying to make a literary fiction classic, I'm just trying to make something that's like a page turner.
01:12:03
Speaker
um So, yeah, that was that was what I was going for. And I think that... I think that's partly why we kind of like the older adventure games as well, because they're kind of all doing the same thing. They're like an old adventure novel or something that's really written for like teens and young adults. It's not necessarily trying to be high art or anything, um but you can kind of sort of... There's still distill a lot of art that goes into to writing the cheesiest horror stuff, I think.
01:12:29
Speaker
Yeah. You can get plenty of that. Yeah. So what I'm hearing you say is, is is don't, don't second guess yourself and don't, don't go, don't go too highbrow because then you'll end up like, like fucking harvester, which purports to have this grand meaning about things and just looks fantastically goofy or I have no mouth and I'm a scream.
01:12:48
Speaker
I was about to say that and don't be too bitter because then you turn into hall and heison a Yeah. Oh yeah. That's good advice. you. It ends up cheesy either way. So you might as well go for cheesy.
01:13:01
Speaker
There you go. Love it. That's absolutely fantastic. Well, thank you very, very much for joining us at this ungodly hour in the morning for you. Um, we really appreciate that. Yes, absolutely. Thank you.
01:13:14
Speaker
Thanks for having me on. Hey, it's our pleasure.
Promotions and Online Presence
01:13:17
Speaker
Go buy The Drifter if you haven't already. And, well, go buy Hobbs Barrow and any adventure game that actually does this well.
01:13:24
Speaker
Don't buy Harvester. So where can people find you on the internet, Dave? Good question. um Powerhof.com, I guess, dave.powerhof.com on Blue Sky. That's good.
01:13:35
Speaker
um out Yeah, we've got we've got an itchier page, which has got lots and lots of like adventure games in and stuff on it, like all our jam ones and stuff, which I'm equally proud of, even though they get the tiniest fraction of time to make.
01:13:49
Speaker
Yeah, Powerhoof, just Google that, I guess. Yeah. And actually, do do go play Perineum. It's a very good game. Sorry, what was the actual name? I forget already. Peridium, yeah. Peridium, that's the Paradigm is good too.
01:14:01
Speaker
yeah Oh, yeah. Also Australian. Also Australian. Yes. You could consider it horror in some ways. I can tell you this, it'll never be in a bundle. No, absolutely not.
01:14:11
Speaker
Never.
Podcast Reflections and Farewell
01:14:13
Speaker
Man, that's a callback. That's a very good callback. That's the first the first episode I ever listened to of you guys was Sean, like, having a going on a rampage. it was great. That's what got me into it.
01:14:24
Speaker
talk Talk about not pulling any punches. Man, that that that dude went full tilt right off the bat. Yeah, I mean, it's it's funny because, ah you know, i I digress a bit and we're supposed to wrap this up, but it's very funny you should say that because, you know, a couple of years ago when we had attended our first Adventure X, there was this guy, this developer who might talk to a bit, Joel Meyer, who was also a fan, who mentioned that very specific episode. And he just mentioned how appreciative he was of the fact that we let Sean roll with with it
01:14:55
Speaker
And but you know by the time of the next episode, we'd noticed that they'd done this itch IO bundle of Quest for Infamy and Order of the Thorn, and we just ripped him a new one.
01:15:05
Speaker
And he loved that. Yeah. It wasn't his decision. was his um No, I think, ah you know, I remember the quote fairly well when you told me it was, ah I don't know what the hell that itchy balls side is that all Stephen Alexander's work is.
01:15:21
Speaker
It was just like he goes on a two hour tirade and then the next day Steve wakes up and just goes, yeah, you know what? We should make ah See, that's the problem with having a partner that's a few thousand time zones away.
01:15:35
Speaker
All right, so of wrapping this thing up in some sort of coherent fashion, of we do have an ah RSS feed if you want to listen to us on the go. You don't have to go to my YouTube channel to do this, although you can if you want to.
01:15:48
Speaker
The RSS feed, if you're watching this on YouTube, the RSS feed is in the description. I have no idea what it actually is and it's probably a very long one. um But you can you can just DM me on BlueSky or Mastodon or whatever and um I'll send it to you.
01:16:01
Speaker
Yeah, because apart from that, we're Luddites and we don't really have a social media presence as backseat designers anymore, do we? No, we don't. and And also, this bears mentioning we used to have a website. Gareth, what happened to our website?
01:16:15
Speaker
Oh, that's a real horror story. Yeah, that's the horror story. and Sorry, we cut you off, Professor. was the deal with that? I'm afraid he can't hear you. No, his his chair fell apart, finally.
01:16:28
Speaker
So, yeah, yeah. The the the audio quality is really bad here. I can't hear what you're saying. Yeah. So anyway, yes, if you found and actually listened to this episode, good on you. ah And if you want to listen to old episodes, we did. We did used to have a YouTube channel. You can go to youtube.com slash backseat designers and listen to old things.
01:16:46
Speaker
Don't listen to season two. We're not proud of that one. um You had to mention it. this Of course. Every single time. Like, well, I mean, if you want to watch body horror. Yeah, exactly. that's we Because we did video in those days. Yeah, two drunk people shouting at each other for for two hours. That is this pure body horror. You never know where it's going to go. Twists and turns every way.
01:17:05
Speaker
um Yeah, just like you mentioned Hammer horror movies in every episode, I'm going to bring up season two. That's that's the payoff. Deal. Okay. So, ah enough talk. like The thing i I bring up every episode isn't, you know, the thing I bring up isn't Hammer, it's AI, and I just realized I haven't mentioned it during this episode, so a i AI. AI.
01:17:25
Speaker
Yeah, fuck AI. Anyway, say goodbye, Frederick. AI. No, goodbye. that illll I'll work on this. I'll come back later. Right. Say goodbye, Gareth's Chair. yeahbola in stua Say goodbye,
01:17:42
Speaker
to right All right. Thank you, guys. I'll see you in the next one. Bye.
01:17:56
Speaker
ah de le it