bloodmachine

a place in the dark

architect of other worlds

cyberstatic neon angel


concept artist + game dev

code coven IGM '22 🔮

intro post

moderator @galaxydevzone


portfolio:

machinedream.notion.site

pfp by ena


ring
@ring asked:

do you have any story ideas you'd like to explore in specific types of games that you haven't tried doin' stuff with yet? ᐠ( ᐛ )ᐟ

wahhh what a good question ;A; idk!! i'm not sure i have specific stories i want to explore but for types of games...hm. i like horror and i'd like to make more horror games and more erotic/sex games (and more erotic horror games) i think. i spend a lot of time wondering what horror + eroticism are in games and what defines those genres in games vs in films particularly since they are both visual mediums and are both quite voyeuristic and fetishistic (i'm using those terms as neutral descriptors not as pejoratives). i want to get better at using narrat also and im hoping to spend the back end of this year getting much more comfortable in unreal. i don't know if that will lead me to be good at literally anything i just said but who knows the night is young and so on. does this answer your question??? maybe not but thank youuuu it was fun to just consider this at all ♡


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in reply to @bloodmachine's post:

I MISSED THIS I really wish there was a notif when people answer questions ;__;

Thank you for this great and thoughtful answer!! and YES I would love to see more explorations of horror/eroticism from that perspective. Survival horror games fascinate me this way because there's often a clean split between a canon that treats the monsters/enemies as unambiguously repulsive and hostile (even when sexuality is invoked), an audience that clearly finds many of them erotically compelling and/or sympathetic, and marketing/merchandising that acknowledges that experience. So I've always been really intrigued by why that persists.

I can think of games where the player character is portrayed as being compelled by or inextricably connected to the horrific Other World and its inhabitants and where it's not treated as a corruption Bad End if they fail to reject it. But it's definitely not as common as the number of players going, "Heehee, I hope it doesn't catch me :3c" and basically roleplaying that complexity in the protagonist might suggest would be popular.

And this is more common in film!! Even taking into account how much longer films have had to explore this, I do think the greater ability of the audience to inject their own perspective in games is a fantastic creative tool and a thing you can use to basically make a horny game without ever being accused of horniness. Like, no, no, it's the fans who are horny. Teehee you're all so wacky, jeez we can't even introduce an enemy all prior evidence suggests you'll find hot without you freaks asking if you can kiss it instead of killing it. The marketing finds it #relatable, but play the game itself, and it quickly becomes obvious that there's no textual exploration or even acknowledgement.

SORRY I will go on about this forever ahaha

NARRAT ABSOLUTELY RULES, I don't think I've been so interested in an engine since I started playing with Twine.

omg well! thank you for coming back to reply.

that's interesting about survival horror. i don't play many of those games (and i also don't really watch a lot of films that might parallel survival horror) so i don't know much about the audience reception thereof! i will have to investigate.

i think when i think about erotic horror i am personally thinking about things that somewhat-to-very deliberately try to explore the places where disgust and desire intersect. so like in film i guess the go-to obvious examples would be cronenberg or something and in games i think of devs like porpentine and kittyhorrorshow! or i guess just anything that deliberately does present the player or the audience with something that is at once frightening (or disgusting) and also titillating and asks them to sit with the discomfort of that!! i think you're right that these sorts of things don't really market super well usually. cronenberg might be an exception, but he's a big deal film guy. but mostly i think the stuff that sells on a big scale has to pretty strictly separate eroticism from anything abject or scary or disgusting or bad for studios to get on board.