{"id":14800087,"date":"2016-02-19T16:46:25","date_gmt":"2016-02-19T16:46:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/horror.dreamdawn.com\/?p=14800087"},"modified":"2016-02-20T02:28:04","modified_gmt":"2016-02-20T02:28:04","slug":"the-cell-phone-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/horror.dreamdawn.com\/?p=14800087","title":{"rendered":"The Cell Phone Problem"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 2013 I had the opportunity to chat with Steve Gaynor about his then in-development mystery game\u00a0Gone Home<\/em>. \u00a0A playable version was on display at the Game Developer’s Conference’s Indie Megabooth, and while I was interested in some of the other titles being shown (like\u00a0Thirty Flights of Loving<\/em>), I was there to see his game. \u00a0We were far enough into the development of\u00a0Dead Secret<\/a><\/em> to realize that it might have significant overlap with Gaynor’s title, and I’d come to check it out.<\/p>\n

\"sh-phone-call\"<\/a>To my relief our respective games were quite different, though we’d both made a lot of similar decisions. \u00a0Chatting with Gaynor I found that we’re both big fans of\u00a0Silent Hill: Shattered Memories<\/a><\/em> and have both spent a bunch of time in Portland, Oregon. Midway through our conversation I turned to Steve and asked him if he had set\u00a0Gone Home<\/em> in the mid ’90s to deal with “the cell phone problem.”<\/p>\n

“Yep,” he said. I didn’t have to define the term–he knew what I was talking about immediately. \u00a0There are a lot of other good thematic reasons to set\u00a0Gone Home<\/em> in the 1990s, and if you’ve played the game you know why, but my interest was functional: the cell phone problem is hard, and I am interested in what other game designers think of it.<\/p>\n

If you play a lot of mystery or horror games you might have noticed that there are not a whole lot of them that take place after the year 2000. \u00a0There are\u00a0many\u00a0that take place in the 1980s and 1990s, as well as those further in the past (including\u00a0Dead Secret<\/em>) or in the far future (SOMA,\u00a0<\/em>Alien: Isolation<\/em>). \u00a0But the last decade and a half are underrepresented in scary games, and I think the reason is simple: cell phones.<\/p>\n

The problem with cell phones is that they are lifelines back to the real world. \u00a0Hiding under a bed as a deranged killer searches the house for you? \u00a0With a cell phone you can\u00a0call the cops<\/em>. \u00a0Arrive at your rendezvous\u00a0point only to find your confederate hasn’t shown? \u00a0With a phone you can just\u00a0call them<\/em>. \u00a0Wondering how to open an antique lock with a screwdriver? \u00a0If you have a cell phone you can just\u00a0look that shit up on the internet<\/em>. \u00a0Phones are ubiquitous and incredibly powerful ways to communicate\u00a0regardless of your physical location.\u00a0That power throws a giant wrench in a large number of mysteries that operate on the idea that you are isolated and must rely on your wits alone.<\/p>\n

\"shining-1980-overlook-hotel-blizzard-00n-p5k\"<\/a>I mean, take\u00a0The Shining<\/em>. \u00a0The entire film operates on the basic premise that the roads are snowed in and nobody can get in or out of Overlook Hotel. \u00a0The protagonists are pretty lucky that one of them is a psychic because that’s how they are finally able to issue an SOS to the outside world. \u00a0If they’d had cell phones they would have noped the fuck out of there about 30 minutes into the film.<\/p>\n

The need to isolate the protagonist is common in horror and mystery literature. \u00a0And Then There Were None<\/em>, one of Agatha Christie’s most famous novels, involves ten people trapped on an island from which there is no escape.\u00a0Firewatch<\/em> takes place in the Wyoming wilderness in 1989 because many of the protagonists’ problems would be trivial to resolve with modern technology.\u00a0999<\/em> involves nine people trapped on a giant, trap-laden boat with no means to communicate with the outside world. \u00a0The mystery of these titles operates on the idea that the protagonists are isolated, and cell phones just chuck\u00a0all that thrilling infrastructure right out the window.<\/p>\n

Of course, there are ways to defang the portable phone. It could be out of batteries, or your protagonists could find themselves beyond the range of the closest cell tower. \u00a0But these contrivances come with a lot of conditions of their own. \u00a0I mean, you have to be pretty remote to lose a cell signal in the United States these days.<\/p>\n

\"\"More interesting are titles that subvert the phone itself. \u00a0Ju-on, <\/em>a 2002 Japanese horror flick,\u00a0spends a lot of screen time proving\u00a0that technology can’t save you from a killer curse. \u00a0It does this in order to isolate its victims even within their own home. \u00a0If you can’t trust the voice coming out of your phone, what can you trust? \u00a0Silent Hill: Shattered Memories<\/em> actually features a cell phone as one of the game’s central mechanics. \u00a0And yet, the protagonist is still isolated: he has nobody to call,\u00a0no friends or family that he can get ahold of, and he cannot trust the police. \u00a0This seems much more horrible than being trapped on an island.\u00a0Shattered Memories’\u00a0<\/em>Harry isn’t just alone in Silent Hill, he’s alone in his life.<\/p>\n

Of course, the Cell Phone Problem isn’t really limited to cell phones. \u00a0Modern technology affords us all kinds of ways to circumvent the mysterious<\/a>. \u00a0With the internet, GPS, digital cameras, and Google Maps, the average joe can access volumes of information on almost any topic, record his experiences in high definition, and reach out to millions with ease. \u00a0Observing authors of suspense and horror address this challenge in new and unique ways is\u00a0a pleasure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 2013 I had the opportunity to chat with Steve Gaynor about his then in-development mystery game\u00a0Gone Home. \u00a0A playable version was on display at the Game Developer’s Conference’s Indie Megabooth, and while I was interested in some of the other titles being shown (like\u00a0Thirty Flights of Loving), I was there to see his game. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14800087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dead-secret","category-game-design"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/horror.dreamdawn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14800087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/horror.dreamdawn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/horror.dreamdawn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horror.dreamdawn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horror.dreamdawn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14800087"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/horror.dreamdawn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14800087\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14800096,"href":"https:\/\/horror.dreamdawn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14800087\/revisions\/14800096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/horror.dreamdawn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14800087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horror.dreamdawn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14800087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horror.dreamdawn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14800087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}