Reflections in a 737

by Gareth-Michael Skarka
October 31, 2000

Life is kinda scary sometimes.

As I write this, I'm sitting in an airplane, about 30,000 feet above the California-Nevada border, heading east at something like 500 miles per hour. The thought of falling from that height, or of hitting something at that speed is never too far from my mind...and I like to fly. I can't imagine what it must be like for those of you who don't.

Fear is subjective.

I'm flying back home to New Jersey, after spending a weekend with the kind folks from Skotos, getting wined, dined and trained on their game development software. My name is Gareth-Michael Skarka, and I'm one of the Skotos Seven.

A bunch of us flew out to Skotos-land (Berkeley, CA) during the last weekend in October to meet with everyone, and get up to speed on the developer's tools that will help us present our forthcoming games to you. A marathon training session, running for about 8 and a half hours, filled up the day on Saturday.

Naturally, Friday night was the party. I tell ya, the Skotos folks are cruel.

As scary as a handful of game designers trying to learn XML with raging hangovers might be, that's nothing compared to what I've been commissioned to develop. My project for Skotos, tentatively entitled ARCANA, will be a game of modern horror. They've charged me with coming up with an online game that will scare you. They tell me that, in their opinion, I'm the best guy for coming up with something spooky, twisted and disturbing.

I'm not quite sure how I should take that.

Last year, I wrote a weekly online column detailing the development of my latest tabletop RPG, UnderWorld. I showed readers what it looked like from the inside...the experience of designing and producing a game, from inception through production. It was an interesting process for me, and one that the folks at Skotos felt would be equally interesting this time around. So, every week, you'll be able to come back here and read another installment about the development of ARCANA. I welcome your comments and questions in the forums...with a game like this, one that will exist purely online and will become more of a community than a product, the feedback you give will be invaluable.

To get you started, I'll begin here by giving you some idea of the mix of ideas and inspirations that are currently swirling around my mind...the primordial soup of what this game will hopefully become...

I haven't quite decided yet whether the game will be horror, or dark fantasy. Let me explain the difference, as I see it: the minute that the players portray the monsters, rather than the victims, the game becomes dark fantasy, rather than horror. So the question is: do the players portray humans fighting against the supernatural, or do they portray elements of the supernatural themselves?

Second question I'm wrestling with: How dark do I make this? There is a fine line to walk...too dark, and the game is an uncomfortable experience for the players, and hence not fun. Not dark enough, and you run the risk of turning the game into a "superheroes with fangs" power-trip...,which might as well not even call itself "horror." Balancing those elements is the trick.

My inspirations (just so that we're on the same page): The novels of Clive Barker, Tim Powers, and China Mieville. The comic books Sandman, Preacher, and Hellblazer. Assorted horror films (too numerous to mention...although Nightbreed keeps bubbling up in my head), and television series such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, American Gothic, Twin Peaks, Friday the 13th, and The Kingdom. The symbolism of the Tarot, bizarre facts and illuminated history, that kind of thing. Quite the protein-rich bouillabaisse of spooky goodness.

That's all for now. Next week, I'll start talking about how to bring horror across in an online game, and we can start chipping away at the stone block, hopefully to reveal the true nature of ARCANA that lies within...I encourage you to post to the forums with what you'd like to see in a horror game, and we'll add that to the discussion.

So, glad to have you aboard. Hang on for the ride...this is going to get scary.