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Release

  • calunio
  • 10/31/2013 02:01 PM
  • 1325 views
I started this blog post planning on being really wordy about all the emotions involved in the process of making this game... but well, I don't think anyone actually cares. So I'll just sum it up in one word: intense.

When RMN All Hallow's Eve Event was announced and I checked the themes, I knew I had to make a nonfiction horror game. And even before picking a real-life horror to portray in a game, I knew what my goal was: to tell a story about people, not monsters.

The media has this power of turning stories about people in stories about good x evil. No one is truly good or evil. It's easy to dismiss someone who commits a horrible crime as a monster, because it comfortably separates them from ourselves. Even as we try to understand a killer's mind and his motivations, as we learn more about what happened and what he did, we still hold on to the feeling that "I could never do that". But hey... you have never been in that person's shoes, have you?

Games are probably the best tool for telling stories because they're interactive, and in a way that's limited by design constraints, they allow you to be in someone else's shoes. And hey, it's not like it's the first time I make a game about being in a killer's shoes. Beautiful Escape: Dungeoneer had an impact on some people because it managed to empathize the player with a fictitious sadist. In Suzy and freedom, I took one step further and tried to make the player empathized with a real-life killer.

In truth, I wanted to put the player in the shoes of everyone involved in the story. So it is not just the killers (plural) you get to play and control, but also the victims. It's not a story about good x evil. It's a story about no happy endings for anyone.

I did some really deep research to try and understand the characters' motivations. At the same time, I'm completely aware that I'm not actually telling a real-life story. It's a story of my own, heavily based on something real, but unique and original nonetheless. As I progressed to the ending of the game, I noticed that my characters had adopted a path somewhat different from the real life characters. They had a life of their own.

Today is Halloween. Today is the deadline of RMN's All Hallow's Eve Event, and it's the day I release Suzy and freedom. Today is also the anniversary of the crime that shocked Brazil 11 years ago. I'm not paying homage to the victims, and definitely not to the killers. This is not a game about justification. It's not a game about condemnation either. It's just a game about people.

Posts

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edchuy
You the practice of self-promotion
1624
Added to my AHE 2013 Playlist! I suspect it'll be the first one I play and give feedback to after I finish giving SnowOwl my testing feedback and suggested edits to improve R&B.
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