I first came to know Lorelei through Sierra Entertainment, a gaming company that produced the dark PC game, Phantasmagoria. Phantasmagoria 2, which Lorelei wrote and designed, had a depth to the gameplay that showed an inherent understanding of the genre. Years later, she and I did a few of panels at Crypticon Seattle 2010 and I was able to put her lovely face to the name I already respected. Lorelei is not only knowledgeable about game design and the sensibilities of the genre, she also has a comprehensive knowledge of cinema. I am proud to count her among my friends.
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Creating a Puzzle of Flesh – Volume IV, Issue 1
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I can remember as a kid, sitting in front of my television set, plugging my Atari 2600 into the wall, slapping my Pitfall cartridge in and embarking on, what was at the time, an incredible journey. There I sat, watching my little guy battle alligators, swinging on vines, and, ultimately dying a grisly pixelated death. A lot has changed since those days. Games are more complicated, graphics more intricately drawn and game designers are becoming artists in their own right. As computers became more able to handle the serious number crunching and AutoCAD made a designer’s most obscure ideas feasible, it was obvious that someone would turn their creative eye to computer game design. Now, the gaming industry is involved in a “who can top who” game of epic proportions. About a year ago, Sierra Online released a doozy of a game called Phantasmagoria, which was designed by pioneer Roberta Williams. Based on that game’s success, Sierra recently unleashed Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh. The task of designing a sequel to the impressive Phantasmagoria fell to someone of notable talent, Lorelei Shannon. Her background as a writer and long time role playing game enthusiast made her infinitely qualified for the obstacle set before her: design a game that stayed true to the spirit of the original, but put a brand new spin on the ball. The answer? She has and she did. Phantasmagoria 2 is a scary, impressive, puzzling and downright fun game that succeeds on all levels. We took some time and questioned Lorelei about her background, the vocation of game designer, and her newest innovation, her newborn baby. Her answers just may surprise you…
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How did you get started designing games?
The first “games” I designed were D&D scenarios, when I was just a kid. I’ve always been interested in games of all sorts and the fantasy world you can enter when you play them. I joined Sierra first as a writer, which is what I consider myself most of the time. Eventually they noticed my brilliance and promoted me to game designer. I’m kidding, I’m kidding, but I did work my way up through the ranks at Sierra.
What is your educational background?
I have a BFA in sculpture and metalsmithing, and a minor in English. Really useful stuff! It qualifies me to be a welder or even a substitute teacher!
What drew you to working in this competitive field?
I started working in the gaming field at a tiny little play-by-mail company called Flying Buffalo in Scottsdale, Arizona. Actually, Buffalo invented the PBM game industry. My husband Daniel is a programmer, and he got me interested in computer games. When I realized that I could essentially write interactive novels, I was hooked.
In your opinion, what makes a good computer game?
It depends on the type of game. I really enjoy shooters like Doom, and all those need are excellent graphics, great monsters, big BIG guns and explosions of flesh and bone. The games I like best are adventures, though. I personally enjoy games with a lot of plot and good characters, like Jane Jensen’s Gabriel Knight series. As for puzzles, I’m not that picky about them. If they’re minimal but the story is excellent, I don’t mind. A Puzzle of Flesh is more of an interactive novel than a puzzle game.
How did you get the gig working on Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh?
Everybody at Sierra knows I’m a horror writer, and when Roberta decided she didn’t want to do Phantasmagoria 2, I was the natural choice. Who knows, maybe it was the human skull on my desk, or my collection of autopsy photographs that influenced their decision.
Was it somewhat daunting to step into Roberta Williams’ shoes?
Not at all. I knew I wanted to take Phantasmagoria 2 in a totally different direction from the first game. I started over with a new plot, setting, characters, everything. My method of telling a horror story is very different from Roberta’s, so it wasn’t like I had to try and copy her style or anything. The first Phantasmagoria was very much 1960’s haunted house horror, and that’s just not my thing. I like psychological stuff, along the lines of Clive Barker, Kathe Koja and Edgar Allan Poe. It was pretty much like starting a new series.
Take us step-by-step through how a game goes from the idea stage to the finished product.
When you’re pitching to a company like Sierra, you start out with one or two-page proposals outlining the story, type of game and features you want to work on. When one of those is accepted, you write up a treatment like you would for a movie; anywhere from ten to thirty pages long. From there, at least with an adventure game, you create the game design: writing up the character sheets, the regions, the rooms, the puzzles, and the flow of the action. By now you’re up to several hundred pages of documentation. Next, you create the script; the actual lines the characters speak along with any internal documentation for the game, like the e-mail interface in Phantasmagoria 2. By the time you’re done, you usually have anywhere from three to six hundred pages worth of documentation. It’s like writing a couple of novels. Sometime along the line, usually after you’ve got the character sheets and region stuff done, work starts on the game backgrounds. That’s if you’re doing an animated or 3-D game. If it’s a full motion video game like Phantasmagoria 2, you don’t really start on production until the entire script is done. I mean, the programmers can start roughing out the rooms and regions and the artists can start on the interface, but not much can be done until the script is set. You’re basically shooting a movie. That means you have to cast the actors, hire a crew, etc. After you’ve got all your video footage done, and in our case, it was a LOT, the programmers begin putting it together and programming the game sequences and puzzles, and the artists start on the post-production effects, game graphics and puzzle art. Of course, the video has to be compressed and the sound sweetened. The game has to be tested, debugged and tested some more before it’s released. It’s a long, grueling process. Phantasmagoria 2 was about two years in the works.
How has the response been?
Great so far. People either really love it or they find it completely disgusting. Any strong reaction is fine with me.
What can you tell me about the game being banned in Australia and Singapore?
I don’t really know the details, but I’m sure it’s either the strong sexual content or the gore they object to. (I do want to point out, however, that unlike the first Phantasmagoria, this game has no sexual violence. Lots of sex, lots of violence, but they’re separate.) The game has also been severely edited in England. I find that more than a little amusing coming from a country whose royalty have traditionally slaughtered each other and stepped on the bodies on their way to the throne. I wonder if the Globe Theatre is allowed to perform Titus Andronicus any more? I don’t mean to sound bitter, but it pisses me off whenever a government tries to tell its population what they can and can’t look at. Adults are fully capable of deciding what they do and don’t like, and avoiding anything they personally find offensive.
How do you feel about the idea of the computer gaming industry imposing warning labels or even self-censoring the products they release?
I totally object to anyone outside the industry labeling or censoring product. I most particularly object to the government getting involved. There are enough people trying to edge out personal freedom as it is. We don’t need that. However, I do think that the industry labeling (not censoring) its own product is a very good idea. People have a right to know what’s in a game they’re purchasing, and who better to tell them than the makers of that game. Ph
antasmagoria 2 has warning labels stuck all over it. Heh heh heh…
I know that you’ve recently become a parent. Has that experience changed the way you look at designing and would you let your son play Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh?
Well, he has a little trouble with the interface, since he’s only four months old, but we’ve been playing all the gory movies for him. I’m kidding! Of course I wouldn’t want him, or any other child, playing this game. I’ve said in innumerable interviews that Phantasmagoria 2 is adult entertainment, and I sincerely hope that no one under seventeen goes anywhere near it. There’s this popular misconception that if a thing is called a game, it’s meant for children. That’s just not true. A Puzzle of Flesh was designed as disturbing adult horror from the word go. I don’t want to warp the minds of small children. I just want to warp grown-ups. They need it more. As for whether having a baby has changed the way I look at designing, I guess it has. I don’t mean that I would want to tone down my horror stuff – of course not! But a baby sees the world with such new eyes, it’s made me want to examine kids’ software more carefully, and maybe consider designing some again. (I co-designed Pepper’s Adventures in Time and King’s Quest VII, both kid/family oriented games.) I think some really original, exciting, and weird software for kids would be a lot of fun to work on.
I’m noticing that a lot of game companies are coming from the Seattle area. What is the allure of that area for code jockeys?
It’s so gray and cold and rainy, it’s easy for companies to hook their employees on lattes and mochas and get hours more of caffeine-induced labor from them. Hell, I don’t know! I suspect it has something to do with the rich artistic and writing communities up here. Programmers are artists in their own way. I think the moody atmosphere is attractive to us gloomy intense artistic types.
What do you consider to be some of the better designed games that are presently on the market?
As I mentioned before, I really enjoy the Gabriel Knight series. I love Doom, and I really like Descent. Bad Day at the Midway was very cool. Harvester is good nasty fun, and of course, Bad Mojo is a real kick.
Where do you think the state of the art in computer gaming will be in five years?
Graphics will continue to improve, of course, and 3-D technology will get cheaper, both monetarily and memory-wise. That will allow much greater freedom in designing fantastic and involved game worlds. On-line gaming is getting more popular, and will continue to do so as technology improves. I think the industry is turning away from full motion video for now, since it’s very expensive, but it’ll resurface eventually. The whole thing is moving slowly and inexorably toward VR. True VR is a ways off, but I think we’ll see a lot of interesting things invented and used along the way. The great thing is, the gaming industry leads the way as far as software advances are concerned. You can always tell what’s state-of-the-art by looking at the latest, hottest games.
Do you have any other projects lined up for the future?
No software projects at the moment. I just finished up a horror novel called Rags and Old Iron, and I’m starting up another one. I’m staying at home with the offspring for now. Do you know how much work you have to put into raising the Antichrist? Kidding! I’m Kidding!
Bob Wilkins
When I was a kid, I had a few heroes: Batman, Conan, Solomon Kane… and Bob Wilkins. Bob was a small, bespectacled man who I’d watch rocking back and forth in his creaky rocker, smoking a giant cigar, every Friday and Saturday night on KTVU Channel 2’s Creature Features. The show was ultra-low budget and showed some of the worst (and greatest) horror films ever made. I never missed an episode. Bob showed me that you could be a rabid genre fan and not have to be a freak (like so many other horror hosts were). No… Bob was a guy, a normal guy who wore thick black glasses and weird patterned polyester suits (hey, it was the 1970s, ferchrissakes!) He may not have been the most suave or good-looking guy in the world, but he was so totally cool to my pre-teen eyes. His knowledge of films was seemingly inexhaustible and his charm was something that lured me back to our old TV set every week. Years later, Catía asked who I most wanted to interview. Bob’s name was high on that list. She made the call and suddenly there I was, on the phone with Bob Wilkins himself. His voice was older, his manner a bit unsure of himself, but man oh man! This was Bob Wilkins! I was stoked. After the interview ran, I got a letter in the mail from Bob. He thanked me for the interview and said, “you’re one heck of a writer!” Few things have made me feel as good. That framed letter still hangs on my wall to this day.
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Watch Horror Films… Keep America Strong! – Volume IV, Issue 4
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Back when Television and I were just in our early years, it was quite different from what it is today. In the days before microwaves and space shuttles, there was nothing like HBO, Cinemax or Showtime. The concept of a Superstation had not even been formed in Ted Turner’s budding, young megalomaniacal mind. At best, we had local stations doing their damnedest to give out quality entertainment while Nixon was quietly forging himself into the butt of a thousand jokes. I fondly remember pulling up to the TV set with my metal tin of freshly popped Jiffy Pop Popcorn (the kind in the expanding foil bubble) and religiously watching one program each week with the devotion that only a fledgling, young horror film fan can understand: Creature Features on KTVU in Oakland, California.
The show would begin with a montage of images culled from some classic horror films while a rousing theme song would stir my young heart. The glorious cascade of images would fade to a darkened studio in which a man would be sitting, his shadowed outline made recognizable by an immense cigar jutting out from where his mouth would be. He’d strike a match and reach over, lighting a candle wedged into the top of a skull, and the studio lights would come up to reveal a youngish, blond man, Bob Wilkins by name, sitting comfortably in a rocking chair. It was at this moment that the viewer became aware of a few things. This was not some cheesy “spooky” character like that of “The Ghoul” in Cleveland, “Zacherley” in New York, “M.T. Graves” in Fort Lauderdale, or even that Tulsa, Oklahoma favorite, “Dr. Mazeppa Pompazoidi”. Bob was just a regular guy who just happened to have the job of presenting horror films each week to a rabid audience. Bob showed us, the faithful, that it was ok to have a love for these films and that horror fans were not easily recognizable to the uneducated eye. He showed us that being a horror fan, if one chose to accept this awesome task, meant having to wade through a lot of bad films in the hopes of finding that one gem. Bob would oftentimes tell us at the outset of the show that the film he was about to show was bad and that your time would probably be better spent watching something else. He would, to the dismay of his advertisers, pull out the TV Guide and even tell you what else was on. However, after sitting there with him, watching abysmal films like Attack of the Mushroom People, Horror at Party Beach, The Severed Arm, and The Hands of Orlac, you’d be treated to such gems as Night of the Living Dead, The Haunting, House of Wax, and Horror of Dracula. Bob showed us all that those of us who could persevere the “zipper up the back monsters” and the “rubber tentacled beasties,” would be treated to classics of the horror genre. Bob was and remains a true original and a man to whom I am eternally grateful for showing me just how wondrous horror film can be.
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First of all I want to tell you that your show, Creature Features had a profound effect on me and pretty much set me on my life’s course. So, you’re to blame for all of this
[Laughs] No kidding…
I wanted to start out getting a little background on you. How did you get involved doing TV and what were you doing before that?
I was in the advertising business in Chicago, a copywriter and so forth, and got tired of the winters there. A friend of mine I went to school with at Indiana University lived in Sacramento, California and he invited me out a few times to see that part of the country. I thought that was a better way to go and so I jumped in a car one d
ay. It was actually the day after New Year’s Eve in the early ’60’s and drove out to Sacramento and just sort of floated around a couple of weeks there and all of a sudden got an offer from a TV station in Sacramento that they were looking for somebody to write and produce local commercials for clients. Since I had some background doing that, I took the job right away. As I worked there, they had a lot of going away parties and things like that and I was always selected as one of the speakers. I guess somebody thought I had a sense of humor and one day they approached me that they had this package of horror films and wanted to know if I wanted to host that type of show. Now, this is still in the early ’60’s when television stations went off the air right after the eleven o’clock news, played the national anthem and that was it. There was no all night television in those days. This market had three network stations and that was it. The independent stations did not exist at that time. I said, “Sure, it might be fun, a challenge.” They never told me what kind of route to take, never gave me any kind of instructions, which was fine with me. I didn’t want them to come up with a format. So, I took one of the films home, the very first film we were going to start with in several weeks. The very first film was Attack of the Mushroom People. I started to watch this film and I didn’t quite understand it. I thought I had the wrong reel. Even when it was over, I said, “My god, I didn’t know they were doing things like this. This film is terrible.” It was a Japanese film. So, I came on the air for the first show and actually told people about the movie and not to watch it. I even had a TV Guide and told them what was on the other two channels. On Monday, clients who had sponsored that show were calling in to management wanting to know what this young kid was doing on the air telling them not to watch the show their commercials were in. [Laughs] They covered for that, I guess. I never had to answer for that. The show caught on because it was unique and different for its time. I continued to do my job at the station and this was just sort of a sidelight.
Carpe Noctem Interviews - Volume 1 Page 6