# Art and Music for PC Lovecraftian Adventure Game



## Terrormaster (Sep 27, 2007)

I was wondering if there's anyone here that has music and/or art skills who would like to be part of a hobbyist game development team?

I'm trying to put a team together to do a proper adaptation of Lovecraft's The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. The art direction is 1920's pulp comics style and the music is ambient electronic with the occasional melody in piano and soft dark chorals.

I've got all the coding and design pretty much covered (not saying those are done, but that I'm covering those bases). Although my dialog skills are not the best and could probably use some help in the writing department as well.

If anyone is interested please contact me and/or followup here.

Thanks,
-TM


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## Otaku (Dec 3, 2004)

I can't help on the artistic side, but wish you all the best with the project, TM. That novella is one of my favorites, read it many times. Ask me anything...


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## Terrormaster (Sep 27, 2007)

Thanks Otaku, it's one of my all time favorites as well and I have read it many times too. Out of all of Lovecraft's stories this one has always begged me for some sort of adaptation. I've also seen the movie The Resurrected (a halfway decent modern film adaptation, and probably one of the best screen adaptation of any of Lovecraft's work - but obviously modernized by Hollywood - typical) several times.

I've also played DreamCatcher's horror adventure Necronomicon: Dawning of Darkness. A pretty decent game that captured the spirit of the novel but they changed all the character names, reduced Dr.Willett (as Dr.Egleton) to a supporting character. They replaced him with a new character William Stanton as the protagonist, who's an old college chum of Charles' (renamed to Edgar Wycherly). William is drawn into the story when Edgar arrives at his door kinda looney. He gives William a small pyramid object and tells him not to give it anyone even himself. Then he buggers off... The providence map is a bit different too. They separated the bungalow and the ward estate into three locations (ward has his own house in Pawtuxet in addition to the bungalow). They also used the wrong Pawtuxet - even though it's called Pawtuxet in the game, it's actually Pawtucket which is to the north east of Providence. While in the book Lovecraft made it VERY clear that it's Pawtuxet village just south of Providence. Lastly they changed the end of the story completely.

Right now I'm mainly concentrating on events within Curwen's necropolis and have already drawn up a nice little map that pretty much holds true to what's described in the novel.










The two passages east and west of the central chamber I added for expansion as the novel indicates Willett circled at least half the chamber before finding the second vaulted corridor that lead to Curwen's laboratory. There are numerous doors that were not explored in the context of the story and he never found that passage which lead back to the door near the river.

Outside following the events verbatim and in a linear fashion I'm looking for meaningful things for Willett to do in the necropolis that would advance the plot and provide entertainment in the sense of gameplay. While not in the story, some for of puzzles must be added and creative license granted or the player might as well just read the book.

One of things Dreamcatcher did with Necronomicon that I did like are some of the puzzles in the Necropolis which includes having to revive a talking brain in a jar which hinted at Great Race activity and a solution that had shades of Herbert West. There's also a generator that needs to get powered up for additional lighting. And lastly the piecing together of the formula to bring up Hershell's (aka Curwen) nemesis.

-TM


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## Otaku (Dec 3, 2004)

That map is very much as I visualized the necropolis, too. Nicely done - all of the features are in there. Keep me posted on your progress, if you would. I've always been intrigued by the implications of this story and am still waiting for a director who could do justice to it without trying to "modernize" the setting or go over the top with the special effects. The tale spans nearly two centuries -most audiences have trouble identifying with a story that takes place in the early 1900's, let alone a prologue that starts nearly 200 years earlier.


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## RoxyBlue (Oct 6, 2008)

I feel as if I should go read some H.P. Lovecraft now - it's mentioned so often by people on this site.

Sounds like an interesting creative project. Do you already have some examples of the type of music you're looking for?


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## Terrormaster (Sep 27, 2007)

RoxyBlue said:


> Sounds like an interesting creative project. Do you already have some examples of the type of music you're looking for?


Ya, sure do... For the primary score I'm looking for creepy ambient David Lynch stuff. For some good examples, check out Lustmord (if the band sounds familiar it's because they scored the soundtrack to The Crow) or this guy I stumbled across on the Yog-Sothoth.com forums named Allicorn.

You'll be able to find Lustmord on Amazon. To check out Allicorn, head over to http://www.allicorn.dsl.pipex.com

I'm a huge fan though of motif's so I was thinking that Charles and Curwen should have their own themes which have melodies that are slight variations of each others (think how Williams composed Anakin's theme to overlay and move easily into Vader's theme). In addition I believe Willett should have his own theme as well which would be prominent any time we're at Willett's house. For this kind of stuff, I like the work that Cellar of Rats does (he scored the soundtrack for the game Scratches, by far one of the creepiest horror adventures - if you like the Myst point and click thing). His site, cellarofrats.com hasn't been updated in over a year but you can check out some of his work at http://music.download.com/cellarofrats/3600-10618_32-100975603.html

If anyone has played the first game in the Gabriel Knight series (Sins of the Fathers), another fantastic game, you'll recognize the conversation piece as I have some concept art for that:










Thanks again all,
-TM


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## Terrormaster (Sep 27, 2007)

Otaku said:


> That map is very much as I visualized the necropolis, too. Nicely done - all of the features are in there. Keep me posted on your progress, if you would. I've always been intrigued by the implications of this story and am still waiting for a director who could do justice to it without trying to "modernize" the setting or go over the top with the special effects. The tale spans nearly two centuries -most audiences have trouble identifying with a story that takes place in the early 1900's, let alone a prologue that starts nearly 200 years earlier.


I agree, and I would love to see this done as well. If I had time and access to talent in the area I'd shoot it myself indie style but definitely as a B&W period piece. Considering where I live it wouldn't be to far out of reach to even shoot on location. I'm actually surprised that the folks over at Unfilmable haven't tackled this one yet.

But none the less I eagerly await Del Toro's adaptation of At The Mountains of Madness which he promises will be done as a period piece. But with The Hobbit and all the other stuff he keeps shoving on his plate I can't see it happening for another 10 years - at the very least.

Now with his horror roots, I wish Jackson would tackle Lovecraft, maybe take on Shadow Over Innsmouth.

-TM


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## Terrormaster (Sep 27, 2007)

Official site is now live -- http://mythosadventures.com/


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## MooreEnt24 (Jan 17, 2009)

I am a working composer if you would like me to help you out with that. Here's a link to a few sample scores I posted on YouTube a while ago:

[nomedia]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0diMDLvLxg[/nomedia]

[nomedia]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8fORQJWzsc[/nomedia]

Shoot me an email at *[email protected]* if you're interested.


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## Terrormaster (Sep 27, 2007)

@George: I like what I've heard so far. Have you done anything of a darker ethereal nature, a little less orchestral and perhaps a bit more experimental? I'm not certain that the styles I've heard in the examples fit with the general theme of this particular project. But we have some other projects on the board for future production that would be a perfect fit.

George or anyone else who's interested in working on the Case of Charles Dexter Ward can now followup by filling out the form at: http://mythosadventures.com/openings-cdw/

-TM


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