16th May 2024 Chronic Migraines & Control's Assist Mode [Global Accessibility Awareness Day 2024]

This is an article that I began writing in 2021, and it's... a little different from what I've written about in the past. For some time now, I wanted to take some time to return to Control's Assist Mode. The creation of which was, in many ways, a game-changer. It allowed players to change the experience to fit them, making the barrier to access and enjoy the adventure easier. This is an article about how the game became a whole different and more positive experience when the mode was brought in. 

This is also an article about my stupid brain. 

The Original Control

In 2019, when I wrote my original review for Control, I spoke about its sometimes intense difficulty level and how the developers compared the game to the notoriously ruthless Dark Souls. It made a kind of sense; Jesse was in a new world filled with threats, and the only way to overcome them was to become more powerful. It's a story about challenges and overcoming overwhelming odds, and you can feel it when you play. Throughout the marketing, whenever the challenge was mentioned, the difficulty level always came with a sense of pride.

In the review, I talked about how Remedy delivered on their promise of providing players with a challenge but how it was tricky to say for certain how an adaptative controller or similar peripherals would work with a game's action-heavy, fast-paced sequences. At the time, I was thinking about player mobility, the speed at which you have to react to enemies. I don't have any mobility issues, but I have friends who play on adaptive controllers. Thinking back to the review, it was really the only issue that I had with the game, but it very quickly attracted some "git gud" trolling. 

It was something that I was somewhat expecting; at the time, Remedy had positioned itself in defending the challenge and difficulty levels. A small minority of gamers would later use it as a bar of entry or bragging rights, similar to Dark Souls or Cuphead. Admittedly, I don't see how the studio could have acted differently with the game they had at the time; even with feedback from previews, their course was set. I kept the part in my review, shrugged off those comments, and had conversations with people who had peripheral controllers and wanted to learn more about the game. While I was already interested in accessibility, particularly in games, Control brought everything into a new perspective.

After the base game was released in August 2019, Remedy celebrated the launch of The Foundation, the first of two paid DLC story packs for Control. Playing, I considered my old feelings about the challenge level, checking in with myself about which parts I was enjoying, which parts I would change, and how I might communicate techniques to players looking for a walkthrough. That's when something happened. Late into the DLC, a certain boss battle kept tripping me up, forcing me to return to a checkpoint. There was something more than that, though. Playing through that particular boss fight, I felt... odd. 

The Odd

It began earlier in mid-2018, and it was the general feeling of something... not being quite right. You know that weird sensation when you're spooked, or something brushes you, and your back tenses up? It was kind of like that, but constant. Sometimes, this was followed by neck pains, which I just put down to sleeping weirdly. Then, sometimes, I had back pains, which I thought was due to not sitting properly while working. Slowly I started getting headaches, and those sucked too. This happened slowly over about eleven months, so it was easy to explain that it was just over needing a new pillow or temporary stress creeping in. That year, I was still looking for full-time work, helped with three house moves, and lost an immediate family member, so, of course, it had to be stress, right? I would take painkillers, and sometimes it would fade, and sometimes just sleep helped. It was annoying, but I never considered it was more than that. 

Things would slowly increase. I would excitedly book coffee meet-ups (one of which was with Vida) or dinner and bail that morning after an incredibly rough night. Control was released the autumn that things were increasing. While I had a lot of fun playing it, I would play before bed and end that night having to have painkillers to fight off muscle tension or creeping headache or whatever my body had decided to do when I decided I was just stressing about a boss fight. Looking back, I don't know how much of that was unconsciously feeding into my review. 

Playing the DLC pack created a weird logbook of sorts. By then, things had progressed, and I had started taking more note of it. While I would get mild pain for some earlier challenges in the main game, I would feel much worse whenever I attempted The Foundation's boss fight, and it took hours spread over several days for me to get the right combination to take them down. After, I got to the next checkpoint, I saved, took 800mg of Ibuprofen, and went to bed thinking about the fight. I was mentally SO RELIEVED but physically not doing well. Looking back, three things came into play during that fight; sharp sounds, flashing lights, and physical stress. I could handle two with the current option settings, but the stress? That one was harder. 

At its most manageable, I would feel on edge and with a headache; I'd take some painkillers and spend a long time finding a good position to fall asleep. At its worst, painkillers wouldn't touch it. I would get a sharp stabbing pain behind my eye. It could be so sharp that I would spend the night throwing up from the pain, with my anxiety running on high. The first time it happened was actually in the early hours of my birthday, a case of perfect timing. The Foundation DLC was released a month later. Soon after that, I saw a doctor. 

Chronic Migraines

Fortunately, it ended up being nothing too serious despite the slightly alarming symptoms. Considering some of the genetics my Nan potentially could have given me, passing along chronic migraines at this point at least felt like coming off light. On my first trip to the doctors in early 2020, they suggested Migraleve. Those worked, but a couple of months later, it became clear that I also needed a preventative alongside. After an unsuccessful trial with Sumatriptan and anti-nausea meds, I ended up with Propranolol as a preventative  (a Twitter post suggested checking my blood pressure), with Migraleve for the episodes that try to break through. 

Chronic migraines are weird. Typically, they have three stages: prodrome, migraine and postdrome. The middle section is the one that most people know about, the other two are a little stranger. Prodrome is like a silent alarm going off inside your head; you feel like something is wrong, but it is accompanied by small indications like fatigue, mood changes or difficulties in concentration. It will be obvious in retrospect, but at the time, you're just grouchy and sleepy, and reading the same page repeatedly. This is when you should take tablets. This is also when it doesn't occur to you to take tablets. Postdrome is like a migraine hangover; you feel like you get hit over the head with a truck full of Monday, which can last for hours or days. You can throw things at the pain part, but there's not a lot to do with the rest apart from playing Ticket to Ride on your laptop or hanging out with a cat. When you're feeling brave, you may read a book on a back-lit ereader. 

Migraines are also frustratingly triggered by a lot of things, some of which are just ridiculous. They can be triggered by stress, anxiety, depression, sharp sounds (such as screeching car brakes or the ringing effect in movies), flashing or strobing lights, strong smells (heavily perfumed or unpleasant odours), caffeinated drinks, your menstrual cycle, a lack of exercise, and tiredness. All fairly normal so far, right? They can also be triggered by light on one side of your face, certain foods, temperature or the weather. So, you better start avoiding that... weather, I guess?

There are different categories for migraines, but for chronic migraines, you need to have it at least fifteen days per month, with at least eight of those days having migraine symptoms, and measured over a three-month period. It's also a grey area on whether it counts as a disability. I've had them for six years, diagnosed for four years. Whether they count as a disability depends on the doctor I'm talking to. It's also something that is commonly incorrectly self-diagnosed. Headaches can be overwhelming and deeply unpleasant, but migraines are specific to a sharp pain behind the eye. They, unfortunately, also can't be treated with the same medication you can throw at a headache. (That 800mg Ibfropfen often didn't work.)

By late 2020, I had prescriptions for my chronic migraines, but it wasn't a complete fix. I would still get them, but at least I knew how to approach them. However, Control had still highlighted a barrier for me, like yellow paint on a climbable ledge. There was one thing, though... I wasn't the only one.

Introducing the Assist Mode

As the game gained momentum, the Control community became increasingly interested in the ability to rebalance the difficulty level.

On August 27th 2020, Remedy announced the Assist Mode as part of their anniversary update, which also saw more Control Points, soft checkpoints, tweaks to the launch abilities, and the new arcade cabinet. The Assist Mode wouldn't mean anything to those who wanted the original challenge, but it was an absolute game-changer for those concerned about whether they could play it or enjoy it.

For some people, it was about making the game easier and playing at the pace they create. For others, it wasn't about preference or skill but being physically able. It's heartbreaking to feel isolated or excluded from something that you were so excited about because your body just nopes out on you. There's a lot of that in everyday life, but in entertainment, where things are specifically created as a form of escapism, the industry must keep pushing. Adding those settings isn't easy, and it takes effort, time and money, but for those who need it, it can mean absolutely everything. 

I'm lucky in that my chronic migraines has warning signs and prescription drugs that I can throw at them. I could still storm through Control, even if it was with some difficulty. In replays, I've used the Assist Mode to lower the barrier of entry, and it's made the experience so much more engaging for me. 

Gaining Control

As I haven't written an article about this before, and the topic is so extensive, I decided to write it from my perspective, but there are so many ways that improving accessibility makes a game stronger. I looked around to see how people talked about the update.

One name that immediately jumped out was Steve Saylor, who, as well as being a powerhouse, already did a video on Control's update. While the game had been in his backlog of titles to play, he talks about why it had suddenly jumped to the top, saying, "I wanted to see what Remedy was doing and could that change the experience for me. After playing with it for a bit, I actually also started to ask myself the question should all games have Assist Modes?" 

While the ten-minute analysis is inspired by Remedy's move to add the new mode, he looks back at previous adventures and the importance of the ability to put control in the player's hands. Crediting Celeste with the first use of an Assist Mode, he praises how much of an impact it has on players who want to tailor their experience, describing it as a "world of difference". 

As he talks, he shows the message welcoming players to try the mode. "Celeste is intended to be a challenging and rewarding experience. If the default game proves inaccessible to you, we hope that you can still find that experience with Assist Mode." Throughout the video, those words stayed with me, and it wasn't until a little later that I figured out why. As Steve touches on later, there's still a stigma attached to playing on the easiest setting or suggestions being considered cheats. Bringing in accessibility options doesn't change the game, but it does change how a player experiences that game, and with more studios incorporating them, it changes the discussion. 

Steve's video is more in-depth and highly recommended, but the more I looked around the discourse taking place about the update, the more I realised how well-received the mode was. 

On the Control subreddit, OctoMistic100 also asks a similar question, if Assist Mode is the future of gaming? "I am not a try-harder, I mostly play games for the scenery, the story and the gameplay, but not for the challenge," they write. "Surely I am not alone, and surely many players enjoy challenging sequences and feel accomplishment when they finally beat a boss. Personally, I usually quit when a sequence is too difficult and frustrating, not without bitterness because I cannot enjoy the rest of the game (which I paid for). Most games I know have some fixed difficulty levels, and because of unbalancing, the easy modes usually are just too easy, but I can be stuck somewhere on normal modes. And too many of them prevent to change the difficulty mid-game! That's why I think Remedy did a fantastic job with the Assist options, the devs made the game exactly as difficult as they wanted, but I can enjoy the full story even though I suck at aiming and dodging. I really hope more studios will be inspired by this mode."

That one thread alone has 48 comments and 83 votes up, and it's just one of several praising the Assist Mode on the subreddit. Another interesting thing is how people were responding to spam or bullying. As with my review, the thread had attracted trolls who tried to mock people using the options, but they were instantly shut down and told they were gatekeeping by community members. People were also more open to talking about their own disabilities, the sections that they struggled with or had rage-quit, with others were offering advice on which options they recommended for certain scenes. 

"I don't know if Remedy looks at Reddit at all, but I seriously wanted to thank them" describes kpres14 on the same thread. "I don't have time to play many games these days and used to only play RPGs where I didn't have to really aim. I don't have time to "git good" and don't want to be constantly frustrated trying to play. I love stories and art."

The End?

When writing this piece, I was tempted to dive into some of the analytics that were posted via the Control website or in Vida's IDGA GAconf talk and how it shows the strong interest in Assist Modes going forward. I planned to bring up how, after the update in August 2020, 64% of players turned on Assist Mode once and continued with it, and only 18% have no playtime with Assist Mode, and I would go deeper with it. But I'm going to stop there, because the data is useful, it shows demand, and how players were tailoring their experience. However, even as a data nerd, it's not all about the numbers. I'll get to that down the line. Somedays, it's just about the human stories.

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18th October 2019 How Nothing Could Quite Replace The Remedy Forums [Opinion]

The Remedy Community Boards closed down last week with the link now redirecting to the studio's main site.

I was a moderator on those forums and had been for about six years, but I only found out about that Remedy had decided to shut it down a couple of nights ago when I started to receive emails asking if I knew why it was suddenly gone after being "under maintenance" for two weeks.

I am pretty devastated that it's no longer around, so I wanted to write a little why it was important to me...

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23rd April 2019 Opinion: The Awkward Topic Of Quantum Break In Recent Months

In 2012, for my English Language course, I studied the use of language in marketing and specifically of that of Remedy's. This was in the early days of The Sudden Stop. I didn't know the community all that well, and I was jumping into a series which everyone around me had known for seven years. As I was going through interviews to learn more for my hobby, I decided to combine it and write my dissertation on how Remedy communicates with their audience. And it was a little surprising!

The use of language, how they talked about fellow devs, how they spoke to the community was unlike anything else that I had ever seen from a studio. What stood out for me most was how collaborative everything was, how much the developers would credit teams for their work or give shoutouts, but the thing which stood out from a language aspect was the number of times they used the word "we". Whenever the interviewers were playing cute and try pushing a subject, it would change to "I" do not represent the studio in case media outlets picked it up. I loved this approach by the studio, a very intentional decision to make the company more inclusive, and as a nerd discovering that was a fun tidbit into studio life.

Unfortunately, what I loved about Remedy then is what I feel that they need to address now.

As the years went on, the voice of the studio evolved, and while I'm slightly nostalgic for old communication styles, the thing which I'm the saddest about is seeing is how previous titles, particularly Quantum Break, needlessly take hits to promote Control. And unfortunately, it's been a common feature of interviews and of marketing this past year.

Official Quantum Break Screenshot

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I've written before on social media that I feel that Quantum Break is Remedy's most underrated title, which always gets replies stating "but... Alan Wake?" and while I love Alan Wake, it's also a title that received a lot of positivity and a loyal cult following its release. The PC release in February 2012 brought in a new audience that keeps the fandom alive today even in the absence of a sequel. With such a fanbase, Remedy has rarely been critical of Alan Wake and instead would comment about how much they adore the series and want to return to it. But Quantum Break? Not so much, especially lately. It's often brought up as a comparison, and in ways where the studio isn't talking about new achievements, but dragging down their previous work.

The unusual critical approach to the game isn't making me want to play Control, or understand how Jesse's adventure is an evolution of Remedy's approach to game design, but rather making me want to follow the studio and as a result, Control... less.

So why do I feel awkward and reluctant to hear Remedy talk negatively about their previous games? Well, there are two main reasons.

The first is the community. For a lot of people, that game has been a source of comfort and escapism. They saw themselves in Jack or Beth. I know people who cosplayed Jack, or created artwork or continued their stories in fan fiction. It's been three years since Quantum Break's launch, and the constant tributes continuing to roll in from fans who were "day one" buyers shows the amazing resilience and importance the title has had for people. And that's not nothing!

The second is the developers. If you're active in the Remedy community, then you would have noticed the sea of new faces coming in, as well as those who have gone on to new projects. While the studio frequently talks about teams expanding, they never speak about the devs that left, although in the space of a few years some of the studio's departments have seen massive transformations. By the end of Quantum Break's development, Remedy was a studio of 130. It was the first Remedy game that I had followed from start to finish, and the thing which stood out for me was the amount of passion that they spoke about the project from the start, and the relief and nervousness when it shipped.

Official Quantum Break Screenshot

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No game can be perfect, there are some things which I'm sure the developers would have liked to go back on, and it's natural that the studio will be taking what they learnt on the project with them for the next project. For a lot of people, Quantum Break was something that dominated a large part of their life for several years. And regardless of personal opinions on the game, there's a time and place to reflect critically on past work, but it feels... wrong to publicly criticize or be dismissive (especially the work of specific departments) to market the next big thing. The amount of demand on Quantum Break, from the publisher side, from the audience, from the concept, was intense, that the development pressure from the project is something which surfaces on social media even years later.

There's also the curiosity of how we will talk about projects in the future. I can't help but think about all of the work and effort that is being put into Control, will that be criticized in the same way once the new thing rolls around? On an employment front, would I really feel comfortable joining a studio that talks negatively, specifically about the work that developers had faced crunch on and had been a huge part of their lives for a number of years?

Will there be things in Control that the team did better than in Quantum Break? Definitely. With a lot of studios, there's usually an internal development postmortem after the release of the game. With each new project, there are things which the team learns and bring forward into their next project. They will know what worked and what needs tweaking, and the goal is always to make a game that you're going to be the proudest of in your career, and it was a major release, for some that would always be in their minds as Quantum Break.

The game doesn't belong to an individual or a department but to everyone who worked on the project and dedicated their time. But only a small proportion have been given a microphone and to give the studio a voice. After following their journey for six years, I seriously admire the amazing developers who worked hard to get Quantum Break shipped, and honestly, I think the studio should too.

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8th March 2019 International Women's Day On Role Models and Remedy's First Heroine

With Control being released this Summer, this year for International Women's Day I wanted to talk about role models, representation, and the importance of those elements not just in growing up but just as something that is just always there.

When I was a kid, I absolutely adored Lara Croft. I would spend countless hours in the garden having paused the first movie part way through because I HAD to run around outside and imagine that I was her. For me, Lara encapsulated everything that I wanted to be; confident, daring, intelligent, practical, fearless. She could beat up a bunch of bad guys while translating hieroglyphics and she wouldn't be too far from a quip at all times. For me, Croft was extremely influential and was my first steps into the gaming industry. As I grew up, I created a website and got involved in the community. As an adult, I would be asked to research contacts and help proofread Prima Games' Twenty Years of Tomb Raider book, and travel to E3 as a Community Ambassador for Rise of the Tomb Raider. The series would also inspire me to change dream professions and work towards a job in community management.

At my first ever gaming press event for the Tomb Raider (2013) reboot.

I had played those early Tomb Raider games since I was three, first looking over my sister's shoulder, but soon after I started using a different save to journey out on my own. Prior to actually playing those games, there was Star Trek Voyager, which began its debut mission the same year I was born. My parents had initially met at a Star Trek convention, with my Mum (another female role model of mine) owning a Trek magazine at the time which was later taken over by her mother (along with convention running), when my parents got married. Sufficed to say that the whole Trek series had been a major influence. So being born in the same year that Tomb Raider was being developed AND that Star Trek had their first female captain was in-retrospective extremely exciting... and at the time felt completely ordinary.

The fact that both companies had put women front and centre then was a MAJOR deal. Initial concepts of Tomb Raider featured a male Indiana-Jones type character with a whip and a hat, believing that games with female protagonists weren't profitable. And with Trek, it was building upon a franchise which was mainly male-dominated. The Trek franchise had always focused on, especially in marketing, the big three figures and for the first time, Voyager had all three spots taken up by women; Janeway, B'Elanna and (later) Seven of Nine. But while it was a huge deal, having female-dominated shows and games wasn't something that I specifically thought about, it just felt like women were sharing the same spotlight that men usually had in the industries. Looking back at it, it's obvious that it was much more of a positive shift than I realised when I was a kid, and I'm excited it's something that both childhood passions have gone on to celebrate badass heroines in later years.

Rise of the Tomb Raider Cover Artwork

The weird thing is that while I expected role models to be more of an aspect of my childhood, as an adult, I'm finding myself reaching to books and media that celebrate the achievements and bravery of women more and more. It's in their stories that I'm motivated each day.

In Real Life

As I've grown, I've also looked for real-life inspiration. I'm in awe of the work that NASA's Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson and Katherine Johnson achieved (spotlighted in the book, Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly, which later became the movie, Hidden Figures). While so very different, another one of my favourite books is Geisha of Gion by Minako Iwasaki whose extraordinary life was curated from a childhood filled with restraint, careful dedication to tradition, and extreme focus. Malala Yousafzai is another individual that I think is absolutely amazing; she was shot by the Taliban for speaking out that girls should have the right to an education, but survived and continues to be an activist with her father for female education. Her strong focus has led her to become the youngest Nobel Prize laureate at 17. And earlier this year, I read Eva Schloss' After Auschwitz, a beautifully written and extremely informative book but one that is very difficult to read at times. All of the chapters are carefully phrased and considered but, even over sixty years on, her raw emotion comes through, and her bravery in the face of everything has stayed with me.

All of these lives are so different and while challenging to read about the adversity they faced, their strength to rise above it despite that is really admirable to me. They've gone on to motivate others and tell their stories, and inspire hope.

In Fiction

Sabrina Gabrielli's artwork for the release of Nancy Drew #1 (The Secret of the Old Clock)

As my hobbies are rooted deep in geek-culture, I feel that there's an importance of heroines in our fiction too. When it comes to the expansion of female leaders in popular culture, I'm genuinely excited about the effect that films such as Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel have had. The former I absolutely adore, but only got into as an adult. My bookcase now is dotted with Wonder Woman statues, Funko Pops, and comics with various incarnations alongside each other.  Whenever I've had a rough day, it's my go-to movie. And in all my watchings of it, I have never not had goosebumps when Diana storms across No Man's Land. On a different shelf of the same bookcase is some Nancy Drew books, a heroine again less so from my childhood but from my teenage years. I love Nancy Drew for a bunch of reasons, and I've always thought that being deterred away from an awesome female teenage heroine by my English teacher at the age of twelve was always weird, especially as those books were such a joy to read. Now I have a collection of tweed-bound 1930s Nancy Drew books and a shelf that smells like vanilla whenever I walk past it. While I love my Kindle, an aspect of the ND series that I really admire is its resilience and timelessness, and for me, those tweed-covered classics represent that. In a few weeks, there's a new movie coming out based on the second book but modernised for a new audience, not bad for an 89-year-old lady!

In Control

For International Women's Day this year, I wanted to talk about role models because, while there have been many badass women in Remedy's twenty-four-year history, this year marks the first Remedy game launched with a female protagonist, Jesse Faden. I especially liked this for two reasons. The first is that it's a break in the tradition of strong male protagonists for a strong female protagonist. The second is that, if done right, Jesse has the potential of being another role model for women alongside characters like Lara Croft, Clementine, Ellie, and more.

In the game, Faden becomes the Director of the Federal Bureau of Control and must battle an otherworldly force which has infected the FBC. She is driven and is searching for answers about a mysterious event in her childhood, unafraid of the curiosities that lurks within the shifting corridors. But while we don't know too much about the character yet, the backstory that we do know paves the way for her to be a memorable heroine.

Artwork for Control

Which is why, a couple of weeks ago, when Remedy and 505Games arranged a Q&A with Control's lead actor, Courtney Hope, as soon as the prompt was posted asking for questions my mind immediately went to role models and strong women who had inspired more strong women. While initially a character-centred Q&A there was a lot of interest and questions for the actor, which led to a second interview recorded in addition to the in-character interview. Here is what Hope had to say:

"For me, I definitely took the embodiment of what a strong, inspired, passionate woman was from myself and just from other women around me. Women in my family; aunts, grandmother, my mother, and then other women out in the world, other people I’ve worked with or other celebrities. Just what it meant to have that something inside of you, a fight, something that you’re passionate about and you’re fighting for, or searching for, or curious about. Whatever that meant and tried to encompass all of that into who Jesse was, was kind of my goal. So it was more of a broad spectrum of what the definition of that strength and hero meant and how can I find that in, y’know, physical attributes, and body language and emotion and all that stuff." - Courtney Hope (Community Q&A)

Joining the community back in 2011, I loved Remedy's intriguing adventures and multifaceted characters, especially their protagonists. While I would love a sequel to Alan Wake or Quantum Break, I'm excited that when Remedy went for a new IP, they decided that their new lead to be their first heroine. And I'm looking forward to exploring the mysteries of the FBC building with Jesse.... even if it will make me think twice about checking the fridge for lunch.

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22nd February 2019 Retrospective: Alan Wake's American Nightmare [How Remedy Developed a Game in Eight Months and Marketed it in 74 Days]

On Wednesday 22nd February 2012, Alan Wake's American Nightmare, developed by Remedy Entertainment Oy and published by Microsoft Studios, was launched exclusively on XBOX Live Arcade.

While Remedy was fairly open about the development of American Nightmare through their community events and interactions, a lot of the studio's activities and plans during the years following Alan Wake's launch were hidden from public view. Unknown to fans at the time, the team were working on American Nightmare knowing that Alan Wake 2 wouldn't be developed for a few years to come. At the time, AWAN was described as a project that came about after experimentation with a horde mode that developed into a stand-alone title. Following the announcement of Quantum Break, Remedy expanded further on American Nightmare's origins with the developers focusing on a smaller digital title to bridge the gap between AAA projects, and to have the chance to work again on the Alan Wake series before it went into hiatus.

Official promotional artwork for Alan Wake's American Nightmare.

Prototyping Alan Wake 2
While Alan Wake gained a passionate cult following over the years, its launch was somewhat turbulent. In addition to being released on the same day as Rockstar's Red Dead Redemption in North America, the game was also impacted by the exclusivity deal with Microsoft and was often targeted for piracy. Despite issues out of the developer's control, Alan Wake was received very favorably. At the time of writing, the original holds an impressive 83% Metacritic score, 9/10 on Steam, and 96% approval rating on Google, although many of the positive reviews were added after February 2012 when the game came to PC with publisher Nordic Games (now THQ Nordic).

Back in 2010, while work on the series was continuing in the form of two DLC packs; The Signal and The Writer (released 27th July and October 12th 2010 respectively), initial prototype work had begun on an Alan Wake sequel. "For Alan Wake, from the get-go, we assumed there was going to be a sequel and we mapped things further out when it came to character, story, details and focus changes," Remedy's Creative Designer, Sam Lake stated in an interview with Polygon in April 2015. " We knew we would have to iterate and refine, but there was always a rough road map there."


To win over potential publishers, Remedy created a thirteen-minute demo described as a "mood piece". The setup for the piece focused on a documentary maker searching for the truth behind the urban legend, Alan Wake. The demo introduced, among other things, the blending of cinematics and live action in the same shot, the introduction of Mr. Scratch as the possible antagonist, greater interaction between the Taken and the environment, new gameplay styles, new puzzle mechanics, and new enemies with specialized attacks. Despite interest, Microsoft was looking for something new; a new IP that would be theirs, and something exclusive for their upcoming console. The discussion quickly turned to an idea which later evolved into Remedy's 2016 title, Quantum Break, and the studios had a deal.

With the new game project agreed upon, the decision to develop something new with Microsoft created a slight issue with the studio; it would take another six months to hammer out the details for Quantum Break's IP. Knowing that it might be a while before they could work on another Alan Wake, the developers began work on a stand-alone digital title later announced as Alan Wake's American Nightmare.


Creating The Concept / The Story 
Alan Wake's American Nightmare is an arcade title split into two experiences; a story mode and a horde mode called "Fight Till Dawn". The latter gave life to the project having originally started as an in-office experiment and competition. While the former was the thing which gave the idea and game its shape.

By the end of Alan Wake, the headcount at Remedy was around 50 developers, but the studio was also heading into their first iteration of the multi-project studio model with one team focusing on AAA experiences and another targeting mobile gaming; the change was the start of major employee growth for the studio, and to date over 220 employees are working at the company. For eight months, the AAA team worked on AWAN as details about Quantum Break were being discussed with Microsoft.

Concept artwork for the motel and oil derrick.

From the start, American Nightmare was locked down to be a standalone title, a spin-off rather than a sequel. "Anyone can jump on board and play it, even if they have never played Alan Wake." Lake describes in the second developer diary. "Then again for the fans of Alan Wake, there is a huge amount of optional content that takes Alan Wake's story forward." The optional storytelling came mainly in the form of manuscript pages which explored how Wake's friends and family were coping following his disappearance and the impact the events had on the writer himself. While Remedy was cautious not to get too deep in sequel territory, they did revisit a character whose intentions was left open in the original title; Mr. Scratch.

For the new game, the team moved away from the lush forests of Bright Falls in the Pacific Northwest and to the deserts of Night Springs, Arizona. They replaced the familiar guiding voice of Alan Wake (Matthew Porretta) for Night Springs' narrator (Lloyd Floyd) to lead the story. Blues and blacks were changed to reds and golds for the aesthetic, as the game also underwent a tone change; while still recognizably Alan Wake, the team was influenced by B-movie classics, Quentin Tarantino,  urban legends and 1960s Americana. For the spin-off, the game would be set in an episode of Night Springs, an in-game television show introduced in the original.

In his Complex interview, former-CEO, Matias Myllyrinne expanded on the narrative's team challenge to put together a story and script which would target both old and new fans, "I think the biggest challenge, from a storytelling point of view, was balancing, making sure that anybody could get in and understand, to make sure the story stands on its own two feet and makes sense. But for the fans of Alan Wake, it needs to take the story further and expand it, because that’s what they loved and they expect that. I think we’ve pulled it off, mainly because of Sam’s and Mikko’s [Rautalahti] clever writing."

Live action cinematic. Mr. Scratch and Alan Wake, played by Ilkka Villi.

During the development of American Nightmare, the Alan Wake 2 prototype was used as a reference with many of the new assets, models and experiments carried across to the new project. While the story wasn't a major focus in the prototype, elements of it were brought out and expanded upon. One of those story elements was having Mr. Scratch as the antagonist. In our interview with actor Ilkka Villi back in February 2012, he described his experiences bringing both Wake and Scratch to life. "Alan has been with me as a character for many years now, so he has a very special meaning for me. But let’s face it, the guy can be a bit uptight and serious. Mr. Scratch on the other hand... That dude knows how to let loose and have some fun. Okay, people do get killed in the process, but for Mr. Scratch, that’s the way the cookie crumbles. I must say I had a lot of fun playing Mr. Scratch. We were aiming for something that would be funny and disturbing at the same time. I hope we succeeded."

Another aspect adopted from the prototype was the ability to rewrite reality by matching the situation to what was written in the manuscript pages. While it was different from the prototype's demonstration, it did pave the way for additional puzzle solving in the game and present something to possibly built upon in later installments. In the final stages of the game, the rewriting reality gameplay demonstrated additional potential when players were asked to match the manuscript page exactly by interacting carefully and correctly with items placed in the area.


Creating The Concept / Fight Till Dawn
Before work on the game had even begun, its horde mode existed purely as an isolated side project. It was from this that the first part of American Nightmare was constructed.

Speaking to Complex, Remedy's former Head of Franchise, Oskari "Ozz" Hakkinen, commented on the feedback for Alan Wake and its impact in American Nightmare's development. "One of the things that came up with Alan Wake was that people wanted to see a bit more escalation in the threat, in the enemies, and perhaps in the types of weapons as well. Core combat mechanic was great, but they wanted to see more escalation. So we started looking at it like, 'Well, what could we do?' Alan Wake is a franchise that’s very close to our hearts, so we just took it all the way to the extreme, and kind of made these white, boxed, arcade action maps, where we threw in lots of crazy weapons and lots of crazy enemies." At the Remedy offices, developers began competing for the best score, writing up their scores on a make-shift whiteboard leaderboard. It was from this inter-office competitiveness that Ozz reveals the interest to release on XBOX Live Arcade came from.

Concept artwork for the Grenadier. Artwork by Jens Claessens.

One of the most notable additions that the game brought to the series was further enemy variety. While Alan Wake had quick-moving enemies which could dart around the trees at a dizzying speed or Old Gods of Asgard-representing hard-hitters, the team wanted to expand and bring in some more supernatural baddies for their latest adventure. The goal for new enemy types led to the creation of  Birdman, Grenadier, Splitter, and the Giant.

Initially trialed by Remedy in the Alan Wake 2 prototype, the "Birdman" is an enemy who could manifest as human or as a murder of crows. According to an interview by The Escapist, the design for Birdman was created as a "homage to Angry Birds" by Rovio. New enemy types also included the Grenadier, a rather shy enemy who stayed away from the action but provided backup in the form of darkness-filled grenades. Splitters would be tough but a ray of light would split apart his body turning him into two quicker but weaker Taken. The Giant is the toughest and largest of the Taken seen so far in the series; armed with a concrete saw, his attacks are one hit kills. An enemy type which was considered but which didn't make it into the game was a werewolf-like Taken, a concept later revealed in later released artwork.

The result of the experimentation led to a fully-fledged horde mode called "Fight Til Dawn" featuring five maps; Cemetery, Ghost Town, Oil Fields, Caves and the Trailer Park with the nightmare mode of each unlocked after the player collects a certain star rating in the maps. In this arcade mode, Alan must battle against the forces of Darkness in a series of waves, each more challenging than the previous and survive until sunrise (10 minutes).


The Reveal & Marketing
The timeline between the reveal and the release was exceptionally short; while Alan Wake was first shown to the public five years before its release, and Quantum Break was announced three years before it launched, American Nightmare was officially announced just three months before it was available. In just 74 days, Remedy had to announce, market and release a brand new title in a mad dash to get the word out internationally.

The VGA stage. Photo from the Alan Wake Facebook page.

Initially teased on IGN with the full title and a first-look screenshot a month earlier, the full announcement was made during Spike's VGA (Video Game Awards) on 10th December 2011 with an exclusive trailer showcasing a mix of live action and gameplay elements. Within minutes of being revealed, the term "Alan Wake" picked up international interest and began trending on Twitter.

A press release followed the announcement, uploaded on 19th December it revealed that the game was due to be released in the middle of the first quarter of 2012. And at the start of 2012, Remedy descended to CES in Las Vegas to talk about their latest title. Due to the quick turnaround from the reveal to release, CES was the only real event that the game was shown at, but one-to-one meetings with international media outlets provided additional coverage of the game. In the lead up to the launch, Remedy also recorded a three-part mini-documentary series for YouTube featuring Sam Lake (Creative Director), Ozz Hakkinen (Head of Franchise), and Matias Myllyrinne (CEO), with guest star Ilkka Villi in the role of Mr. Scratch. The videos were scripted with a direct-to-audience style which dived deeper into what fans could expect to find in Wake's latest adventure.

Ozz interviewed by MajorNelson. Photo from the Alan Wake Facebook page.

Alan Wake fans were happy to see that, once again, Finnish rock band, Poets of the Fall, returned to collaborate with Remedy. Their previous work with the developers includes incredible tracks such as Late Goodbye for Max Payne 2, and Children of the Elder God with The Poet and the Muse for Alan Wake, all beloved songs in the community. For American Nightmare, the group recorded another two; Balance Slays the Demon and The Happy Song, the latter of which was frequently used in the game's marketing most notably in The Pyscho Trailer.

The marketing and launch of American Nightmare was also aided by another release just over a week earlier on the 16th February 2012, which saw the original Alan Wake title released for PC by publisher Nordic Games. Additional coverage for the game was provided by Microsoft who included AWAN in their month-long event dedicated to arcade titles, XBOX Live Arcade House Party, which also included Warp (Trapdoor), Nexuiz (IllFonic), and I Am Alive (Ubisoft & Darkworks).


Reception and The Future of Digital
When Alan Wake's American Nightmare launched on 22nd February 2012, reviews were favorable. While it wasn't a sequel, and a noticeably smaller spin-off project, the game rocked up a healthy 80/100 across a number of publications including XXLGaming, EGM, Digital Trends, XBL, Official XBOX Magazine, and GamesRadar. Critics praised the title for its horde mode, creepy antagonist, storytelling through manuscript pages, and the new approach to action, but were also eager to get their hands on a sequel.

The title cost 1200 MSP (Microsoft Points was a soft currency used in the sale of XBOX360 titles, it was discontinued in August 2013), the equivalent of £10.20.

Official screenshot showcasing American Nightmare.

The game's initial digital-only release was a subject of interest in the press and was brought up repeatedly in interviews. While digital content is more common now, even just seven years ago the topic of making a digital-only title created concern. Speaking to Digital Spy, Aki Järvilehto (former EVP at Remedy) mentioned that "the digital platforms were maybe not so much of an option until the last few years, but they certainly are now.” Similarly, Mikko Rautalahti (former Narrative Lead at Remedy) had also spoken to True Achievements about how the industry was changing, "I really can’t discuss our future projects, so I won't even get into that, but speaking about this in general terms, yes, absolutely, I think the future’s digital. I wouldn't want to put a time frame on that as such, and I do realize that there are still technological issues that may affect this, but year by year, we're seeing more and more quality games that are being made primarily for the digital market. It’s just the way the technology is evolving."

Official screenshot showcasing AWAN's Fight Till Dawn mode.

Just two years after the launch of American Nightmare, Microsoft started to target digital distribution with the reveal of the XBOX One console notably without a disc drive, a decision later changed but looks to be reintroduced in the near future. With the growth of Netflix in recent years, the growing importance of Steam as a platform for exposure, and ebooks becoming more commonplace, even just in the past five years, digital content has expanded how we play games and interact with the world. And between the launches of Alan Wake and American Nightmare, Remedy was already shaping up to tackle the digital market. They had split their company into two groups, one group focusing on the next AAA title, the other on mobile gaming. While it looks like they won't be jumping to digital completely, the PC version of Remedy's latest title, Control, is to be released solely through the digital marketplace, Steam.

While American Nightmare was released digitally on XBOX Live Arcade, it did eventually get a physical edition for the PC release in June 2012. By the time that the arcade title was released, Quantum Break was already in pre-production with Alan Wake 2 put on an indefinite hiatus.

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14th October 2018 Retrospective Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne Celebrating the 15th Anniversary of the Game's Launch

In October 2003, just eighteen months after the release of Max Payne, Remedy launched their highly-anticipated sequel, Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne.

Described as a "film-noir love story", in this new adventure, Max's is reinstated as a NYPD detective but a warehouse bust leads to a startling realisation as a ghost from his past comes back to haunt him, Mona Sax, an assassin previously presumed dead and with answers to the questions Max is seeking. As prior connections turn into enemies, Max must retrace his past to learn the truth of the events that led him here.

Building Upon Success

Building on top of the original game was a challenge in itself. The first Max Payne was massively successful, gaining positive review scores and a hefty 89 Metacritic rating. The original has sold over 5 million units to date worldwide and achieved recognition by Microsoft and Sony, who respectively awarded it "Greatest Hit" and "Platinum Hit" statuses. The game was also awarded a BAFTA, calling it the "Best PC Game of 2001, as well as a Golden Joystick Award, among many others. To complete a sequel living up to expectations and within the time constraints was going to be a tough demand.

One major thing which made the development of Max Payne 2 different to its predecessor was that Remedy went into the project knowing that it would be their last Max Payne title. In May 2002, Take Two released a press release announcing two things; that a sequel was underway and that the publisher had purchased the Max Payne IP from Remedy and Apogee. The MP franchise had brought them $10 Million, 969,932 shares of restricted common stock (stock with conditions) and "certain future development incentives" according to the release. The acquisition would allow Remedy to move onto other IPs, later revealed to be Alan Wake, and give financial backing into getting the project off the ground.

Working On The Sequel

"Making a sequel is obviously different from making the first game," Sam Lake stated at his Jeux Vidéo Masterclass in 2015. "The first game of a franchise always requires a lot of prototyping and a lot of figuring out, and once you’re done with that, building on that foundation, it’s much faster, much easier. Making Max Payne, we didn’t plan for a sequel at all, once again, no real experience. We were just aiming for the end of the project, to get it done, there was no absolutely no thought about doing more Max Paynes at that point." Soon after the launch of the original title though, the sequel was on the books.

For Max's second adventure, Remedy brought additional realism by integrated the Havok engine, creating ragdoll physics. Speaking to Beyond3D in 2003, Remedy's Project Lead on Max Payne 2, Markus Mäki described that besides the graphic novel, the story, character creation, and the environment taking the greatest amount of time to develop, that "maybe the biggest programming efforts went into integrating Havok physics and making a new version of our level editor, MaxED. Both were crucial in getting the level of detail we wanted to have in the game." Originally due to make it's debut with Half-Life 2, Max Payne 2 incorporated the new Havok 2.0 physics engine more than a year ahead of Value's upcoming title.

In addition to the physics engine, major rewrites where underway across the board. Speaking to Shacknews that same year, Petri Järvilehto (Lead Game Design) summed up the technical improvements saying that the team "basically started out by taking the game engine apart and then rewriting big chunks of it. The radiosity lighting has been completely re-written, we got rid of all of the old AI code and took the AI to a new level of sophistication, and the texture resolutions and polycounts have been boosted to lot higher levels. All of the skins are now using DX shaders (so yes, light reflects properly on the eyes) which makes a world of difference on the lighting if you have the hardware that can take advantage of it. Also, we've taken the particle systems much further." All of this went through a rewrite within the eighteen months of development.

New Faces For Familiar Names

With a tighter schedule for the sequel and an expanded budget, the team could now afford to bring in actors instead of returning to the developers to fill out character roles. The most notable of which came with Max Payne whose previous "face", Sam Lake, now had the tough job of writing the script for the sequel in a fifth of the development time that the original title allowed, a challenge that Sam expanded on in an IGN interview back in September 2003. "Max Payne 2 is a lot deeper game than the first one was. The screenplay for the sequel ended up being three times longer than the script of Max Payne 1, in the number of pages that adds up to five movie scripts."

The new demands, in addition to more freedom with hiring actors, led to Lake being replaced by actor, Timothy Gibbs. Although for fans hoping to see some familiar faces in the game, the original faces of Max Payne (Sam Lake) and Vladimir Lem (Marko Saaresto) also appeared across a number of in-game television shows including Address Unknown and Lords & Ladies, mirroring the two character's storylines, and acting as a nice call back to the original title. While the face may have changed, the voice of Max Payne, James McCaffrey stayed on to the role, once again giving Payne his gravely tone players know and love.

Unedited photographs, images from Max Payne Wiki.

Another return was Mona Sax who became the central character in the sequel. Fans got their last look of Mona in Max Payne, protecting the detective from a shower of bullets before falling back into a nearby elevator and leaving a substantial pool of blood in her wake. Speaking to Gamespot in 2011, Remedy's CEO, Matias Myllyrinne admitted that the team received an emotional response from fans over her possible death. Mona’s death was ambiguous in the first game, but in an earlier draft she did die; in the same interview with Gamespot Sam revealed that, “Mona was one of them who was killed very clearly and conclusively on screen. And it was our graphic novel artist, Kiia Kallio, back then who felt so sad about the fact that Mona would be killed that I decided to change it so that the elevator doors closed and her body disappears so there is an open possibility that she survived. Well, it’s thanks to that, that Mona ends up in such a big role in Max Payne 2.”

Rockstar Games held the casting at Donna DeSetta's casting agency in New York City for the two lead roles. For the live action element, model Kathy Tong gave Mona Sax life, and in our interview four years ago delved into the process of becoming the character. "I had read a copy of the script before we started shooting and I knew Mona was a contract killer but I felt there was a softness underneath her rock hard exterior that she a never able to explore because she was led down a dark path. I had my own idea of this woman struggling with conflicting emotions and the challenges it presented in her everyday existence".

Mona Sax as she appears in Max Payne.

Getting the right Mona for the job was important as the game was to feature the assassin as a second playable character. It was the first time in Remedy's eight years that players would control two characters, a feature which wouldn't be returned to again for another thirteen years, until the release of Quantum Break.

In addition to character model-likeness, Timothy Gibbs and Kathy Tong recreated scenes from the game to be used in level title-cards, graphic novels cutscenes, promotional material and more. Like its predecessor, actors were provided  reference photographs, later edited and used in place of the game's cutscenes. Originally used as a way to stay within budget and to convey deeper emotion, with the progression of technology, the graphic novels were now intertwined with traditional cinematics but were still the main and preferred method to show drama and suspense.

A Fifteen Year Partnership

While it was a continuation of the Max Payne series, the game also marked the start of something new, Poets of the Fall, the band behind the game's theme song, Late Goodbye. While the idea and group had already begun assembling, the deal to make a song for Max Payne 2 gave the band an established international audience.

Speaking to Kotaku in their article, The Story Behind Late Goodbye, The Song That Defined Max Payne 2, Poets of the Fall's vocalist, Marko Saaresto stated, “Sam and I have been friends since childhood, so the connection was already in place. Then one night while driving we started talking about the possibility of the band writing a song for his new game, Max Payne 2." At first the vocalist considered that nothing would come out of the suggestion, but later received a phone call. The group created three early demos, based on Sam's poem, for the studio who selected Late Goodbye to be the theme.

Behind the scenes of Late Goodbye's music video. Photo from the Poet County Jail fansite.

The band members were no stranger to Remedy's titles, and especially the Max Payne series. Their producer and keyboardist, Markus "Captain" Kaarlonen in addition to Pauli Saastamoinen mastered the sequel's music at Finnvox Studios. And as a long-time friend of Lake's, Saaresto had also helped with the original Max Payne game, portraying Russian Mob Boss, Vladimir Lem, as well as creating the Captain Baseball Bat Boy comic strips.

In an early version of the script, Late Goodbye would be used to awaken memories of a traumatic experience previously forgotten. In the final version, the song is used to reflect the game's themes, frequently repeated by characters that Max faces in his journey.

Launch and Critical Reception

Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne was released on 14th October 2003, eight days after the game reached gold status. Reviews for the game were positive almost across the board, claiming an impressive 86 Metacritic score, almost identical to that of its predecessor. GameZone called it "a cinematic, action packed swarm of near perfection with a tragically twisting plot worthy of the big screen", whereas Gamer's Hell referred to it as "one of the most intense and best played games ever." IGN expressed the desire to be longer, with the title taking approximately seven hours to complete, but compliments it for being an adventure "thick with drama and action."

Praise was not only given to the gameplay, but to the adventure's brilliant soundtrack. In April 2004, both the Max Payne theme and Late Goodbye won in two categories, of the G.A.N.G ("Game Audio Network Guild") Awards, claiming "Best Original Instrumental Song" and "Best Original Vocal Song (Pop)" respectively.

Photograph sent by Remedy and posted on the 3DRealms news channel.

According to a YouGamer interview with Scott Miller, Max Payne and Max Payne 2 sold a combined seven million units worldwide. While the original title sold the majority of that amount, the sequel made a sizeable contribution with an estimated two or three million, although the official numbers have never been officially announced. Despite the numbers, TakeTwo's predicted sales fell into the same trap faced by Square Enix for Tomb Raider (2013), as the publisher demanded higher unit sales than what could be delivered despite a highly praised game and with a quality described by the President of Rockstar Games of exceeding "even our high expectations". As a result of sales, TakeTwo's financial report 2004 stated "in May 2003, we agreed to make payments of up to $6,000 in cash upon the achievement of certain sales targets for Max Payne 2. We do not expect that these sales targets will be achieved."

Despite not meeting TakeTwo's sales targets, Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne is still considered, even fifteen years later, to be a solid and beloved adventure, and the perfect way to sign off the end of Remedy's Max Payne era.

What's Next?

Following the release of Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne, the IP transferred hands becoming solely TakeTwo's property.

It wasn't long before fans heard more Max Payne news; two months after the launch of the sequel, the original title launched on GameBoy, a project led by Mobius, which marked the first in a series of ports to mobile platforms. In an interview with IGN, David Box, Lead Programmer at Mobius talks about getting the green light from the publisher. "Rockstar contacted us after seeing some of our previous work. We built them a thorough prototype of how the game would look and feel and from there we dived straight into full production." After five months, the port was launch just days before Christmas.

For Max, his story went in a completely different direction for Max Payne 3 with Rockstar taking up the developmental reigns. Similar to Remedy's direction for their new title, Rockstar traded the New York streets for the São Paulo's party scene, bringing the protagonist new challenges as a bodyguard. The game was launched on Playstation 3, XBOX 360 and PC on May 15th 2012 and equalled it's predecessor's already-impressive Metacritic score. A year after its release, it was announced that Max Payne 3 had shipped an incredible four million units.

It was in 2008 that the Max Payne movie came out, leading to mixed reviews. While the film was aesthetically beautiful, it was a departure from the original material, full of loose ends and contradictions. The game's protagonist and story was inspired by the Film Noir genre, and drew inspiration on the films of Humphrey Bogart, known for the intelligent suave and sophistication he gave to his characters. Instead the movie portrayed Max more as a desperate animal, constantly running away from his past, but in no certain direction. Although critically unsuccessful the movie made a profit, with an estimated budget (according to IMDB) of $35 million, the Max Payne movie grossed $85,416,905 by 2013.

Following the release of Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne, Remedy went into a new direction replacing the busy streets of New York with the serene Pacific Northwest. The developer's new game, Alan Wake, was announced at E3 2005 for PC and XBOX 360, in partnership with Microsoft Studios who continued to work directly with them for eleven years throughout Alan Wake, Alan Wake's American Nightmare and Quantum Break.

For Remedy, Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne was the bridge between finding success and entering the industry as a standalone, independent studio. The developers entered the project knowing it would be their last Max Payne title, and with new ideas on the back-burner. It proved that they could make a bigger, more polished game with a shorter development cycle.

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31st October 2016 Article: Pumpkin Carving on Halloween

Admittedly October 31st was always a weird day for me. I grew up in London where Halloween is... well, it's a thing but not a huge thing. It really depends on if your family is into it or not, and for my family Halloween was always considered more of an American event. That's not to say that I never had a Halloween but I had a very non-typical one. Growing up I'd usually hear about kids who went to door to door in search for sweets or had "scary" family parties in creepy costumes. For me, Halloween was about watching my cat Tabbs, sitting on our van roof, booping people on the head as they went past. At nine in the evening, Trick or Treating when would be declared over and we'd eat vasts amount of chocolate which had been bought in for small children.

This year was a little different. This year there were pumpkins!

Pumpkin carving has always a weird concept to me. You're basically getting a pretty ridged fruit (vegetable? fruit?) then taking away all of the juicy parts so you're left with the only piece of the fruit/vegetable you can't eat, and then you stab it with holes and set it on fire. Not going to lie, it's slightly weird. It's definitely traditional though and something I had never actually done. So I got a two pumpkins, one for a classic creepy face, and one for The Sudden Stop.

Before we get into it, can I just say how creepy these instructions are...

"Stick and cut out eyes and mouth" less cute pumpkin carving techniques for kids, more stabby.... or instructions how to make your very own Prince Philip mask. Both ideas far to scaremongering to be included on a label in a supermarket.

In total we brought back four, small traditional pumpkins from the store which had pre-assembled faces made out of black tape. Look how happy they were!

After trying my hand at my first pumpkin carving (and admittedly stabbing my hand at my first pumpkin carving) I moved on to my second which I had reserved for this article. I was a little unsure at first whether to go for the Alan Wake silhouette or the Monarch Solutions logo.  The first pumpkin resolved that issue, when I realised that the outside was particularly tough. A few days later, I also did some pumpkin carving with my friend's eleven and seven year old kids. (I say "with" but anyone with kids will know how the evening went). They are genuinely cool people though and they liked designing the faces between playing costume games. The pumpkin the eldest had claimed, both looked and smelled like honeydew melon and which had very soft shell. In comparison, this pumpkin required sharper knives and louder war cries.

In any case, this was the pumpkin I had chosen...

And here was me taking a well deserved and a not-at-all-awkwardly timed break....

Annnnnd finally I managed to carve the hole in the top. Looking back, I should have perhaps done it at less of an incline so when the candle dried the top, the lid wouldn't shrink as much as it did and fall in. Out of the four pumpkins it was our first victim.

If Silent Hill made fruit it would be a pumpkin. Only pumpkins. They have a weird gloopy, stringy texture inside which takes a while to get used to. I don't know who came up with carving pumpkins, but I don't think they had many friends.

Okay onto the actual design! As the skin was tough I went for a simple Monarch Solutions logo design. I also really like the look of it!

You can also see in the photo where I stabbed myself with the previous carving. It was a pretty sharp and small knife but it didn't actually cause a lot of damage. It was more like a needle prick. I'm not actually that great around needles so I may have written a Will between washing it and applying the bandage, but it wasn't too bad. OH! I did actually break my toe this past week though, and went on to make three plates of nachos before realising that it may be broken, so my pain tolerance may be at heroic levels this month. I did treat it in the very British manner of just ignoring it.

I did the original Monarch design in ballpoint pen before deciding to wing it once it started to have issues drawing on the skin. I don't think it looks too bad! I did tidy it up a little bit later, so it did go through some improvements before the end.

 Before I did any changes to the logo though, I wanted to create some very simple fracture-like patterns on the side. Nothing fancy but something which would let more of the light out. 

Did I mention how I stabbed myself and how I was very brave?

The bravest.

Once the logo was cleaned up a little more and the design was ready, I made sure the base was flat enough to hold the tea-light safely and before putting the candle in. Next up, fire!

Look at it being all majestic and stuff!

OH! And this was my other pumpkin...

All four of them together! I love the cheerful vampire (not mine) in the middle, he always looks so happy to be there.

Happy Halloween! 

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