Cthulhu invades Spore

07 Wednesday Mar 2012

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The perils of Spore, a popular videogame with evolutionary aspects built in…

The [videogaming experience] that sticks in my mind was a result of my incessant playing with Spore’s creature creation tools. I spent one afternoon creating monsters from H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos, looking up their descriptions and trying to build creatures that perfectly matched Lovecraft’s vision. I felt at the time that I’d had little success, since Spore’s cutesy look left most of them looking more cuddly than terrifying.

I had completely forgotten this exercise as I played through the main game a few weeks later. My new species was [now autonomously] developing toward a tribal culture, and were learning to hunt in a pack and find fruit. Suddenly a huge shadow passed overhead, and with a ground-shaking crash, the great lord Cthulhu himself landed in front of us.

You see, Spore would randomly seed the game world with creatures you and your friends had made, sometimes in groups, and sometimes as larger solitary creatures. This was an [game-evolved] “epic” instance of Cthulhu, perhaps 100 feet tall. What had looked cute when I had made it was suddenly one of the scariest things I had ever seen. The hulking green monstrosity then proceeded to devour my entire tribe.

That’s right, in my game of Spore I had a budding civilisation wiped out by Cthulhu himself.

Leper Creativity: Cyclonopedia Symposium – new book

05 Monday Mar 2012

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A new book, Leper Creativity: Cyclonopedia Symposium…

“Essays, articles, artworks, and documents taken from and inspired by the symposium on Reza Negarestani’s Cyclonopedia: Complicity with Anonymous Materials, which took place on 11th March 2011 at The New School. Cyclonopedia is a key work in the emerging domains of speculative realism and theory-fiction.”

The volume includes “Symptomatic Horror: Lovecraft’s ‘The Colour Out of Space’” by Kate Marshall.

Above: gratuitious-but-great illustration of the crossing scene in “Innsmouth” by Alberto Vazquez.

Incognitum Hactenus – new scholarly journal

05 Monday Mar 2012

Posted by in Lovecraftian arts, Scholarly works

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Added to my comprehensive ‘Lovecraft on the Web’ directory: Incognitum Hactenus, a new scholarly journal.

The first issue (available now) includes Ben Woodard’s essay “A Nature to Pulp the Stoutest Philosopher: Towards a Lovecraftian Philosophy of Nature”.

The journal is an offshoot of The Real Horror Symposium (London, October 2010). The second issue is on “Gods and Monsters”, and is pencilled in for release on 12th March 2012.

Above: gratuitous-but-awesome picture of a shoggoth, by Eclectix.

Verminomicon

05 Monday Mar 2012

Posted by in Lovecraftian arts, New books

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Verminomicon: a Field Guide to the Vermin of Yuggoth; Abominations of a Haunted World (Raw Dog, 2012) is a new illustrated book featuring the sculptures of Anthony DeBartolis…

“In a tribute to H.P. Lovecraft, Verminomicon showcases the imagination and skill of sculptor Anthony DeBartolis who has spent years crafting more than thirty different species of vermin from Yuggoth. This disturbingly beautiful volume not only explores the multidimensional menace of the fungoid Mi-Go race established in “The Whisperer in Darkness,” but expands on Lovecraft’s twisted vision—at the reader’s peril. Full-color images of DeBartolis’ sculptures are paired with descriptive text from author John Edward Lawson to deliver a field guide of diabolic scope that also details the story of a scientist caught up in the Mi-Go plot against humanity.”

Pre-ordering now.