Writing The Space

Recently I wrote freeform LARP for the Golden Cobra Challenge called The Space. Aside from a few scenario ideas for TTRPGs, this was my first go at dipping my toes into the vast and ever changing sea of game design. I learnt a lot from the experience and it also got me asking many questions regarding how to write a game. I wanted to share a bit about my thoughts and process around writing the game in case it helps anyone starting out.

Note: I didn’t have time to play test the game but I did send it to several people to read over. The support, suggestions and interesting discussions I had as a result of doing this were indescribably helpful, so helpful that I wanted to say, definitely get feedback from people you know and trust. This is true for whatever you’re writing and is probably more important than anything I have to say below.

What is asexual horror?

I decided quite early on that I wanted to write an asexual horror game. Horror is a genre that I’m quite comfortable with and the competition guidelines actively encouraged games by asexual people. This led me to quite a difficult question: “What exactly does asexual horror even mean?”. Obviously, there are a million ways that someone could write an asexual horror game but luckily I only needed one.

I thought about it for awhile and came up with the following: what asexual horror is to me, from a sex adverse perspective, is not desiring what society in general and also the individuals around you expect you to desire. There are also strong themes of disgust and repulsion in the game which adds to the horror but without this outside expectation for the players to engage with what they find repulsive I don’t think the scenario would be as horrific.  The theme of nature provided by the competition really helped here. Sex is widely considered one of the most natural and human things in the world for a person to want, an attitude that can feel isolating for those of us who don’t.

How to structure the game?

Once I had the general idea, it was time to work out how to represent those ideas in game form, specifically as a freeform LARP. The first thing I needed to do was work out what a freeform LARP was. Freeform LARP is a very broad category. I quickly realised I had to put aside my love of clear, stringent definitions and read as many freeform LARPs as possible so I could at least find out what they feel like. The Golden Cobra archive was a great help in this and I came across some strange and magnificent things. I’d highly recommend having a browse. I also took some inspiration from card based TTRPGS based around discussions and introspection, the main being Women are Werewolves by Yeunsoo Julian Kim and C.A.S Taylor which is an incredible game. Go and play it if you haven’t already.

I knew I wanted the majority of the game to be a conversation between the player characters. An opportunity for them to discuss their feelings and experiences in the weird world that I’d placed them in.  I very much wanted all the characters to be disgusted by The Space. I wanted them to all share in their isolation and therefore, conversely, feel a bit less alone.

I also knew I wanted to establish The Space as its own character almost. I wanted it to be something that the players could not ignore. So I wanted some sections where the players could focus on The Space, firstly in Scene one to give them chance to define it and make the game personal and then again in the final scene to confront it and in doing so assert themselves, sort of in the same way The Space has been throughout the game I suppose.

The above defined the three scenes in the game.

Additional things I thought about

I wanted to add a few mechanics and bits of flavour. I didn’t want to over complicate things as it was my first game and I was still getting used to how to put things together. However, there were two main things that I considered additionally to the player characters talking to each other.

The first thing was I wanted the space to be present in some way while playing. I thought that was an important way to establish The Space as an ever present entity. However, obviously I couldn’t conjure up a natural space which looks different to everyone there. Therefore, I decided to represent it by an empty cordoned off but empty part of the room. Any prop would have defined the space and I wanted the definition of what was in The Space to be totally up to the players.  Initially I also included rules for online play of the game but the fact that I couldn’t work out how to conjure The Space into an online playing space was a big reason why I eventually removed the online play rules entirely.

The second thing was that I realised that in the second Scene where the characters are having their discussion it was very easy to ignore The Space entirely.  The representation of the Space was there but there was nothing to make sure that players didn’t ignore The Space completely. I needed to find a way to involve it in the conversation. The solution I came up with was to have an alarm go off every 15 minutes to represent The Space asserting itself on the scene. Every time the alarm sounded The Space would impose itself in a disgusting way. I thought 15 minutes was a good amount of time as I didn’t want the alarm to constantly interrupt game play, especially as Scene 2 is only about an hour long, but I wanted it to be often enough that it provided a real intrusion in the scene.   

Conclusion

And that’s about it from me. If you are reading this and you want to write your first game I want to encourage you to do so. I really enjoyed having a go at writing something and the more people writing games and showing their perspective on the world, the better.

 

Fear of Death and Cosmic Horror

CW: Detailed discussions and a personal account of fear of death

Hi there. When I decided to write this blog I wasn’t intending to start off with something so personal. I wanted to ease my readership in with something a little more light-hearted to show that I am a person of charm, wit and levity. However, unfortunately, me tricking you all into thinking that I’m an urbane, happy go lucky sort of person will have to wait and it’s all the fault of Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

What follows will contain minor spoilers for Emmrich Volkarin’s quest line. I’m not at the end yet and I’m not really going to discuss anything past the quest Walking The Graves. However, if you don’t want anything spoiled about Emmrich’s questline (and it is rather good in my opinion) then I release you to read this later.

Emmrich is one of your companions in the Veilguard. He’s a necromancer with a twist. Firstly and less importantly for what I’m going to talk about, he’s not cackling villain or an amoral misanthrope. He’s kind, polite and has a very strong grasp of right and wrong. Secondly, he confesses to you early on after your first meeting that he is terrified of death.  Now very few people like the thought of dying but for Emmrich, it’s something more than that. I have included the video below so you can hear it in his own words but at the times where it grips him it’s an all consuming terror, something that seems to bypass and consume everything else. And when I heard this I felt seen because when I was younger and still now and again I experience the same thing.

The thought of death, the idea that my own consciousness, the thing that I experience the world through, not only could be snuffed out but inevitably would be almost debilitated me at times. It wasn’t a narcissistic worry, how could the world survive without Duncan Spark in it? It was that my mind revolted at the idea. It couldn’t comprehend it and yet it was inevitable. I don’t think that total nothingness, the complete loss of self, the complete extinction of consciousness is something that a self can truly comprehend, I’m finding it difficult to put into words right now, and yet it was something that, for long periods, was constantly on my mind. While I was writing this post a friend reminded me of Philip Larkin's haunting poem Aubade , which almost perfectly encapsulates the feelings that I'm failing to describe. Thoughts of an afterlife did not bring much comfort because then you have to grapple with the idea of eternity and that’s a whole other can of worms. Yes reader, I was very fun at parties.

Luckily I’m a bit better now. I never answered any of my questions of course and nothing actually got resolved. I’m just better at locking it away in its own special place. However, listening to Emmrich brought up these memories of feelings and also how my experience weirdly sort of mirrored that of a cosmic horror protagonist.

Ok, here me out on this one. The cosmic horror protagonist, at some point in the story usually gains insight into a truth that their brain cannot comprehend. They see the world as a different and often much more terrible place than they did before. And it’s more than that. They are often isolated in their experience. The world thinks them mad and they literally don’t have the language to explain why they’re so terrified and what they’re thinking.  Because how can one put something indescribable and incomprehensible into words? They are traversing the same world as everybody else, at least until their new found knowledge takes them to strange places beyond the stars, but they view it quite differently. Their ability to connect to those around them becomes strained.  

Now this is not me saying that my previous way of thinking about death is the only true way and that I’m a genius and all those people I spoke to who didn't understand are all cowards who can’t see the truth. It might all be nonsense and more importantly, thinking this way fucked me up for quite a large portion of my teens. But emotionally, I see some link here. Because, yes, everyone around me knew they were going to die. It wasn’t secret information gained from some sacred tome or eldritch whispers in the dark. But nobody seemed to react to it in quite the same way as I did. I had multiple conversations regarding it across my life and when I tried to explain my deep terror I got blank stares or, what I felt at the time, were misunderstanding platitudes. Those who empathised with my experience only seemed to experience the feeling in brief flashes that they would afterwards ignore, rather than the prolonged, paralysing terror that overcame me distressingly often. It wasn't just that the reality I was living in seemed awful and that I couldn't understand the information my brain was trying to process, it was that I felt incredibly alone. Part of me was screaming at the world to wake up, how can you see things the way I’m seeing them right now?  It was only when I got older and started to study the philosophy of death at university (which also mirrors Emmrich’s path) did I start to find people across the world past and present who, like Larkin, said:” Yes, me too”.    

I suppose the point of this is that, because of this experience, I’ve always had empathy for those confronted by that which cannot be comprehended and, as someone who loves cosmic horror, I think this is quite a big reason why the genre often resonates for me. I hope that by sharing this, I give people maybe a different angle or at least something to ponder. And for anyone reading this who finds something in what I've said above that reflects how they feel, while I won't pretend to know how keep the fear at bay I hope you can be assured that you are not alone.  

These are just some idle thoughts I had while playing a video game I like. Thanks for reading and thanks to Emmrich for inspiring these musings. I don’t actually expect Emmrich to read this. He is a fictional character and also has more important things to do.

(40) Emmrich confesses he's terrified of death | Dragon Age The Veilguard - YouTube