Fifteen Years of Surviving Horror - Behind the Scenes

Hey everyone :) 

Today is the 15th anniversary of my Neverwinter Nights 1 module Surviving Horror 2 (SH2). Time sure flies, doesn't it? :) I thought I'd celebrate the occasion with some behind the scenes content.

The main image for Surviving Horror 2

SH2 is the work I am most proud of creating -- it managed to gain Hall of Fame status, a Reviewer's Award, won the Golden Dragon of Replayability the year 2006 and even won against the canceled premium module Darkness over Daggerford -- and I think SH2 manages to capture what I like about a good survival horror story. 

Golden Dragon Awards Nominations, 19th of november 2007, where SH2 was nominated at the same time as Darkness over Daggerford

Golden Dragon Award Winners, 21th of november 2007

Resident Evil and Silent Hill was my main inspirations for SH2s gameplay and its story. I also love the items used for puzzles in those series (like the Club or Heart keys from Resident Evil 2, or the Tarot Cards from Silent Hill 3), and wanted such items to be a part of my creation as well.

Club key from Resident Evil 2

Heart key from Resident Evil 2

Tarot cards from Silent Hill 3

I'd also like to lift my Beta testers (yeah, SH2 was the first and only of my modules that had a beta-test) -- their names are highlighted in green and can be found on the module page for SH2 but I'd also like to share some old posts from the time of the beta testing. I posted about it back at my old live journal (the blog I used before creating this blogger blog) -- there you can read the conversations we had and read about the progress forward: 

Beta test, Post 1: SURVIVING HORROR 2 - BETA TESTING!

Beta test, Post 2: Surviving Horror 2 - BETA - Final Date: Friday 27th January

Beta test, Post 3: SH2 - BETA TEST - Final Date MOVED to: 4th of Febuary (next week)

Beta test, Post 4: Beta Test Closing

The characters of Jina and Frogrin are probably some of the most personal characters that I have created to date. I didn't really think that much about it during the time of their creation, but since then I've reflected about what they really mean and where they come from. They are actually me. Or, parts of me, rather. Jina is my moral compass, my compassion and positive attitude and Frogrin is my crazy/funny side -- the part of me that occasionally jokes around, acts mischievously and doesn't take life too seriously.
Then we have the dark knight Nuerov... he's in one way my darkness, but at the same time, not really a part of me at all. I guess he's more like the favorite parts of antagonists that I've picked up along the way (the narcissism, the nihilism, the god complex, the classic dark knight trope, the angel of death,  destroyer of worlds, the god of death, the mystery, among others). He's like my ultimate villain. :)

Frogrin, Jina and Nuerov (artwork by my friend Archon, creator of the Dark Sun's Glare webcomic)

That's it for this anniversary-behind-the-scenes-post ;) I hope you found some enjoyment out of it. ^_^ Stay safe everyone! 💖

Birger out. 👊