The Flames Rising Design Essay Series started in 2008 when Preston DuBose and I were chatting about different projects we’ve worked on (including Buried Tales of Pinebox, Texas which we had recently released) and I asked him to write a little something about the next project on his agenda, you can find the essay below. Like other parts of the site, this series started out in RPGs, but soon expanded to include Fiction, Comics and we even have one essay about Film.

The series continues to evolve and has become an ongoing project where authors, game designers and others can tell Flames Rising readers about the creative process that went into a particular project. We have no plans on stopping this series, but I thought I’d take a moment to look back at some of the essays we’ve posted so far:

Game Design Essays:

A New Millennium Of Horror, And Of GURPS Horror – Kenneth Hite
Inside the New Instant Antagonist, The Creepy Cottontail – Monica Valentinelli
A Storytelling Game of Savage Fury: The Forsaken Chronicler’s Guide – David Hill Jr.
That Old Black Magic: Writing The Big Hoodoo – Bill White
Tracing the Origin and Development of The Love of Money – Matthew Sanderson
An Inside Look at Scenes of the Embrace – Eddy Webb and Monica Valentinelli
Deconstructing Realms of Cthulhu – Sean Preston
Ghost Stories on Space Stations – David Hill Jr.
Designing Ganakagok: The Certainty of Change – Bill White
Finding Horror in the Eighties – Eddy Webb
Multiverser Horror – M. Joseph Young
Ancient Vampire Tales – Joe Rixman
Writing Ghosts of Albion – Tim Brannan
How I Wrote “A Dirty World” – Greg Stolze
The Roach – Jason Morningstar
Designing Apocalypse Prevention Inc. – Eloy LaSanta
Initiation to Exquisite Replicas – Monica Valentinelli
Degrees of Horror – Preston DuBose
Evolution of Blood Games – Clash Bowley

Fiction Design Essays:

A Brief History of Magic – Michael Jasper
The Winds of Khalakovo Debut – Bradley P. Beaulieu
Exploring the Mythos Academy – Jennifer Estep
Behind Plague of Shadows, a Pathfinder Novel – Howard Andrew Jones
How to Ruin a Perfectly Good Genre – Paul Jessup
A Man of Letters – Eric Pollarine
The Angel of Vengeance – Trevor Munson
Writing Comes The Dark – Patrick D’Orazio
Scaring the Relatives – Ashley J. Barnard
The inspiration for Fated – Scott Browne
Kevin and the Devil House – Kevin Lucia
Ghosts: Can They Be Redeemed? – Stephen M. Irwin
The Foreshadows Equation Part 1 and Part 2 – Jeff LaSala
Confessions of a Boy Fraidy Cat – Bob Fingerman
Designing the Queen of Crows – Monica Valentinelli
Writing and Inspiration – Yasmine Galenorn
Shadow of the Vampire – Meagan Hatfield
On Vampires – Alex Bledsoe
Religion and Horror – Maurice Broaddus
Witchcraft, Magick, and Tackling The Unknown – A.W. Gryphon

Comics Design Essays:

Genesis of the Living Dead – Nick Tapalansky
Designing Dusk – David Doub

Film Design Essay:

Fantasy World Building for Indie Film – Lisa Stock

I’d like to take this moment to offer a huge thank you to all of the authors and designers who have written an essay for this project. The Flames Rising site is better for the excellent essays and thank you for giving us a look into your worlds.

As noted above, this series continues and I’m coding a few new essays for future publication on the site this weekend. If you are a Horror or Dark Fantasy creator and you have a little something you’d like to contribute to this series, let me know, I’d love to read it.

Tags | game design, writing