Words by David C. Obenour
It’s a stormy Halloween night, 1986. While the brand new megaplex had packed screenings for Crocodile Dundee and Top Gun, a Spooktacular Film Festival drew one last larger-than-usual crowd for the basically condemned old theatre. The rest of the details remain unclear – a lightning strike, lots of people missing – leaving mostly unbelievable rumors. The horror from horror movies is made up anyway, right? Tickets and concessions are bought, the doors are sealed, and as one of the twenty featured cinematic monster from Spooktacular, you’re about to crash the third wall down.
Off Shelf: Horror is a popular setting for board gamers. How are board games unique in exploring our experience of horror? For better, worse, and different.
Brad Talton: It’s often tough to make horror board games because the players are in control of every aspect of the experience. In that sense, horror board games are often a bit tamer than, say, movies or video games. That’s good for a lot of players who don’t want such an intense experience, but it’s tough for designers who are trying to deliver it.
I wouldn’t really categorize Spooktacular as a horror game though. Spooktacular is more of a game about horror – and the culture of horror – than an actual horror game. It’s a bit like Millennium Blades in that sense – which isn’t a trading card game but a game about trading cards.
Todd Rowland: In my experience horror in a board game is completely different than in a movie, a book, or even video games. There is less of a visceral thrill due to the fact that it’s all objects on the table that you are manipulating. You aren’t going to have a monster suddenly appear in front of you like it may in a movie. Because of that we have to explore it from different angles. Maybe it’s the “I can be smarter than the teenagers at the camp and I’ll survive” challenge. Or in the case of Spooktacular, playing into the inherent silliness of a lot of horror and allowing you to be the monster. As they say, horror and comedy are the two closest related genres.
OS: Making a game centered around a wide collection of asymmetric horrors, what were the core elements of theme or play you wanted to be sure players experienced in Spooktacular?
TR: In Spooktacular keeping the play unique for each player was a major goal. We wanted each player to not only have an experience that is different, but also that could really fit the theme of the monster. When you are Regoo, we want you to feel like you are slowly oozing all throughout the theater, whereas when you are Killer Car, you have that frenetic action of racing around and collecting passengers… against their will.
BT: I really wanted each monster in Spooktacular to deliver an unique experience and have their own emergent conditions and narrative. In early design, the game was a lot more narrative, and you were trying to complete your individual movie plots, kind of like Villainous. Ultimately, we scrapped that idea to make way for a design that was much easier to jump in and play.
OS: What are some of your favorite thematic monster powers and style of play? Ones that you feel really match well or creatively story to mechanics?
BT: I really like Deadline, the phone monster and Beasts of Business, the stock manipulation monster. These are high concept monsters that really show off the breadth of gameplay you can achieve even working with really simple mechanics.
TR: I mentioned the two before but I would also say that Lantern Glow and the Host of Horror feel spot on to me. Lantern Glow pulls the unsuspecting guests to their doom with his lights, while the Host of Horror is able to “feature” the other monsters. I’m a huge mark for classic monster-movie hosts, such as Svengoolie, Elvira, Chilly Billy, and Joe Bob Briggs so that character feels right on the mark!
OS: Offering easy, intermediate, and advanced monster rules for players to choose from is an inspired way to simultaneously engage with gamers of all levels. Could you talk about what went into developing and balancing that?
BT: In an asymmetric game, it’s really important to deliver a strong foundation of the core mechanics on game one, so that you can go crazy on game two. It’s tempting to show the players the really asymmetric monsters first – because those are the big draw of the game for many players, but without that foundation they can lead to a lot of questions and difficult situations, especially for non-gamers.
So the decision to make levels of difficulty is really about creating a good experience for first-time players, so they can get to game two and so on, where the game really shines.
OS: The original setting of Spooktacular was in a Haunted Mansion, not a soon-to-be demolished cinema. Can you talk about the challenges in design that lead up to that decision?
BT: Originally the theme was also about real monsters in a schlocky sort of horror setting, all co-occupying this haunted house and trying to devour the limited supply of guests who wandered in. The game was always intended to be kind of a fun take-that with tongue-in-cheek humor but we felt like real monsters were making it too serious. Our theme needed to better convey campy horror. We also wanted some of the high concept monsters that were situations or scenarios more than individual creatures, such as Deadline and Beasts.
These concept monsters don’t make much sense on their own, but they make a lot of sense in the context of movies. For example, a monster like Grimhive is actually pretty grotesque and frightening. But what we actually want to present is the tone of a 50’s B-movie monster. We found that the best way to convey this aesthetic was to slap on a tagline like “The honey guzzling superbeast that swarmed the earth and took control of congress!” Now it’s really clear what the tone of this monster is meant to be.
Once we settled on movies as the context, going to the theater was the logical step!
OS: Though it answered some of your other needs, what new considerations for play did the change in setting present?
BT: It mostly just solved a lot of problems and was kind of the moment when everything clicked! Through all our discussions, we came to realize that horror culture is horror movies so there’s really not much you lose by framing it as movie horror specifically. Except that it’s harder to scare people but we already knew that we were going to camp and not scares.
OS: Changing to movie horrors, you produced a soundtrack for Spooktacular with a song for each monster. Could you talk about how this came together?
BT: When I’m working on a game, I usually build a playlist to help focus and set the mood for the design. I found that most of the tracks on my design playlist for this game were coming from the horror lo-fi producer Dated, so I reached out to him to see if we could collaborate. It was really easy and a lot of fun, and Dated had a really good vibe for how each of the monsters was going to sound.
OS: Can you tell us about your own relationship with movie theaters? Over your years of going to movies, are there any that stand out to you? What makes them special?
TR: There was a big complex where I grew up that had a movie theater, bowling alley, arcade, and skating rink all in the same building. It was the place that parents would drop us off with a small wad of cash and come back later in the day or evening. Yes, this was the 80s and parents did that. The movie theater aspect was a big deal to me, not just because we did try to sneak from one theater to another – I think the statute of limitations is up on that one [laughs] – but part of that thrill was sneaking from An American Tail over to Critters. It was dark, you were already tense that the teenage attendant might find you – back then you thought they actually cared enough to – and the monsters were wild and crazy. There was something just exciting about the big screen and the general lack of spoilers you had back then.
BT: Going to the movies was always a special treat for me as a kid, and I have a lot of fond memories there. Mostly though I remember browsing through the aisles at Blockbuster many, many times. I was always kind of fascinated by the horror movie aisles as a kid. I was curious about them but also scared to watch them! So there’s a bit of wonder and tension when I reflect on that genre of film. Even though I watch a lot of horror movies now, I worry sometimes that I’m going to get into something that’s too scary for me. [laughs]
OS: You set Spooktacular on Halloween night in 1986, why that year? What do you find exciting about horror movies and cinema from that time?
BT: It was a really great year for horror movies, in a really great decade for horror movies. Coincidentally, it’s also the year I was born, so perhaps I just favor it a bit compared to other years in the 80’s. [laughs]
TR: Not taking things away from modern filmmakers, but there was a sense of… realism, even in how wild and utterly ridiculous a lot of the movies were! Today there’s a lot of CGI, back then it was a puppet, or a dummy whose head was filled with red colored syrup for when it exploded on screen. Sure it was clearly fake, we could tell that even back then, but a lot of effort and love went into it. You watch Day of the Dead from 1985… sure the acting isn’t great, though it grows on you because even though some of it was really cheesy you could tell they cared about the movie. But the work the makeup artists put in to make that many unique zombies was impressive. Of course, there are few scenes even these days as rough as the one where Torrez is torn to pieces, all in full view up on that screen. And Spooktacular is a tribute to a lot of those movies that even back then ended up straight to video or USA Up All Night.
OS: I have to imagine there are fun easter eggs and homages to be found within the art for Spooktacular. Are there a few you could share?
BT: Sure! Here are two: The werewolves in The Wolfpack are drawn based on the real artists that worked on the posters in the game. The Credits on the Chortlin’ Charles poster are our actual team credits. Many of the other names are parodies of famous directors, actors, and studios. For example, Beasts of Business lists “John Sculptor” as the director, which is a reference to John Carpenter.
The map itself actually has a lot of easter eggs. The posters on the wall are early concepts of the monster posters, and some of the graffiti in the bathroom is an original tagline for the Listeners, and that’s just a start. There’s a ton of detail in there!
TR: There are a lot of tributes I would say. As I mentioned, The Host of Horror is a call back to Monster Vision, USA Up All Night, and Elvira’s Movie Macabre. Killer Car is Christine and Maximum Overdrive. There are a lot more to find!