As everything else is finished, here is the overview!
GAME OVERVIEW
There’s been a murder! The police are on the scene, and have their eye on a few suspicious-acting witnesses who were first to discover the body. The air in the apartment is odd, like something is amiss. It comes to light that something has been stolen. One of them must be responsible! It’s up to the lead investigator to track down the culprit, and then the others must cover their tracks.
PREMISE
Crime is fascinating, whether it’s fictional or real. The more unusual a crime is, the more people pay attention. This game was created as a means to generate a unique, strange scenario for players which would be different every time they play.
Another goal was to see what a player could infer in a situation. If the crime scene was immaculate, the victim was killed with a sword, but the stomach had been stolen, what would that image paint to the player? How about a scene of unusual cultish activity, but the victim had been gassed with pesticide, and a mobile phone taken? What would that say? The motive should be up to the players themselves and, hopefully, discussed between them.
What better way to accomplish these than to make it a (slightly out-of-the-ordinary) roleplaying game?
PLAY ORDER/GAMEPLAY
The play order was chosen entirely from a logical standpoint if it was a real crime scene. Logically, an older person would be more level-headed and intelligent to cover their tracks or look for evidence. Somebody younger may be a little sloppy and careless, or at the very least, nervous and hesitant.
Again, this is because it is a roleplaying game, and approached logically.
The player count is also ten because the idea of a large group of people playing suits the idea of playing a game perfectly. They should be social. Additional to that, a big part of this game would hopefully be the differing interpretations of a scenario. That psychology is also fascinating.
Event cards are also intended to mimic potential real-life situations. Stress affects the best of us, and for that to trigger an argument with someone would not be too far out of the question. The same applies to somebody becoming clumsy as the night draws on, dropping an item or accidentally revealing crucial information regarding the case. That has very likely potential to happen.
SCENES
Each of the scenes were chosen to attempt to capture as many different uncommon conditions a crime scene may appear in; from a messy and bloody cult, to something all too clean and pristine. Variety is always wonderful, and the more bizarre and startling a crime is, the more interesting.
LOCATIONS
There are a wide range of locations that can be plucked at random. Some of these were inspired by various games in the Silent Hill franchise--such as the hospital, the amusement park, and the locked apartment. The art gallery, the diner, old mill, and theatre were all inspired by many of the locations in Deadly Premonition, as that game in itself is a cryptic murder mystery, and otherwise a large inspiration on this game and everything I work on.
There is not much real-world significance to any of these locations, however most (if not all) of them would not be surprising areas for a crime to occur.
WEAPONS
The chosen firearms were mostly rather inconspicuous, and depending on the scene or area, they would not seem entirely out of place. They were also inspired by weapons commonly found in the Silent Hill games. Since the original PlayStation Silent Hill game, there have been handguns, shotguns, and hunting rifles as weapons in almost every game. In the extra story in Silent Hill 2, Born from a Wish, a revolver was introduced and one of two weapons protagonist Maria could wield. Submachine guns became available in Silent Hill 3, and revolvers made a return in Silent Hill 4: The Room. Silent Hill: Origins featured two kinds of pistols, a revolver, a shotgun, and a hunting rifle. It also featured an assault rifle. Silent Hill Homecoming had two kinds of pistols, shotguns, and assault rifles.
In fact, quite a few weapons within this game were inspired by the series. Steel pipes are a series staple, there has not been a single game which has not featured a pipe. The same can be said for knives and cleavers. Hammers made an appearance in Silent Hill, Silent Hill: Origins, and Silent Hill Downpour. Swords (of sorts) occasionally crop up, too, such as the Great Knife in Silent Hill 2, the katana in Silent Hill, Silent Hill 3 and Silent Hill: Origins, and the Great Cleaver in Origins. A broken glass bottle was obtainable in Silent Hill 4, too, where baseball bats also appeared, the latter of which was also a bonus weapon in Downpour. Frying pans were also weapons in Downpour.
Technically, a pillow was a weapon at one point within the world of Silent Hill 2; protagonist James Sunderland smothered his terminally ill wife with one, which was the cause of his breakdown and journey to the town of Silent Hill.
Related to that, asphyxiation would be among the most uncomfortable methods, so that is why that was included. There is no direct motivation or inspiration for the weapon choices therein, though.
Hypnosis and mind control is a very unnerving thing. If genuine and successful, it is logical to assume one could command a person to kill themselves in one way or another; such was jumping out of a window or walking out in front of a vehicle. This would mean the culprit would not have to lay a finger on them.
Starvation--or other torture--would be excruciating. It also does beg questions (as everything included within the game hopefully would) as to the circumstances of this. Was the victim locked in their home alone? Were they monitored? Was it voluntary?
Pesticides too are a mostly hands-free way of killing a person, but there would a higher risk of collateral damage depending on the location and size of the area, due to the gas. The unusual nature of the method was the only reason it was included, to spice things up and include more unusual methods.
An overdose, too, would be rather inconspicuous. If the medicine would be the victim’s prescription, what would it have originally been there to treat?
Many of these weapons may be spontaneous, or some could be more premeditated. This was done to give the audience more fuel to generate their own interpretations of the scenario they are having a hand in generating.
STOLEN ITEMS
Some of the stolen items were included to be typical cliché objects to be burgled from a crime scene. For example, the antique jewellery and the identity information are more common things to be stolen. However, depending on a player’s interpretation, there could be a more sinister motive other than the identity theft or the theft of a priceless heirloom. Trophies may also be the same story.
Hunting trophies, however, would be more unusual. Parts of dead animals being hung up in a person’s home is an inherently creepy and unnerving thing. The 2010 Xbox 360 game Deadly Premonition was the immediate thought. Stuffed deer heads crop up fairly often, such as in the Sheriff’s office, as a lock to a secret room under a bar, and lining the walls of the supernatural Otherworld.
Stealing a photograph or any image, too, could be strange. Would the culprit covet something that the victim owned? Was it jealousy or rage? Could it be both? Again, there was no specific inspiration for anything included. It was merely the thought of a person compelled with envy and wrath toward one single individual and everything they own, how would they act on it? Were they a stalker?
Cult activity makes another appearance. All of the ‘symbols’ were taken as being cult symbols or artefacts, items so weird and out-of place, that it is curious as to why they were taken in the first place. Nothing awfully specific in the field of why these items were taken--except a book could be the group’s holy material, they may worship a statue, or they may light candles during their rituals.
Three of the stolen body parts have a rationale behind them. In old comparative religions, the heart, the liver, and the stomach were all considered gateways to the soul at one time or another. Certainly the heart was most common and still largely considered so today.
An eye being removed from the body had no prior real-world significance. It came from a character I own, a police officer who had her eye cut out while on the job. Eyes have significance in her story, as the man who attacked her belonged to a cult which revered eyes in a bizarre, obsessive fascination.
However, as it turns out, eyes are also a gateway to the soul.
The stolen lips were inspired largely by a scene from the 2005 Xbox 360 game, Condemned: Criminal Origins. As the player explores an old school, they find a pair of severed lips on the shelf of a blackboard, with the phrase ‘loose lips sink ships’ written above it. The victim found soon after is missing those very same lips, bundled into a locker, half-dead.
Most of these could have also been performed ante mortem. What would the player assume with all of this information?
REFERENCES
7 Murder Weapons That Will Challenge the Cleverest Sleuth(2010), retrieved October 16, 2012
http://nancycurteman.wordpress.com/2010/07/23/7-murder-weapons-that-will-challenge-the-cleverest-sleuth/
The Third Chakra (2012), retrieved October 16, 2012
http://www.multidimensions.com/Unconscious/uncon_thoughts_3chakra.html
Condemned: Criminal Origins [video game], Xbox 360 (2005)
Silent Hill [video game], PlayStation (1999)
Silent Hill 2 [video game], PlayStation 2, Xbox (2001/2002)
Silent Hill 3 [video game], PlayStation 2, PC (2003)
Silent Hill 4: The Room [video game], PlayStation 2, Xbox, PC (2004)
Silent Hill: Origins [video game], PlayStation Portable, PlayStation 2 (2007/2008)
Silent Hill: Homecoming [video game], PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC (2008/2009)
Silent Hill: Downpour [video game], PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 (2012)
Deadly Premonition [video game], Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 [Japan only] (2010)
No comments:
Post a Comment