I shall be abroad next weekend, so no post. It's a bit of an unexpected trip for me but I need to see a tailor. No, really. A tailor. For lo, I am that in need of one, forsooth.
Now, on with the show.
I had intended to do a bit on Silent Hill 2, as the remake is out and, as a treat to self in October, I bought a copy. The plan - sinister and wicked, I'm sure you'll agree - was to play yesterday and talk about it today. I'd even intended to record some footage.
Life had other plans. I couldn't get the damn thing to play. It hard crashed every time I left the cemetery, roundabout where Silent Hill Ranch is. I convinced myself it was a game problem, but in fact it was a me problem. I had to turn off my VPN. Once I did that, it worked a treat. However, the footage I'd been trying to shoot was lost to the void and it's difficult to get that 'first time' energy when I'd already seen the intro three or four times by that point.
Still. What little I've seen so far is convincing. If you enjoy the genre and the series, it's worth your money and time.
It does mean that I'm left with little to talk about. I haven't seen much beyond the first half hour or so. I haven't been to Neely's Bar. I can say that, while this is very like the original, it isn't exactly alike beat-for-beat. The game can still catch you by surprise, even if you - as I have - played the original, perhaps many times before.
Let's talk about atmosphere and the senses.
Touch. Sight. Taste. Smell. Hearing.
Let's use a stock location to explore options: an art gallery. Located in a not-quite-fashionable part of town. What used to be tenements and low-rent housing has become just that little bit gentrified, and this is the result.
The sky is dark. Streetlamps gleam, little oases of light in inky darkness. The air is heavy and wet; a storm is coming. A brace of stars glimmer in a cloud's rent, the moon smothered. Not another soul on the street, but there are lights in some of the windows, a radio's buzz, laughter, a touch of warmth.
The gallery's doors are wide open.
The first piece that greets you as you walk in the door is a sculpture half the size of a man, twisted as if under a colossal weight or pressure, its tendons gleaming. The floor under your feet is somehow sticky; the soles of your shoes protest just a little every time you move. Peppermint. The antiseptic air is underlaid with the slightest whimper of peppermint. The sensation waters your mouth, just a little.
Touch, Sight. Taste. Smell. Hearing.
It's worth your while borrowing a trick from Dungeons and Dragons. In that system, and in BRPG to a degree though not as often, it's standard practice to write up a brief description of each room in the dungeon as the players enter it for the first time.
Unfortunately, Dungeons and Dragons often wastes that opportunity by telling you the dimensions of the room or other trivia. As if it matters whether this room is 20 foot by 15. What matters is what the floor is made of, whether it's rough, smooth or something else, whether the air is fresh or foul.
If you've ever been into a house or office that's been shut up for a while, you know it instantly by how the air feels. A kind of trapped, heavy sensation, underlaid with a little damp or rot. If something died in here it decomposed long ago but there may still be a little reek, adding its stench to the mix. If you're sensitive, you may break out in hives or find it difficult to breathe. Your skin may reflexively prickle, as if touched by a thousand needles at once.
It's difficult to think of the right words, on the fly. Much easier to do as D&D does and write them down in advance. Which is what the Cameos and Stock Locations in GUMSHOE are for. They give you something to hang your ideas on; what you do after that is up to you.
Some ideas:
Touch:
Slippery, twisting, a cat's reluctance.
Sticky, its casing covered in fluids.
Hot, just the wrong side of comfortable to the touch.
Cold, as if it's been dipped in negative space.
Sight:
Far-off, just on the edge of perception.
Somehow visible in every possible detail, to the least crevice and crack.
Impossible to see completely, it fades in and out.
Behind you - but you can see a portion out of the corner of your eye/
Taste:
Cloying, sweetness overpowering and omnipresent.
Sharp, acrid, bitter, poisonous.
Molten sunlight that lingers and vanishes.
A sensory nail through the tongue that no amount of milk will kill.
Smell:
It rips through your nostrils demanding instant attention.
Antiseptic, bitter, a thousand thousand hospital floors.
The least hint of something, like daffodils in the Milky Way.
Leaden absence of life, light, hope - dust, and nothing more.
Hearing:
A siren's bold wail, out of sight but drawing nearer.
Laughter's warm spice, without malice, without shame.
A sudden glimmer of caution, a warning just on the edge of perception.
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