How One of My Favorite Games Helped Me Name My Novel

    So for Halloween there are quite a few games that I go back and play again just because they fit the holiday spirit. Things like Bloodbourne or Hollow Night, and I've always loved Vampire Savior/Darkstalkers 3 for all the great sprite animations for the characters. When I was younger, I realized that often Halloween was just a much more relaxed time than the holidays that come right after i.e. Thanksgiving and Christmas. It didn't matter if we decided to do decorations, or if we planned to go anywhere, it was a fun time to go Trick or Treating and dress up for the holiday. While going through some spooky games, I got to play one of my favorites, Darkest Dungeon.

    A little about the game before going into what the title is talking about. Darkest Dungeon is the kind of game where instead of getting a group of four intrepid adventurers reclaiming your ancestral home, you control a group of mere mortals going up against the undead, eldritch abominations, vampire mosquitos, and many other terrible beasts. This game is so set against the player, there is an entire system where if the characters you are leading on their adventure get too stressed out, they are liable to have a specific mental break and possible die of a heart attack. As hard as the game is, the enjoyment felt is often the results of all these different game mechanics attacking you but you still come out on top. 

    What made the game one of my favorites had nothing to do with the way the game looks or plays, but the voice actor for the narrator, Wayne June. Between his delivery and the lines written for him, it is the perfect synergy that hammers home the hopelessness against such great odds felt in certain lines and the overwhelming relief and hype you feel getting through just one more trek into the dungeons. One specific line that always stuck with me was "a trifling victory, but a victory nonetheless", which was often triggered by beating certain enemies. The one that led to the name of my novel was "Wealth beyond measure. Awarded to the brave and foolhardy alike." When playing the game it always feels like even the narrator knows that there is nothing but perfect precision that will get everyone to the end of this one out of a hundred death traps, but death is coming. 

    That line, specifically the word foolhardy stuck with me so profoundly, that I had to find a way to use it in the title of the longest piece I have ever written. As I was using the same notebook that I keep for all my brainstorming when it comes to anything that happens in Sol Rojo, I used the entire back page to come up with different titles of books or short stories. What I ended with was about two or three pages of titles I have used for all sorts of stuff, including what I chose as the title for a project I hope to work on one day that tries to capture the story telling from the Souls games. "In the Company of the Foolhardy" is what I use now as the name I will be using for the series of novels in Sol Rojo, and the first book is "Death Waits in the Desert." Right now I have taken the time to just get some more experience with writing and learning the ins and outs of publishing before I take another long and hard look at my first finished novel to figure out what needs to be adjusted, removed, or rewritten entirely. Quite frankly, I am at a point currently where I can devote all my time and effort that I'm not using elsewhere into getting this collection of short stories and the novel done and released. However, as the game says during a moment where our character finds resolve, "Adversity can foster hope, and resilience", and "Where there is no peril in the task, there can be no glory in its accomplishment." Perhaps in the end, all I will have to show for all this work and late nights is a series of books few have touched and fewer have read, but that will have to be its own reward. To me, a book written is better than an idea fostered and brainstormed, left to rot due to fear. No reason to claim defeat before the adventure is even taken. 

    If you made it this far, thank you for reading all this and having an interest in where this might take me. Soon, I plan or editing and releasing one of the stories I will be including in my collection on this blog. Let me know if there are any ideas or topics y'all would like for me write about, and I can't wait until tomorrow to have some more for y'all to read.