Call of Cthulhu characters in a video game

Despite never having played Call of Cthulhu (I'm too self-conscious for role-playing), I do like the concept and possibilities, and often think of ways it could be translated into the realm of video games. One of the key aspects I would love to see is the character creation system. There are many games where you can create your character, but in most cases, you can still do anything any other character can do. Where I see potential in the Call of Cthulhu system is that it is random, for one, but also that one character might not be able to do something due to a trait of their's, and would hence have to find another way. As an example, say the player needed to get into a sewer. If their character has high strength (STR), they might be able to just lift up a manhole cover, whereas if their character had low strength, they would instead have to find another way in. This variation in play, based solely on character statistics fascinates me, as it's something I have never seen. I'm guessing this might exist in an RPG game somewhere, but the games I'd like to see it in are first- or third-person action/adventure games. If such a system was put in place, nearly every playthrough would be different, and would greatly increase replay value. Not only that, the multitude of necessary options would add to the interest and creativity applied to level creation.

As a demonstration of how this could effect play, I'm going to run through some possible character stat combinations...

Strength and Constitution

Strength (STR) is pretty self-explanatory and can easily be transferred to the video game medium. It's basically muscle-power, and would effect such activities as lifting, pushing, pulling, throwing, as well as hand-to-hand combat. Constitution (CON) is analogous to fitness, or stamina, from what I've read. As many games already implement, stamina determines how far you can run before becoming puffed. In Call of Cthulhu, however, it also determines a character's resistance to drowning or suffocation, as well as poisons or diseases. If a single attack takes more than half their hit points (HP), a CON roll is used to determine whether they fall unconscious from shock. CON also factors into maximum HP (averaged with Size). Imagine starting a game with a third of the hit points you had the last time you played it! It's this variability that I think computer games are sorely lacking.

As a guide of sorts, I created this little table to show the different types of characters such variation can create (as well as the chances of getting said combination):

	STR	Low	Average	High
CON		3-7	8-13	14-18
Low		Bookworm	Couch Potato	Bear
3-7		2.6%	11.0%	2.6%
Average		Lean	Average	Weekend Warrior
8-13		11.0%	45.7%	11.0%
High		Health Nut	Athlete	Gym Junkie
14-18		2.6%	11.0%	2.6%

I think each type is pretty self-explanatory, but if there's any that leave you scratching your head, just hit me up in the comments. As you can see, however, each character type would play a little differently to the others. For instance, imagine there was a door, barricaded from the other side, with only a gap of about a foot. A "Bear" might not be able to squeeze through, whereas a "Bookworm" would. To add even more variety, there is the next major trait...

Size

Size (SIZ) is said to be an average of height and weight. The manual says it determines whether a character can see over something, or how easily they can hide, but I think it would be more complicated than that. In my mind, a short, obese character could be the same size as a taller, thin one. Hence, the taller character would see over objects easier, but would probably have more trouble hiding. This disparity lead me to create another table to help me wrap my head around the concept. I listed the 95% range of real-world height and weight figures against the 8 to 18 range of the game and then averaged where they intersected. To help decipher the numbers even further, I overlaid colours representing the Body Mass Index (BMI) of each intersection. In the end, I think it came out as a pretty useful little graphic that might even be helpful to players of the RPG:

Click to enlarge

I use this table in combination with the STR and CON one. Say your character has low CON and STR. This means they would be scrawny and unfit, so probably underweight. You then find their SIZ line on this table and head to the "underweight" end (upper orange or red). Conversely, if your character is a "bear", they're going to be obese, so you would head to the dark red end of their SIZ line. Where you land then determines your character's height and weight. Make sense? If height and weight were actually realised in a game context, it would open up even more game possibilities. Imagine that a floorboard is weakened, breaking under the weight of a heavier character, dropping them into a secret room that a lighter one wouldn't have found, or a tall character being able to reach a ledge that a short one couldn't.

There are several other characteristics used in the game, but I just wanted to mention two more of them here as they are ones I don't think I've seen used in a game before:

Appearance

Appearance (APP) is obviously how attractive a character is, or whether they present themselves well. This is useful for social encounters in Call of Cthulhu, and I can imagine it would be the same in a video game. Very low APP might result in stares from NPCs, or even audible judgement from rude ones. Alternatively, high APP might result in smiles or wolf-whistles. Not only this, APP might play a part in conversation trees. If a pretty character asks for information, an NPC might be more forthcoming with information than if the character is ugly.

Education

In Call of Cthulhu, Education (EDU) is the number of years of schooling the character has, and as such, signifies the knowledge they possess. In a video game context, I imagine this as affecting the dialogue of the character more than anything. As an example, say the player discovers a book written in Russian. If their character has high EDU, they might say, "Look's like Russian," whereas a character of low EDU might respond with, "It's in some other language." Or if they find a map displaying Africa, a low EDU character might say, "Is that South America?" As with APP, it could also play into NPC conversations. A character of higher EDU might have more options, knowing different tangents to enquire about. EDU also determines the number of points a player has to distribute to Occupation Skills, which is something I'll discuss next time.

If you're still reading this, I'd just like to say thank you, and feel free to comment about anything discussed here :)

Thoughtballooning

Lately, I’ve been writing for a website called Thoughtballoons, where they pick a different comic book character every week, and anyone can write a single-page comic script for that character. I’ve been finding this very fun, and so thought I would just take a quick look back at my own pieces, to see what made them work… or not:

Spider-Man…

A favourite of mine, Spider-Man, was the first character off the blocks, which was a good place for me to start. It should be noted that the site had already featured Iron Man, Molecule Man, Mephisto, Doctor Doom, Superman, and Blonde Phantom by the time I started playing along.

Anyway, in thinking of an idea, the first thing that came to mind was his costume. Now Spider-Man’s not exactly the think-and-ponder type, so what I ended up with was a script called, “Idle Hands”, about Spidey pondering the idea of the super-hero costume… but overlaid upon a bit of trademark mischievousness.

Because I was new to the game, and thinking about it frequently, I also wrote a second script that was a cross-over with the Lovecraft Mythos, specifically, “A Shadow out of Time”. In reality, it was more the Lovecraft part I wanted to show, so the character could have been any super-hero. It just happened to be Spidey seeing as he was the star of the week.

Aquaman…

This was a hard one for me to have as only my second character because I’ve never really been much of a DC Comics fan, so I knew very little about the character. All I really knew was that he lived in the sea, so I started tossing up any ocean-related ideas I could think of.

My first instinct was to go with Lovecraft’s Deep Ones, but I didn’t want to go with just a straight-up cross-over seeing as I had already done so in my last script, so I thought I’d add in a little reality and include The Bloop… though still ended up with Cthulhu and the Deep Ones.

I wasn’t entirely happy with that effort, so I tried to come up with another idea as well. It occurred to me that Aquaman’s “jurisdiction” was actually quite big—70% of the planet in fact—so I decided to run with that. Another writer had written of in-fighting within the Justice League of America (JLA), so I also took that on board as well and wrote I piece where an angry Aquaman makes a deal with the devil so that his colleagues can “understand” his efforts. I liked it more than my first one, but only wished I knew more of the DC universe so that I could have picked a character other than Lucifer.

The Penguin…

Another DC character had me out of my element again, and I started tossing up any idea I could think of to do with penguins or umbrellas… and then my girlfriend jokingly suggested having him fight with Catwoman over a fish… so I did! I wrote a page where Catwoman brings a “fish” to the Penguin’s house and it is only revealed on the last panel that they’re referring to Aquaman. This may have been subconscious payback for being such a terrible character the week before, I’m not sure, but no matter, I was quite happy with this one.

Again, I wrote a second piece, and again it was more the gag I wanted to show than the character. It was called, “I Couldn’t Draw To Save My Life”, but as one commenter suggested, it would have suited The Joker better. I wonder if he’ll ever pop up as a character of the week?

The Punisher…

I know of the Punisher, and I do like him more than the last two characters, but I still don’t know that much about him. I know his family was killed and he’s taking it out on… well, everyone… and he has a thing for guns, but that’s about it. My first instinct when dealing with unfamiliar characters is to turn to humour—as the Penguin’s week shows—because people don’t expect continuity when they’re getting a laugh out of it.

My first idea tied with the character’s gun obsession, and I was going to write something about him having a Customer Loyalty Card at the local gun shop, but as I sat down to write it, another idea came to me which I believe was the funnier option. It was called, “Hunting Season”, and featured a scene that was clearly—subconsciously—inspired by the film, Predator.

I only wrote one script this week—probably to everyone’s relief—because I drew some art for the site.

Gamora…

Unlike the previous “unfamiliar” characters, this was one I’d straight-up never even heard of, which made things quite hard. I did a bit of research, and found out that she’s a green-skinned, barbarian-like, alien woman… and that was about it. No powers, no nothing—even harder!

Again, being well out of my comfort zone, I went for the comedy route, and wrote a piece about the only interesting feature of this character: her green skin.

Where Now?...

Hopefully we’ll get back to some characters I know of—or have at least heard of—so that I can break away from these comedy sketches I’ve been falling back on lately. Only time till tell. For now, it’s all in the hands of the Tenures…

The Horror in Clay

—Part II—

As part of an on-going effort to find an artistic medium I feel comfortable in, I have recently started sculpting, and I'm writing this series to track my progress...

And A Shape Takes Form...

So the next step from the wire armature seen in Part I was to simply encase the frame in clay. As you can see below, doing this makes it much easier to visual the end product:

From here it's time to start adding some details. I decided to start at the torso and work my way out. I don't have a very good understanding of anatomy, but I figured that working on a fantasy creature such as this, it would not matter too much if the physique was slightly off. So in this picture you can see that I've added back, neck, and shoulder muscles, as well as a spine:

I also detailed the under-side with pectoralis muscles (a.k.a. "pecs") and a rib-cage. You can also faintly see abdominals as well:

Once I was satisfied with the torso, I moved out to the arms. These turned out to be quite difficult as the clay kept twisting around the smooth wire inside it, so I'll have to find a way to counter this in the future. After the arms were as good as I could get them, I started on the head...

Because the creature is simply called The Three-Lobed Burning Eye, I wanted to make sure that I put as much detail into the head as I could, so I started with the Lovecraft-obligatory tentacles:

As you can see, I also whipped up some claws just so I had them made in advance.

And Time Goes On By...

All of the above happened in the space of 4 days back in June, but due to my re-found love of comics and writing (thanks, in part, to Thoughtballoons), my sculpting activities were put on hold...

So here I am, 6 weeks later, on holidays, and I've just decided to start back on it. I felt I at least needed to get the head finished, so in the time it took for Muse's Absolution to once again play through, I had finished off the beast's head, which now includes the titular three-lobed eye:

So now all that's left are the wings and tail...

See you in Part 3!

The Horror in Clay

—Part I—

As part of an on-going effort to find an artistic medium I feel comfortable in, I have recently started sculpting, and it occurred to me tonight that it would make a good blog topic to show my progression as I go.

Beginnings...

As a frequent browser of DeviantArt, I had come across various sculptures before, and so looking back on some I found that the most common medium was a product called Super Sculpey. My first instinct was to buy some off Amazon, but as it turned out, they cannot ship it to Australia. I'm not sure why, but nevertheless, I had to find another supplier. I found it at my local art supply, though it was $39 ($33US) for 454g (1 lb)—much more than the $25US it would have cost from Amazon!

Anyway, one night after work, with Muse's Absolution playing on my iPhone, I sat down and just started playing with a piece. By the time the album had finished (roughly an hour), I had created this:

Though obviously no masterpiece, I was quite happy with the result of this first ever sculpting attempt, and was inspired to continue.

The Next Step...

Due to my Lovecraftian proclivities, it did not take a mind-reader to know that I would be wanting to create one of his beasties as soon as possible. As shown in my previous post, I have seen many renditions before, yet one I found very few images of was the Haunter of the Dark (aka the Three-lobed Burning Eye). Coincidentally, there had been talk of this very creature on the H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast forums only recently, which only fuelled my desire to create its image. So I set about drawing a few sketches...

First was a rough isometric:

Then I did some slightly more detailed plans:

As can (hopefully) be seen, I had the creature simply "perched" on the ground. However, after a few days to stew over the idea, I realised that this pose was really very boring, and even though this is to be my first ever full sculpt, so should be fairly simple, I still felt it needed a bit more... character.

Through most of the related story, the narrator only knows of the creature due to its motions in a small room above his head, so it came to me that I should try and make it kind of low, as if stalking or listening through the floor-boards, and so I came up with this modified front-on sketch:

From this, I then drew the armature "skeleton" pose design:

It might appear slightly confusing, but they are actually the isometric, side, and top-down views of how I wanted the armature wire to look.

Which then brings me to tonight, when I got home from work and actually made the armature:

You can see in this photo that I have made one wing out in front, low to the ground, while the other is upright, supporting the weight. At the back is the arch of the body/tail, that will continue to snake along the ground (the foil is there to bulk out the body a bit as well as hold the wire together a bit tighter).

And so there you have the lead up to what will eventually become a clay sculpture of Nyarlathotep/The Haunter of the Dark/The Three-lobed Burning Eye. I hope someone out there has found this interesting and that you will keep an eye on my progress and the sculpture takes form.

See you in Part 2!

Beginnings...

For some time now, I've been mentally tossing over a Cthulhu Mythos-based screenplay idea. In fact, it basically is a re-telling of The Call of Cthulhu. The plot, though centering on only one main character, is quite grand in scale and is well beyond the scope of the usual fan-made fare. For this fact alone, I know it will never be used, yet I am still compelled to complete it, if only so it's out of my head and I can stop thinking about it.

Here is the introductory scene of the first draft for your perusal:

EXT. CITY RUINS - DAY

A MAN walks up to the edge of a lookout. Before
him lies the ruins of a large city. Most of the
city is rubble and the buildings that are still
standing have large sections missing. A giant
bipedal creature, the size of the tallest visible
skyscraper, is seen slowly ambling between them.
It is green, bat-winged, and has a face full of
tentacles. The creature casually brushes past a
building and its wall collapses.

The man watches on.

                   MAN (V.O.)
         This is what has become of the
         world: reduced to nothing more than
         rubble and dust. It has been this
         way now for over a year. Ever since
         that abomination and its army
         revealed themselves from beneath
         the waves to wage war on humanity.

The man watches the creature carelessly destroy
another building.

                   MAN (V.O.) (CONT'D)
         I call it a war, however, truth be
         said, it was more like a massacre.
         For the most part, the attack was
         unexpected, unprovoked and
         particularly brutal.

The man looks saddened.

                   MAN (V.O.) (CONT'D)
         There were some who were forewarned
         of this apocalypse however. A
         select few who were sensitive
         enough to hear the creature's calls
         through their dreams. I probably
         wouldn't have believed it
         possible... if I hadn't been one of
         them.

From there it will cut back to the present day and detail how the planet came to be in this state.

The Thing about Lovecraft...

I feel my first official blog entry should be about H.P. Lovecraft, the creator of the blog's namesake, and how I came to discover him and his writings:

Prologue

Back when I was in my teens, my Dad took me to a bookshop where I found a nice, thick horror-story omnibus. I had soon read a few of the stories within, one of which was titled "Pickman's Model" by an author I'd never heard of, named H.P. Lovecraft...

The Thing

John Carpenter's "The Thing" has been one of my favourite films since I first saw it. I can't remember when that was exactly, but I know that I have watched it many times since. It was at the end of 2006 that I decided to look the movie up online and try to find any information I could about it. It seemed that every website I came across had references to this H.P. Lovecraft fellow. At the time, I thought I recognised the name, but couldn't think where from, so I started to research further. I found a bibliography and noticed a story named "Pickman's Model"... and then it clicked!

An Obsession Begins

I began looking further into his writings and with the help of certain websites, in particular, Wikipedia, I started learning about his "Cthulhu Mythos" and quickly found myself fascinated. On January 7, 2007, I ordered a book of Lovecraft's works off of Amazon. It took me a while to get through it, but with each story I read, my obsession grew.

Modernising The Mythos

As with most major fiction writers through history, several of Lovecraft's works have been translated into film, and even into games. I quickly compiled information on many of these, trying to find the ones worth watching. It turned out that I had actually heard of a few of them in the past, the most notable of these being Stuart Gordon's "Re-Animator". Though I'd never seen the film, I did know of it. I sadly learned that most of the adaptations were rather bad, however I did discover a few gems amidst the dirt. As well as the films, I discovered a computer game called "Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth", and being an avid gamer, procured myself a copy post-haste. While not being the greatest game in the world, I did enjoy it, and thought it did more justice to the mythos than any of the movies.

I'm Not The Only One

Now with my obsession in full-swing, I found myself searching for "Lovecraft" in any avenue possible, and discovered a mass of fans, not just on dedicated forums, but on MySpace, Facebook, and now even Twitter! It seems that the bulk of these are from the U.S., which is understandable being that's where Lovecraft's from, but however limited, his reach seems to be global, which I think is truly deserving.

Epilogue

And so that brings me to this blog, titled from a popular line within H.P. Lovecraft's story, "The Call of Cthulhu", and which will most-likely have entries referring to him or his work at some point, seeing as my obsession certainly doesn't appear to be going anywhere any time soon...