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agentaw · 7 years ago

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Detroit: Become Human - Funny story...

Okay... so Story Time because my friends pointed this out and it’s been fucking with me ever since.

This is the story of how I kinda...sorta wrote/ predicted parts of DBH about...2 years ago. Just hear me out...okay?

So this all started similarly to how DBH started, with that dope-ass demo back in 2012. My 15 year old self became enthralled in it, much like I am now enthralled in the full game. I’ve always loved story telling and had a sort of soft spot for digital modelling. So that demo was a masterpiece to me, it had a great concept and beautiful design. It was a short obsession but it had an impact.

And that was the last piece of news I’d ever hear about it until a month after they released the full game. I remember hearing some rumour that they weren’t gonna make it a full game or something and left it at that. I didn’t hear anything about it’s coverage at E3 because while I like video games, I become absorbed in different obsessions from time to time.

And two years ago I was obsessed with Dungeons and Dragons, the thought of creating a whole world and having others enter it was fascinating. And while I tried to create worlds from scratch, I had a problem.

I had never been too interested in Fantasy things, I liked fantasy characters but tended to focus on too much of the political aspect of fantasy worlds and not the fun stuff like slaying dragons and stuff.

The return of an old obsession began to try and take my focus off of DnD but I wasn’t ready to let it go yet.

So I merged them, DnD didn’t have to be fantasy, I didn’t have to invent a world from scratch and luckily my old obsession had a world pre-designed. Marvel, specifically MCU had a treasure trove of lore and I could take a number of rules from DnD 5e and tweak them to suit the change in genre.

So I started off with a one shot campaign, set in a HYDRA base. My three player characters would be playing themselves and making decision based on how they’d react. They ‘woke up’ in a white plastic robot body. Singular, all three were in the same body, looking through the same eyes and rolling for control over said robot body. It was entertaining to watch them figure out what they hell was going on organically. They quickly met the first NPC an old doctor/sciencist who was a very nervous person. He explained that they’d all been loaded into the same body by accident and that he was just testing out that his creation (the body itself) was working correctly. So my players decided to answer the jumpy doctors questions and let one of them take control as the doctor got them to walk around while still connected to the computer around them by a bunch of wires connected to the back of their neck. The doctor left the room briefly (to report to his superiors) before returning and calmly explaining that he’d need to shut them down before making the rest of the bodies. Yes, this was heavily inspired by the demo but the players didn’t notice or didn’t comment on it at the time. And they genuinely really like the one-shot. So, I started writing more, growing the campaign and expanding my list of NPCs.

Now I know what you’re thinking, “wow...you ripped off the demo and think that counts as writing a whole game” but I never said I wrote the whole story, that would be mental. But as both me and my players have pointed out, there is a large number of similarities which is spooky because as i already stated I didn’t know anything about DBH until almost a month after it’s full release.

The first and most profound is Amanda. Or my Amanda, who’s called Ruth LaRue. Dr. Ruth LaRue, the trio’s psychologist/co-creator who acts pleasant (too pleasant) towards them...unless they disobey or resist their training to become Hydra Assets. One of my players is rebellious and LaRue has tried to manipulate and coldly threatened him as a result. While another obeys and gets praise and rewards as a result. Also she looks like Amanda (a character i didn’t even know existed), I originally described her as the same race, hairstyle, though slightly younger. And then I drew her (poorly) for my players to get a better idea of how she looked and Jesus Christ they look the same.

Another is the fact that I have three player characters. There was a possible fourth player but work and life made it difficult for her to be a part of the game. Also my players are two boys and one girl. And while that’s all freaky, their characters appearances/designs are extra weird. Originally, after all getting their own bodies, they all had white plastic robot bodies, all male design (which female player wasn’t happy about because she missed her boobs). The only way to tell them apart was voice and the nervous doctor had given them different coloured eyes. Creating robots came with the challenge of figuring out how their bodies worked (one player was particularly interested in this). Once again inspiration partly came from the Kara demo, the robots are a water (blue liquid) based system, a pump (heart) transports water, which is collect in bags (lungs) through the robots absorbing moisture in the air (through breathing), around the machine frame (body). The water has two purposes, to thinly coat the white plastic casing (skin), which allowed the robot to feel pressure but not texture and also to keep the pump valves going, which creates the energy the machines (players) are run on. After learning that the white plastic version could be easily broken during training, the nervous doctor created a second batch of models, this time made out of metal (female asked for a female body and therefore the doctor gave her a large dent in her chest plate, she was pleased). They then get a new model, ones that are designed to blend in with humans. And this is where this section gets super freaky. The player got no say in how they looked because in game they wouldn’t.

The female is the shortest model as well as they palest model with loads of freckles, the similarities with Kara stop there but the female player has been gifted a female kitten (thankfully named Cookie, not Alice) as the reward and is quite paranoid about it being taken off her or harmed (calm down, I haven’t hurt the cat...yet).

One of the males is only slightly more tanned than the female with considerably less freckles and markings. He’s the tallest and the player has been surprisingly obedient, only "failing” when he doesn’t understand what’s happen or doesn’t think something will benefit HYDRA. Because of this he’s been promoted to team leader by the powers that be. He’s logical and is usually thinking about training and what’s going on in the NPCs’ heads.

Lastly we have the second male who looks southern European (Spain, Italy, Greece and could probably pass as Mexican but the story is set in central Europe) so a different ethnicity/race to the other two. This is the rebellious player who generally plays pranks, cracks jokes and says “fuck you” to authority. Like I said before as a result, he tends to be the one looked down on and oppressed by the powers that be. He generally has a very clear line which he won’t cross no matter what and is willing to stand up if he views something as drastically wrong (refused to hurt his friends or pick up a gun).

Also when asked what they wanted to be called (I.e What’s your name?) The players decided to to sick to what the nice nervous doctor had designated them, i.e the colours of their eyes. Rebellious is Red. Logical is Blue and Female is Purple (name later changed to Violet).

Next is three more NPCs, who have enough in common with the DBH characters to mess with me.

The nervous doctor, Dr. Thomas Thornley, while having a completely different personality, has formed relationships like Hank. A number of the players refer to him as “Daddy Thornley”, not to his face but when talking to each other in game. And most disturbingly the rebellious player has implied on several occasions that he “ships” the logical male player with father-figure Thornley, jokingly of course. And while in the beginning Thornley may have viewed the robots as a project or experiment, he now appears quite protective and fond of them. Even displaying discomfort when one is broken or completely destroyed.

Their combat and gun trainer, Agent Woodrow who is ex-military and treats the robots exactly like you’d expect he would, like machines. He could either be Gavin or Captain Allen but either way he’s a genuine aggressor and dislikes/hates the robots.

The Head of Hydra, Director Malachi Storm who has an air of mystery around him and commands any room he enters. He’s considerable less creepy than Kamski but is an “all-knowing, all-powerful” character. Also I guess I’m technically also Elijah Kamski (a.k.a GOD) and my players pointed out that i have his sadistic, power hungry play style (thanks, guys).

Lastly is a few game mechanics and events i put in the game. The players have always been able to telepathically talk to one another, they can also transfer images to each other. If broken beyond repair (i.e Killed) they now get automatically rebuilt, similar to Connor. I made LaRue give them a morality test which was mostly the “Track dilemma” which is similar to both the driver-less car AIs and the Kamski test. I actually did the motherfucking Kamski test with one or two of my players (but with humans instead of androids lol). Also the players believe they’re alive (which technically they are). They’ve literally been give zero context as to how they are in robot bodies in the MCU, specifically they’re last memories before the start of the game are of going to sleep in their beds in the real world. They are literally three robots walking around stating that they’re alive.

And yes, I realise that Cage took shit from other movies but it have seen any of those movies so...:P

If I looked hard I could probably find more scary comparisons but a) I don’t particularly want to show all my cards, in case my players read this post, and b) I appear to have written a fucking TED talk out of what was supposed to be a short funny story.

#dbh #dbh connor #dbh kara #dbh markus #dbh hank #dbh amanda #dbh kamski #dbh everyone #custom dnd #dnd shenanigans #story time #freaky #what is life #thanks for coming to my ted talk

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aion-rsa · 5 years ago

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The Best Horror Movies of 2020

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2020 has been a tough year for cinema with theaters forced to close and release dates delayed. It’s a real rough break for filmmakers whose work was due to get a wide theatrical release and instead launched on PVOD or streaming services.

A double shame for horror since 2020 has been an excellent year for the genre in terms of quality, including a handful of exceptional debut films that in any other year would have been lauded in the same way as Hereditary, It Follows or The Babadook.

Den of Geek staff and contributors voted on their favorite horror movies of 2020 to produce this list – each is a gem worth seeking out.

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10. The Mortuary Collection

The problem with most horror anthology movies is there’s usually at least one segment that pales in comparison to the others, which tends to dampen your enjoyment of the whole thing somewhat, but The Mortuary Collection truly avoids suffering from the same malady.

In this debut feature from writer-director Ryan Spindell, beloved Highlander and Carnivale star Clancy Brown plays an eccentric mortician called Montgomery Dark who encounters a pretty young drifter looking for work. As Dark guides her through the strange inner workings of his mortuary, he decides to recount several unique and grisly tales that have all culminated in the need for his post-mortem services. Of course, all is not what it seems.

The Mortuary Collection immediately caught the eye of genre vet Sam Raimi, who poached Spindell for this year’s 50 States of Fright series over on the now-defunct Quibi streaming service, and it’s easy to see why: these macabre tales are all immaculately created to give horror fans the best anthology experience they’ll have had in years. – KH

9. The Wolf of Snow Hollow

Some might say that there’s only so much you can do with werewolf movies these days. Someone gets bitten, they get cursed, they’re doomed to kill innocents, and they’re mercifully done in by someone they love. Roll the credits. But Jim Cummings’ The Wolf of Snow Hollow breaks from that formula effectively while still remaining true to the spirit of the genre.

Cummings, who wrote and directed the film, also stars as a cop in a ski town overrun with a rash of brutal murders. A recovering alcoholic with anger issues, Cummings’ John Marshall is the son of the town’s ailing sheriff (the wonderfully warm Robert Forster in his final role), and John finds himself trying to come to terms with the fact that there may or may not be a werewolf in their midst.

The film’s oddball approach and deadpan humor can be a little jarring, especially when contrasted with the truly grisly aftermath of the werewolf attacks. But The Wolf of Snow Hollow paints such a sympathetic picture of its characters, and effectively builds its tension through them rather than an over-reliance on werewolf tropes, that it’s a must for anyone who needs a little more lycanthropy in their life. – MC

8. Freaky

The Friday the 13th franchise has been dormant for more than a decade. Which is just fine if we can get movies like Freaky, the best horror slasher we’ve ever seen set on that date. Stuffed with loving homages to both the Jason Voorhees franchise, as well as Disney’s own classic Freaky Friday brand, Christopher Landon’s Freaky is a wild genre mashup every bit as whacky as his previous Blumhouse high concept, Happy Death Day. Except just so, so much gorier.

Filled with slapstick kills and splatter, the movie’s real life blood comes from the dual performances by Vince Vaughn as the Blissfield Butcher and Kathryn Newton as Millie, the shy teenager he accidentally swaps bodies with. Both actors have a lot of fun playing very against type, but Vaughn’s commitment to depicting a neurotic teenage girl is especially satisfying because he so earnestly leans into it. A winking throwback with teeth, it gives new meaning to the phrase ‘gut-buster’. – DC

7. Synchronic

Synchronic is the fourth feature film from the directing/writing/producing (and sometimes acting) team of Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson. It’s also their most ambitious yet in terms of the scope, genre, and the pair’s working with bankable Hollywood names.

Anthony Mackie stars as Steve, a single, alcoholic New Orleans paramedic who learns he has six weeks to live just as he and his partner Dennis (Jamie Dornan) respond to a series of bizarre deaths linked to a new designer drug called Synchronic. Where Synchronic comes from, what it does, and how it affects these friends propel them on a reality-shattering journey.

The two chief aspects of Synchronic that make it work so well are the overall correctness of the story at hand and the compassion that flows throughout the tale and its characters. Moorhead and Benson have addressed the themes of addiction and time in all three of their previous features, but here they mesh them together seamlessly. In some ways, the eerie Synchronic is a transitional film for Moorhead and Benson: working with Hollywood talent and more resources than they’ve had before, it may also be their most easily accessible and mainstream film to date. – DK

6. The Lodge

As a movie that’s been unfairly overlooked, even before the pandemic, Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz’s The Lodge is one of 2020’s hidden gems. The follow-up to the directors’ Goodnight Mommy, The Lodge is the rare horror movie where you don’t know where it’s going, and if you can trust anything or anyone you see.

The film works as both generational conflict between stepmother-to-be Grace (Riley Keough) and the new children in her life (Jaeden Martell and Lia McHugh), and as something of a ghost story. Once they’re snowed into a cabin, and one strange disaster follows another, the gnawing realization grows that more than one party could be unwell, and that nightmares from the past walk among them. The cataclysmic ending is rhapsodic in its despair. – DC

5. Relic

This very personal story about three generations of women is the debut of Australia-Japanese filmmaker Natalie Erika James. It’s story about dementia turned into a supernatural body horror and haunted house movie with a very distinct visual style.

Emily Mortimer stars as Kay, a woman returning to her childhood home with her daughter Sam (Bella Heathcote) when her mother Edna (Robyn Nevin) goes missing for several days and can’t recall where she was. Edna flips between indignant independence and vulnerable confusion – the true horror of the film is in the idea of watching someone you love lose their sense of self. However this is very much a horror and not just a drama and the third act takes us into very dark territory turning the house into a labyrinth and dazzling us with some deeply unsettling imagery.

Relic is compassionate and very female horror which has things in common with The Babadook, not least the emphasis on production design – it’s a gorgeous looking movie peppered with horrific moments, with a shocking but tender conclusion. – RF

4. Host

The defining movie of 2020 is a horror that runs under an hour set entirely during a Zoom chat. This feature debut from Brit director Rob Savage is absolutely one for the archives. Made in just 12 weeks from inception to its Shudder release, starring actor friends of Savage who were already close mates, Host follows a group of pals who undertake a seance via Zoom. As hokey as that might sound, the film really isn’t. In fact it’s very scary and employs some ambitious stunt work, though the heart of the movie is in the performances. Semi-improvised and extremely naturalistic, the group already has a shorthand in place so that bits of backstory can be drip fed or implied without exposition. These are people you’d want to hang out with.

A lockdown movie (rather than a pandemic movie) of the moment, details like face masks and elbow touches make this the epitome of 2020 in film form. Savage and writers Jed Shepherd and Gemma Hurley have already inked a multi-picture deal with Blumhouse and production on their next project has already begun. A rare and well deserved good news story for the year. – RF

3. His House

Ghost stories can be scary. More often though they’re thrilling; a bit of escapist camp about what goes bump in the night. Not so in Remi Weekes’ directorial debut, His House. There is a supernatural presence in the dilapidated public housing that refugees Bol and Rial Major (Sope Dirisu and Wunmi Mosaku) are crammed into. But long before the ghosts go bump, the terror of the refugee trail between Sudan and the United Kingdom is made manifest.

Technically Bol and Rial are two of the lucky ones, a pair of Sudanese survivors who crossed the Mediterranean by boat. Yet memories linger. As does the cruelty and judgment of a strange land that begrudgingly welcomes them, but also threatens to deport them if there are any complaints about their home—and there are. How can there not be when the ghosts they left behind whisper between their floorboards?

It’s a somber parable that couches real world nightmares into a genre one, teasing out that the greatest horror doesn’t need spirits to be haunting. – DC

2. Saint Maud

One of the best films of the year of any genre is this feature debut from Brit director Rose Glass. In it, newly pious young palliative care nurse Maud (Morfydd Clark), comes to believe saving the soul of her dying patient Amanda (Jennifer Ehle) is her divine calling. Set against the faded glamour and squalor of a seaside town Saint Maud is social realism through a religio-horror lens, with some truly terrifying images, not least the utter gut punch of the final shot which will leave you reeling.

This is an extraordinarily confident debut which explores the disconnects between the mind, body and soul. Ehle is terrific as the glamorous former dancer whose body is letting her down in illness, but this is Clark’s movie. Buttoned up and prim, with a fierce temper underneath, Maud believes she is on a mission from a God who talks directly to her, but glimpses of her past suggest something more troubling is going on.

Part body horror, part possession movie, part psychological thriller and part mental health drama, Saint Maud is beautiful, scary and sad and puts Glass on the map as one of the most exciting filmmakers to watch going forward. – RF

1. The Invisible Man

It’s been more than 70 years since the original cycle of Universal Monsters ended. And it feels like almost as long since Universal Pictures first began attempting to reimagine the creatures. The last decade alone saw three false starts at reboots. But that all changed with The Invisible Man. Writer-director Leigh Whannell, alongside producer Jason Blum, had the novel idea to lean into the horrific aspect of H.G. Wells’ original 1897 text, and in so doing make it terrifying for a new age.

By reworking that novel’s concept, as well as James Whale’s 1933 classic, the film pivots from following a mad scientist turned invisible to instead focusing on the woman he wants to possess. In the process, the dread of staring into the film’s deep focus corners and margins becomes overwhelming, and the concept lends itself eerily to our post-#MeToo moment.

Elisabeth Moss is devastating as protagonist Cecilia Kass, who begins the movie escaping her tech CEO boyfriend (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) by the skin of her teeth. She then must look over shoulder the rest of the film. Experiencing as much a reimagining of Gaslight as The Invisible Man, Cecilia knows she’s being stalked by her supposedly dead ex, and when no one will believe her, she’s left to take extreme measures to finally break free. It’s a harrowing showcase for Moss, and a brilliant cover of an old standard.

It revives centuries-old nightmares and finds they look exactly like our modern demons. – DC

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