Pure fluke, but it's Halloween evening right here right now so the final release date couldn't be much better.

Paul over at YSDC has now posted the first episode of the "Tatters Of The King" audiogame on the forum and - month by month - that thread will now grow with more episodes, art and commentary about what is already shaping up to be a very memorable game based on Chaosium's excellent campaign book.

Whether you're a tabletop roleplayer or not, these binaurally recorded Call of Cthulhu roleplaying sessions are a lot of fun to listen to. Think of it as kinda an improvised play in (probably) around 30x 2-3hr episodes, all for free.

Over a year ago now, when the Tatters game was first planned, Paul asked me to compose some music to go along with the game and so - very gradually - I've been putting together tracks that express some of what I feel about the Tatters Of The King campaign, about the Hastur mythology as it appears in Call of Cthulhu and about the King In Yellow and Chambers' original work. All in all, these things make for some deeply inspiring source material.

The end result is the album which in the end I did decide to call "Tattered". You can hear the whole thing for free on my Last.fm profile page if you're interested.

I've also just uploaded shots of the CD Cover and a virtual cover for the MP3 download edition.

The Upper House is a track from my new soundtrack for the YSDC/BURPS Tatters of the King audiogame. You can download it for free right on the forum thread page there.

The rest of the album - which I think I'm calling just "Tattered", but haven't quite decided yet - will be released here and there when I get the necessary arrangements made (and is already freely available to YSDC Patrons).

This particular track relates to the vast, eerie monastery on the Plateau of Leng where certain monstrous events are likely to take place in the audiogame.

"Dear Esther" is a unique videogame. Some wouldn't call it a game at all.

Presented as a free downloadable add-on for Valve's Half-Life 2 game, it is a product of Portsmouth (UK) University's TheChineseRoom research unit.

As the unidentified protagonist you explore what appears to be a bleak Hebridean island in a first-person view and - at numerous points around the isle that you may or may not reach - fragments of story are narrated, pieces of soundtrack are played and symbolism and metaphor are played out in your surroundings. A story is written upon the island, its words fragmented across the hilltops, beaches, cliffs and caves. The more you explore, the more of the story you'll encounter.

There aren't any guns or monsters, no brain-teasing puzzles or platform-jumping games - you just explore, look and listen and the story reveals itself.

The effect it creates is greatly enhanced by the achingly beautiful Jessica Curry soundtrack (which is actually freely available to download whether you play the game or not) and by Nigel Carrington's superb voice performance as the narrator.

There's a little bit of art, couple shots from the game, a better explanation and some notable quotes from reviewers on the project page that ought to convince you to play if you're still in two minds after all my rambling effervescence.

Now, it's some time since Dear Esther was released and it's won numerous accolades for its script, concept and audio. Its graphics, whilst far from poor, were fairly ordinary. The idea, the story and the accoustics always seemed rather more important than the graphics.

Now though, talented artist and modder Robert Briscoe is giving Esther a visual - and to some degree structural - overall. Maps, models and textures are all being updated and improved to make the island seem more real and the experience more immersive.

The work in progress on new textures and maps looks amazing. There are a few terrific before-and-after shots on this page and many more beautiful images throughout Briscoe's blog.

It may be some time before the new version of Esther becomes available but looking at its websites today got me all nostalgic over the engrossing and moving experience of playing this "game" and very enthusiastically looking forward to the overhauled re-release.

I help out around the database over at Yog-Sothoth.com (hereafter known as YSDC) the bubbling hub at the centre of the web when it come to all things Cthulhu-gaming related.

Well, with a third major audiogame behind them ("Walker in the Waste"), the resident roleplaying team are just about to set off on a new adventure I'm very excited about. "Tatters of the King" is just the most gorgeous Call of Cthulhu campaign ever. Full of mystery, horror, drama and pathos. The Hastur mythology - around which the campaign obviously revolves - is some of the most surreal and beautiful weirdness to come out of the whole "Cosmic Horror" school.

I was asked - nearly a year ago I think - to work on a soundtrack to accompany the new audiogame podcast series and wrote a few tracks at the time which I'm fairly pleased with. Then something unspeakable happened to my PC and the economy kinda fell over too. That led to rather a long sojourn in the world of trying-to-make-enough-money-to-eat but - with luck - the end of that long, shoggoth-filled corridor may be dimly in sight.

So anyway, with the audiogame about to start I managed to squeeze in a bit of time to work on some new tracks. It's all about inspiration, I find. I very seldom ever just sit down to "spend time writing music". I either had some tune appear in my head and I'm trying to dig it out of there or I'm working to a specific goal - as with the Tatters themes. Reading the scenario is obviously wonderful inspiration; there are scenes in there that honestly make the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. But another great source of inspiration is art.

I have some aimless Hastur-related doodling of my own I'll probably never get around to polishing enough to upload but far more useful has been the work of others.

It surprises me how little overtly Hasturian art there is around given the mythology's - to me - rich, evocative atmosphere. Nonetheless, I have a few noteworthy things to point at and they've all helped me cook up some music ideas.

Over on Livejournal a feller by the name of Catfish Charlie has a rather lovely image of the tattered King himself.

Then here on DA, ~gutterball's King in Yellow speaks very closely of certain scenes from the Tatters campaign book. Those hypnotic eyes and the sweeping vacuum of motion in the image create a great feeling of vast alien spaces, of a strange miasma of horror and love. Great stuff!

Viktor Kvant's impressive Lovecraftian gallery on his Dreamhours.com site has a touch of Hastur in there including an especially strange "King in Yellow". The whole gallery is well worth a look for the Lovecraft fan.

Best of all when it comes to Hastur-related imagery here on DA has to be a pair of images by the talented ~sandpaperdaisy.

Cassilda has the most stunning satiny textures happening and captures an amazing expression of wistful, distant, despair.

The staggering King in Yellow is likely my favorite thing on the whole of DA. There's so much utterly monsterous horror packed into this image, and yet all inferred and vague, dreamy and confusing - the perfect Hastur mythos image.

Well I'd better get back to writing. The eventual Tatters music is likely to be first heard from YSDC on the Tatters audiogame and/or Yog-Radio podcasts but should eventually make it to my Last.fm or theSixtyOne profile pages.

We hope

By gumm I've been gone a long time. I'm not one for blogging in detail about my daily existence so lets just say: work, people and animals have kept me away. With luck, the wave is currently, slowly... inexorably even... breaking, and I'll be about more soon. There are a few folks awaiting messages: you're not forgotten!