New Article: You’ll Never Be Home Again: Peter Heller’s The

[Raphael van Lierop]

Welcome to the first in a series of articles written by Patrick Carlson. Throughout this series, Patrick will analyze a piece of survival “literature” — be it a novel, a film, a game, etc. — and frame it within the context of The Long Dark.

This week’s article touches on Peter Heller’s fantastic novel, “The Dog Stars”, which was one of the novels that inspired the original idea for the game that has become The Long Dark. Enjoy!

ARTICLE: http://hinterlandgames.com/thedogstars/

Please discuss!

[octavian]

I didn’t read the book so maybe that’s a sign I shouldn’t say anything, but when did I do that?

“Like The Long Dark, what the novel illustrates so beautifully is that human choice and memory still matter, even in the blackest, most inhuman moments of survival.”

Sounds good except I don’t see where choice and memory come into play in TLD .236 sandbox, neither black, inhuman moments of survival.

“Hig’s situation speaks to the central challenge of The Long Dark: What do you do when the “life before” is only visible in what it has left behind? Survive, surely.”

Surely? What motivates survival? The game makes the point, not me, the writer/devs/game make the moral argument, their view of the proper way to live in case the Event happens. If you asked Mr. van Lierop - as an expression of all that is TLD - he’d tell you, “You survive, because…” I want his answer, I already know mine, the game is his answer.

“But is human life, with all its cultural and technological trappings the defining paradigm for the planet?”

I don’t know, is it? Again, I don’t have to answer the question, I already know my answer, I want to see what TLD thinks.

TLD self-defines as horror, whether it likes/wants to or not, asking questions horror asks; a jury of its peers features Bioshock, it asks the questions, it’s horror according to the textbook definition. What’s human, what’s not human, what’s inhuman, what’s death, can you postpone it, at what cost, TLD’s not Dracula but how far will you go to survive? Dependence on science makes the Event cataclysmic, goes unnoticed during the stone age, is science at the expense of faith evolution or devolution? Prehistoric man, human at its worst or are we worst now, fundamental question, what human means, what limits human has? The game gives no answers which is bad, no moral argument means no story. Worst would be not knowing it asks these questions, questions promise answers, if you don’t know what you promise you can’t deliver even if you want to.

Amnesia and Gone Home, two examples of unanswered questions and misunderstood genre.

Frictional didn’t realize what their story means, the game missed its own point. Whenever you have a character who tortures, kills, is what we call evil, and afterwards self-induces amnesia what question more important that what’s evil, Nature or Culture, does it raise? It’s obvious in the Justine DLC especially, the story is so minuscule you can’t miss it. Justine wanted to find out if she’ll still be inhuman, what’s evil, given at birth or passed on by fellow man? They missed it or didn’t care, Justine’s rebirth like Phoenix from its ashes from inhuman into human, plus the million ways you can tilt the plot from there. Or Justine’s rebirth into inhuman still, whatever point they wanted to make. It’s a 15 minute DLC and Amnesia’s a Mickey Mouse horror story, did they get screams on Youtube? Sure. Do they matter? Define matter. In school they wouldn’t even grade Amnesia’s story, you’d get a DNF.

Remember how players got a horror vibe from Gone Home, which confused them? No good horror story ever told ignored the haunted house, literal or figurative, invasion of the safe haven is one of the signifiers of horror, safe haven isn’t pleonastic for writers, havens are Gehennas too. It’s the fear made physical, with you living in it. Wherever you go, whatever you do, opposition is unavoidable and imminent. Always with you, in your head, your mind attacking yourself and itself like nightmares do, 1st order opposition, mere existence providing its own conflict, writers invented haunted houses as a metaphor for this. Something “haunts” the house just like something haunts Sam, a metaphor for the struggle with her inner lesbian. Struggle? Exactly, there was no inner conflict, someone lost their post-it notes and mass confusion followed.

What’s the measuring stick for TLD, novels? You can’t compare to a novel in term of depth and story, even if you wanted to you can’t, different medium. If you compare to video games its bedfellows might seem strange but horror doesn’t have to mean a monster jumps at you and says boo. This is going back to horror novels, still just typeface on paper like any other genre, no jump scares there. But novels don’t translate well to video games so usually they bypass this by making the game an action horror or a survival horror. Second, TLD is a video game, 2015, Steam, achievements and badges, we’re talking high-concept not low-concept.

“In both The Dog Stars and The Long Dark, a humble soda becomes something more than what it ever was.”

Does it? What something more?

“Or perhaps its true essence becomes visible for the first time.”

But we don’t know for sure?

“The drink becomes a memory, a form of actual nourishment, a means to survive.”

Memory of what?

“Even a can of coke gets to tell a whole new story when almost everything else has gone under.”

Well what’s the story?

Is the article about TLD .236 sandbox? I’m confused, maybe I’m missing the point, what’s the article about, fact or projection, the impression it gives me is that who wrote it didn’t play the game. And if you go by reading the forums, the players, you'd think the game is about what items to add, extra ways for starting fire, crafting, wolves, never something abstract or metaphorical; just saying.

[RJIII]

Awesome article, looking forward to the next one!

[robdoar]

Awesome.

[Patrick Carlson]

Surely? What motivates survival? The game makes the point, not me, the writer/devs/game make the moral argument, their view of the proper way to live in case the Event happens. If you asked Mr. van Lierop - as an expression of all that is TLD - he’d tell you, “You survive, because…” I want his answer, I already know mine, the game is his answer.

---

Is the article about TLD .236 sandbox? I’m confused, maybe I’m missing the point, what’s the article about, fact or projection, the impression it gives me is that who wrote it didn’t play the game. And if you go by reading the forums, the players, you'd think the game is about what items to add, extra ways for starting fire, crafting, wolves, never something abstract or metaphorical; just saying.

Thanks for your thoughtful response, octavian_os.

To answer one of your last questions first: yes, this article and future articles are indeed written with the sandbox in mind, both as it currently is now and as it has evolved over the last many months.

In my mind, in games that deal with survival experiences, it's often the stories we bring with us that make meaning out of the open world. And based on your comment above, I think you might have a story or two of your own that surface as you work through The Long Dark.

We all have different reasons for gravitating towards this kind of experience, and I'll be working through many of those. I know I'll be touching on the concrete as well as the abstract and metaphorical.

And I'd recommend picking up The Dog Stars. It's a great read.

[octavian]

In my mind, in games that deal with survival experiences, it's often the stories we bring with us that make meaning out of the open world. And based on your comment above, I think you might have a story or two of your own that surface as you work through The Long Dark.

Thank you for taking time to answer, took me by surprise.

Sure, what someone makes of a story depends on what they bring to it but I don’t think showing up is all it takes.

In school, teachers allowed me reading whatever I wanted as long as I could weave two thousand words about it a way that would surprise them and work, structurally and logically. Hemingway’s voice in “The Old Man and the Sea” being Venus de Milo was the first work a teacher passionately refused to give back. Santiago is Hemingway, the fish, a story. Too obvious. I saw something else. And when the teacher said she never read anything like it didn’t mean it was good but that I should write the story. Aphrodite having a fantasy about her missing hands. “Could be that nobody will ever see Aphrodite like you see her.” Publish or perish doesn't apply just to you but to your idea as well.

People diverge wildly in what they make of anything. But nothing I could ever bring to anything would make me see Dali’s “Leda Atomica” or Milton's "On Time." From Carlin to Miller to Kafka to Hegel to Nine Inch Nails, every author gives you something unique, something you would never have without them. Not just a singularity to meditate on.

When I’m ranting and raving it’s because of my simple self-centered craving for Hinterland to be an author; to give me absolute, focused and unique. Digging out of it tiny fossils I’ve brought with me but never knew I had is a bonus.

Looking forward to reading both the book and your articles.