September 19th, 2007
No Really…Tomb Raiding
I was joking that we were going to Ireland to raid some tombs, but it turns out that is almost exactly what we did. My wife’s blog will no doubt cover every minute of the trip in some form so I won’t duplicate it all in that way here. Some of the highlights of the trip for me seemed to somehow relate back to my day job though. It was an astounding trip to be sure, every single day, but each time we were able to visit an actual ancient monument of some kind it obviously left an impression on me. We look for inspiration in so many ways, often seeking that inspiration in logical places such as works found in our own medium of games as well as similar mediums such as film and books. But until we actually get our asses out into the real world and are standing at the real thing I don’t think we really realize how valuable that can be. Sure, in the end we are really creating fantasy which by definition means it can’t really be found in reality, but it all really comes from someplace found on Earth first. Mainly this is because that is all we have to draw from for now. Almost every planet found in a science-fiction story is based on a location found on Earth, right? So, instead of merely looking to the reference why not get a heavy dose of the real thing, even if it out your back door. I, for one, forget the impact that it can have on me. Maybe the old haunts grow a little stale, but someplace like Ireland, with such a rich history…well, I really just wasn’t prepared.
The first high point I’ll mention is a boat trip we took out to a place called Skellig Michael. About an hour off the southern coast of Ireland is a desolate rock island where catholic monks built a small monastery by constructing beehive huts from the slate rock on the island and 580 steps to get to the small village. Its age and the amount of work that the monks had to endure to voluntarily create this village was truly humbling. Standing there inside a still waterproof stone hut that is made from merely stacking rocks on top of each other with no mortar and is still a livable structure could no be fathomed. Their underground fresh water collection system still works today and the rangers on the island use it for their own water. Just the idea of creating the steps alone made me tired. Though they did it over many many years, of course, that sort of discipline just doesn’t seem to be present in this day and age. To be able to see this and stand where the monks stood for even a short time gives you an amount of respect that I personally don’t feel too often anymore. It could be said that that sort of commitment and work just isn’t done anymore as well. In some ways, maybe we lost it as we progressed and evolved with technology and industry. We just don’t need to do things that way now. In that sort of progress I can’t help but think we lost something along the way. It helps me think about how much weight we need to give to the locations we choose to try to deliver to our audiences. This goes beyond a high poly-count and complicated photo-realistic materials. It is not something a screen shot can really tell you. We need to go deeper in some way.
The second highlight is maybe an obvious one once you hear what it is. Newgrange is a 5000 year old mound tomb built by Neolithic age people without the invention of the wheel and before the introduction of the horse to Ireland. No engineering or true astronomy was around at the time, yet they built this structure in line with the Winter Solstice so that during those shortest days of the year the Sun’s light would shine through a small hole into the tomb and illuminate a normally pitch black chamber. This thing is 500 years older than the Egyptian Pyramids of Giza. They allow 20 people to go in at a time and it is quite cramped. Also a stone stacking technique with no mortar involved it was even more baffling to experience than Skellig. Without wheels and horses it would take them something like 12 hours to move some of the large stones 3 miles with about 8 people, they predict. The petroglyphs found there are still a mystery to us and even the purpose of the tomb itself isn’t clear. What was clear was that this was a place of tremendous importance to them and was among the most difficult things those people could undertake and it is still standing today. The interaction with the sun still works as it did then. There is a 27,000 person waiting list chosen by lottery of people who want to be able to go into the tomb on the actual Solstice to see the real deal the ancients saw it. And even if you get chosen it may rain and you lose your chance anyway. They did a simulation with a light bulb and turned all the lights off inside the tomb to show us that and I have to admit I got a bit teary. I just couldn’t believe I was actually standing there where these people stood. It was beyond words at the time and still is and of course photos can’t do the experience justice. To be able to try to take that moment I experienced and bring it back into the work that I do to try to simulate something even remotely similar has pushed me into a new level of inspiration. It had to, there was no question. These people, the ones who created this place, they believed in magic and spirits and myths and the unexplained and ultimately in fantasy. Now we use their sacred places as a foundation for stories that spark the imagination to believe things like Atlantis being a real place and what it meant from a science-fiction standpoint. But when it comes down to it, no matter how much sci-fi we add to our work to make it more compelling to our audience, our imagination can’t hold a candle to the real thing. That is what will resonate with our players the most.
