This past week, I had the opportunity to speak with Tony "RatBoy" Walsh, the mastermind behind Gloomveil, an online, interactive fantasy game. Tony is also an artist, and has worked in various graphic and gaming realms in his career. Tony graciously sat down with me this week (virtually of course) to discuss Gloomveil and give some background on both Gloomveil and his work.
MediaChic: Could you explain what Gloomveil is and how it works? Is it similar to a text-based Multi-User Dungeon, or to Dungeons and Dragons? Tony Walsh: Gloomveil is a work of online interactive fantasy- a web site that combines fiction, actvities, and role-playing areas all within a unifying concept. The concept is one that facilitates the participation of characters from virtually any fantasy world- "Cloaked within a shroud of mysterious black Fog, the Gloomveil region is a ghastly realm of danger, exploration and adventure." Gloomveil.com is a place where various levels of participation can take place, from casual browsing of the content, to intensive free-form roleplaying interaction. The site is a vehicle for roleplaying, but is not a game in its own right. All the roleplaying is centered around It's similar to a MUD, with heavy influences from roleplaying games like D&D, but the roleplaying is freeform with occasional moderation from myself and the creative team.
MC: How did you come up with the idea? TW: I read about the upcoming Neverwinter Nights computer game in development by Alberta's Bioware Corporation, the guys that brought us the "Baldur's Gate" series. Neverwinter is a D&D-based online game that comes with editing tools so that individual users can create and run their own adventures. You can make something as small as a tavern, or as big as a city. As a Mac-user, and there are few games I can play, but Neverwinter is coming out for Mac, PC, and Unix machines. I saw that there was keen interest from computer and traditional gamers alike, and devised a concept that would rope the whole gang in. Because so many details of the game editor weren't worked out yet, and because I know not to overextend myself, I created Gloomveil's Fog - the Fog is a natural, sensible limit to the size of the area I would have to create. I could lift areas of Fog as new locations were developed. I also set up Gloomveil as a very dangerous world - encouraging players to concentrate on the only tavern in the region, the Brothers Three Inn.
MC: What were your major influences while you were developing the concept? TW: My biggest influences were the works of Tim Burton and Edward Gorey. Secondary influences would be the reams of fantasy lit I read as a child.
MC: Is it hard for a beginner to get the hang of how to play? TW: Well, there aren't really any rules, so it's very easy for anyone to get involved. The focus of the roleplaying area, the Brothers Three Inn, is all about interaction between people. There's no fighting allowed, it's all just free-form social interaction. If you are familiar with the fantasy genre, you'll fit right in, particularly since your character can be from wherever you like.
MC: What kind of experience do you have in the fantasy gaming world? TW: Oh lordy. Well, I started when I was eleven. That was a long time ago. Having been raised on stuff like the Narnia books, the Lord of the Rings, classic Fairy Tales and Mythology, I really got into D&D. Played it for years, mostly as a "Dungeon Master", the person who gets to play God. Playing God is fun, you get to make up everything from scratch. In my early 20s, I got hooked up with live-action roleplaying - which is just like it sounds, live D&D. It's kinda like one of those Murder Mystery weekends, except with a classic fantasy setting… and you can beat people up with padded weapons. I don't know if I'm ever going to stop this crazy stuff.
MC: Do you think that access to web has increased the number of opportunities for new types of games and adventures? TW: Undoubtedly. There are lots of interesting projects out there, and many of them are "web-playable" games. The web is a great delivery method for both Mac and PC gamers.
MC: What kind of things does the future hold for Gloomveil and for yourself? Well, it's all a big experiment for me. I'm not going for gold with this project, it's an "As long as it amuses me" deal. There is a lot of potential with the site, however, and I intend on leveraging its huge amount of original content any way that I can. Aside from extending Gloomveil into commercial computer games such as Neverwinter Nights and Myth, I will probably put out a printed publication some time next year, collecting all the artwork and writing into one volume. But we'll see :)
Silly Factoids about Tony Favourite Sci-Fi or Fantasy book: The Hobbit
Favourite Comic Book Character: Doug Allen's "Steven"
Favourite Movie: The Road Warrior
One website that you visit daily (besides your own): Slashdot.org
Some of Tony's Art will be featured in our FictionChic section a little later this week. You can find out more information about Gloomveil at http://www.gloomveil.com/ and all of Tony's vital stats are available at http://www.secretlair.com/