Interviews
‘Grave’ Dev On Crafting The Ideal Open World Horror Game
Written by T. Blake Braddy, @blakebraddy
It is evident in speaking with Tristan Parrish Moore, lead designer on Grave, an open world survival horror game, that he has thought about what makes them scary. He speaks in fluid paragraphs about where survival horror went wrong and how modern games like Amnesia and Outlast have resurrected the genre in a meaningful way.
Discussion, it should be noted, is a particular strength of Parrish Moore’s. He is an energetic conversationalist, well-spoken and passionate – and quite philosophical about game development – which makes him the perfect spokesman for Grave.
For example, to place Grave in context with earlier, more combat-focused survival games, he said, “The thing that survival horror did is it introduced a lot of mechanics that are inherently intuitive and fun to use, like shooting things and engaging in combat, killing zombies, all that kind of stuff. And then they basically set up a format where they were like, ‘But don’t use that, because it’s not effective or you don’t have enough ammo.'”
He has a point.
Which is one of the reasons why players in Grave will be equipped not with shotguns or magnum pistols but with fire to defend themselves. We’re not talking rocket launchers or flame throwers, either. Weak road flares and campfires keep the enemy at bay, but I don’t get the sense that players will be fighting monsters any more than they did in, say, Fatal Frame or the early Silent Hill games.
Grave will be about avoidance, and maybe defense, depending on how players decide to interact with this unsettling open world. They will toil in an vast desert landscape during the day, hunting for supplies that will help them survive near-hellish, nightly encounters overrun with monsters. They decided to split the game into two almost equal parts, so that the day environment would allow for a near-freedom in exploration without combat, and the other would emphasize how the environment allowed little-to-no protection against the creatures that arose from it. It’s kind of like the most horrific parts of Amnesia blended with something out a survival game.
But don’t expect to be picking berries all day. Though there is an element of resource management, Grave is not purely about going into the wild. “It’s not like ‘Don’t Starve,’ where you’re literally trying to survive in the wilderness or something,” Parrish Moore said. “It’s more akin to the old school survival horror concept of resource management as a method of surviving encounters with creatures.”
Think of the backpack from Resident Evil. Only so many items can be stuffed in there, so players will have to be cautious with how they hoard their supplies. They won’t be able to amass a collection of items to buffer themselves from danger, because the game will dynamically change in order to prevent players from becoming overpowered. In games like Dead Space, the idea of scarcity is drilled so purposefully into a gamer’s mind that s/he usually ends up with dozens of clips of unused ammo by the end. Not here. Grave doesn’t want to give the illusion of ammo scarcity but to deliver on it.
“We borrowed a little bit from stealth games, the idea of the right tool for the right job, so rather than having weapons that are inherently on a linear scale of being more or less powerful, each of those tools is contextually relevant.” Sometimes one item may be useful against one enemy and totally worthless against another, in other words, says Parrish Moore.
Which enhances the overall effect the procedurally-generated aspect of the game. Not only will players be subjected to an arid wasteland, but the wasteland will change around them to keep them from becoming too comfortable. The daytime land, from what I understand, is more or less stable – it does change somewhat – and that is when players are meant to explore, to gather resources, and to build a nest for the night.
When the sun goes down, however, nothing is safe. Not only is the physical structure of the world up for on-the-fly changes, but so is the length of night. So not only might you be subjected to an unfamiliar world, but the very length of time spent in darkness might be stretched to heighten the sense of terror and dread.
It’s a cool hook, and this divided world offers something more than just pure, unadulterated terror. Parrish Moore said, “The emotional levels that you get from exploring during the day and being in those moments of calm actually really enhances the horror experience when it comes to nighttime.”
The rules for death are less defined so far, according to the lead designer. Right now, permadeath is not a key aspect of the story mode. They are designing the game around two modes – story and survival – in which death is death in one and a more elastic concept in the other.
“We have an alternate roguelike survival campaign,” he said, “which is just a continuous trek through the experience, and during that when you die it’s over.” The game gets increasingly, exasperatingly more difficult, and death is final.
His thoughts on the story mode aren’t entirely more magnanimous to the player. There would be a penalty for death, sure – loss of items, a forced change in environment – but players would continue on despite that. “In the story mode, we’re almost treating more like you’re stuck in Hell, essentially. The world is oppressive and unending, so when you die you’re not released from it,” he said.
Parrish Moore compares the experience to early open world games, like Grand Theft Auto, in which players become excluded from the current encounter but can persist and keep playing. Again, it seems to represent a merging of open world, roguelike, and survival horror ideas.
Grave is currently seeking $30,000 via Kickstarter, a number drawn through some serious number-crunching. A lot of the development has occurred after work, long into the night, over the course of the last several months or so in order to bring the game to fruition. Parrish Moore even offhandedly mentioned that they thought about naming the studio After Dark Games (not knowing it was already taken), due mostly to the manner in which the game was coming together.
The game is slated for release on Windows, Mac, and Linux and will feature Oculus Rift support, and the team has experienced zero interference since the much-discussed Facebook acquisition. It is expected for a 2015 release, though no exact date has been announced yet. To support the game, head on over to its Kickstarter.
Of all the places to find a coven of witches, the attic above a Christian youth camp is probably the last place you’d think to look. But that’s just what we find in Camp, a surrealist nightmare of feminist empowerment from Canadian filmmaker Avalon Fast.
Emily (Zola Grimmer) is still reckoning with her involvement in a horrific tragedy when she accidentally contributes to the death of her best friend, Charlie (Giselle Morison). Unable to move on, the traumatized teen takes a job at a rural summer camp, hoping to forget her own sorrows by looking after at-risk kids. She quickly connects with a counselor named Clara (Alice Wordsworth) and finds comfort in her close-knit group of female friends. But a mysterious whisper from deep in the woods warns that they may be leading her down a darker path.
Fast burst onto the scene in 2022 with Honeycomb, a psychological horror film that follows a burgeoning matriarchy. Known for their focus on “Girl Horror” stories, the talented young filmmaker tackles similar themes in Camp as Emily leaves the modern world behind to embrace a dark vision of self-discovery through magic.
Ahead of the film’s U.S. release on June 26, Bloody Disgusting sat down with Fast to chat about the nebulous nature of good vs. evil and the intoxicating power of female-driven horror.
Bloody Disgusting: What inspired this unique story? Did you go to religious summer camps when you were young?
Avalon Fast: I did. I went to lots of different summer camps, but all of them were primarily Bible camps. The memory I have of camp is kind of strange. I was very homesick as a kid, and I didn’t necessarily enjoy all my time there. I definitely remember meeting some interesting girls at camp and having that presence of religion hovering around the whole experience.
BD: I really love the film’s gorgeous natural setting. Camp is the kind of surrealist nightmare that you don’t just watch. You feel it too. How did you approach creating this world?
AF: Well, a huge part of it was working with my cinematographer Eily Sprungman, who’s a very close friend. We spent years prepping, shot listing, storyboarding, and mood boarding. She’d had a similar experience to mine. We grew up around the same place, and so we understood each other’s visions from the get-go. But there are so many other pieces that came together. The costuming, the art, and the animated sequences were done by Sofiya Iurkevych. One of our producers, Taylor Nodrick, was obsessed with shooting on Super 8 film. I’ve always wanted to as well, so all the memory sequences were shot on Super 8. It was just a lot of people with an understanding and a vision for what this project was. I’m really happy with the way it turned out.
To the extent that you’re comfortable sharing, what’s your relationship to witchcraft, and what does Camp have to say about modern witches?
Well, that’s the question of Camp. It’s not that I don’t resonate with any of these things, but I specifically wanted Camp to be a little bit ambiguous around what witchcraft looks like. Is this witchcraft? Are these girls witches? Emily explicitly asks if that’s what’s happening here, and the answer isn’t yes. The film isn’t going to answer that question for you. My relationship to magic and witchcraft? It’s tough. I feel like there’s so much magic, connection, and spirituality that comes from these friendships, the closeness of these women, and what’s happening around them. A lot of what Camp is trying to say or show is just that magic can come out of friendship.
I loved watching these female friendships develop. And you’re right. No one ever says the word “coven,” but you can feel that connection, and you can see a change in Emily as those relationships grow. I’m also really fascinated with the way Camp plays with the idea of good and evil. At one point, Clara says, “Maybe God drew us to the devil,” which stopped me in my tracks. How do you view witchcraft or the magic these girls are experiencing in regard to good and evil?
That was such a huge part of the script’s construction. The story is really trying to keep a balance between those two things. I like asking people if they think these girls are good or bad, because I feel like a lot of people come out of the film thinking one or the other. They’ll say things like “thank God Emily found her people” or “God, I really wish she’d gone home.” I just don’t think there’s ever an answer. I wanted to explore the idea of going down the wrong path, especially coming out of grief. What makes you a bad person, and does healing mean you’re looking to become a better person? I don’t have an answer, but I do feel like that’s a huge part of what Camp is asking. What is good? What is bad? Why did God bring me to the devil?
Yes, because this is all happening at “God camp” in Emily’s words. So how can both of those things exist at the same time? Along those lines, I’m also fascinated by the voice Emily hears in the woods. Without spoiling too much, what is this voice asking, and what is required in return?
Emily comes to camp with a shout into the void, asking can anyone hear me? Does anyone want to? And it’s answered so clearly by these girls, specifically responding only with love, care, support, and trust. It’s like her prayers were answered. It doesn’t mean that everything is going to be alright, but Emily is looking for peace. She’s looking for a moment where she feels pure good. And I think, even at its surface level, she does get that experience.
Personally, I don’t really think people are good or bad. I think we all exist somewhere in the middle. Camp centers traditionally villainized characters, but that’s where Emily seems to find her peace, however you choose to define it.
I also wanted to show the experience of having decided that you are a bad person, you’ve made mistakes, and you feel cursed. Then when you meet other people who have done things that you would consider worse, you can actually feel good in their presence. You feel like less of a bad person. I think that’s a huge part of the story as well. Emily’s finding her version of other fucked up people, and she feels less fucked up around them. I’ve found that in my own life. It’s a cool thing. I don’t think it’s bad.
I don’t think it’s bad either. It’s finding your home, your people. We meet Emily in the aftermath of unthinkable trauma. Is this a story about mental health and healing?
Witnessing it myself. witnessing other people experience tragedy and then move through grief, you hear a lot of talk about healing or coming out the other side. There’s so much conversation around what that looks like, with self-care and showing up for yourself. I always felt really averse to it. It annoyed me. I think the beginning of the film speaks to that. The therapeutic version of what getting help looks like is obviously very different from what Camp is showing. And again, I don’t have an answer for what you’re supposed to do. But I think that’s another question I was asking: how do you heal? Do you heal at all? Is that the end goal, or are we just trying to get better? It’s something I experienced in my own grief. And the answer, for me, at least now, is just that I’m not looking to get better. So I felt like I hadn’t. I found it hard to find people to have those conversations with. And I think that’s what I ultimately wanted to make a film about.
I love that unanswered question. In my own experience, I’ve had to reframe what healing actually looks like. There’s not really an endpoint. It’s just finding a way to keep going. There’s also an element of sacrifice in this story, particularly regarding another counselor named Jo (Sophie Bawks-Smith). What role does she play in Emily’s journey?
For me, Jo is this human embodiment of Charlie, Emily’s friend. As Jo, she had a life at this camp before meeting Emily, and then was kind of taken over by Charlie’s spirit. I think a lot of people view Emily’s final choice as horrendous and tragic. In a way it is, but for me, if Jo becomes her angel, it’s almost like a self-sacrifice. Jo knows that by sacrificing herself, she’ll be giving Emily power to move forward. In the original script, the girls were supposed to bring out another counselor, JB (Aidan Laudersmith), and burn his body. But I just thought, there’s no way sacrificing this guy could give the girls enough power. There’s just no way, right? Logically, that just didn’t line up for me.
I’m glad you mentioned JB, because he has his own tragic arc. How do men factor into the world of Camp?
The way men factor into my world is so bizarre. I have such little respect for them in my films, which is something I’ve been called on. I think I have to challenge myself in the future to make a movie about a boy because, these boys … It’s not that the men in my films aren’t redeemable, but there’s no depth to these characters. They’re just treated with such disrespect. I don’t know why I do that, actually. That’s something for me to look into. It was the same with Honeycomb. They’re just such peripheral characters. I’ve had people ask about Kayne (Henri Gillespi), the scary guy at the fire, what happens to him? I just think, I don’t know. I don’t care. That’s not the point of the story.
Well, I can say after a lifetime of watching women on the periphery of the story, the course correction feels nice. In a similar vein, I’m in love with your homepage, avalonfast.com. There’s an image of girls on a film set and then a still from Honeycomb in which a blood-covered girl is screaming at the sky. And in the middle, it just says Girl Horror. It’s a really powerful statement that gives me chills. How do you define Girl Horror, and what draws you to these types of stories?
I was obsessed with the term when I started making my movies. It was something I’d come up with to kind of brand myself and describe what I was doing. Then I went through a period where I felt like it was a bit gender exclusive and didn’t interest me as much. But now I’ve come full circle on the term. I think it’s a bit of a commentary on youth and the horror of growing up female. But I think everybody can relate to that experience. I don’t want it to feel like this exclusive thing, that I make movies exclusively for girls, because I don’t think I do. I’m interested in exploring what Girl Horror means. Originally, it was just a title, something I came up with, and now it’s become something that resonates with people. You said it gave you chills. That’s cool for me to hear because there’s obviously some depth there.
Are you working on anything new?
Yes. I am actually making a movie about a boy. That’s the next thing.
That’s exciting! The more I think about feminism, the more I end up coming back to men and boys, because they have a place in the world of Girl Horror too.
Absolutely. It’s all just part of being human.
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