Interview with Marco Vallarino

Interview with Marco Vallarino, Secolo XIX journalist and writer, who talks about his passions and literary works, also dwelling on textual games he has created, such as Darkiss. The vampire's kiss, an interactive horror drama centered on Martin Voight, a vampire who comes back to life to take revenge on those who killed him.
This terrifying text game, so popular and loved that it reached the milestone of 20,000 downloads last January, can be downloaded and played for free by accessing the appropriate section found on the official website of Darkiss.
Since 2013, the following has also been available Darkiss 2 - Journey to Hell and by the end of the year we will hopefully be able to play the second sequel currently in the pipeline as well, Darkiss 3.
Passionate about genre cinema, Marco Vallarino is the executive producer of the short film Yoshiwara Club by Emilio Audissino (presented at the Short film corner of the 2008 Cannes Film Festival), a work that indirectly inspired Darkiss.

L: Who is Marco Vallarino?

M: A provincial journalism temp who in between articles seeks space in the national limelight with works of fiction such as short stories, novels and text-based video games in the style of old Zork. However, while as a journalist I often find myself in the spotlight as a chronicler of the so-called fashion system, as a writer I enjoy exploring the dark side of life, with all its transgressions and perversions.

L: You are a lover of noir, thriller and horror. When was this love born in you? Do you remember an event that could have sparked this passion in you?

M: As a child, I had a very original and resourceful babysitter, who instead of telling me the whimsical fairy tales of Snow White and Cinderella would tell me about the (many) horror movies and novels she saw at the movies and read. The enthusiasm that seeped from his words immediately made me curious and then passionate. It was an exceptional time for both film and horror literature, and when the first Halloween movies, Nightmare, The House, Friday the 13th came on TV, an extraordinary season began for me to discover how exciting it is to know one's fears and face them, even if only through a work of fiction. I remember the satisfaction I felt when I read Stephen King's first novel, "Only Clue the Full Moon," all in all a minor work by the king of thrillers, but which to me seemed simply perfect in its ability to offer in the story and setting everything I was looking for in a novel and had never found in those I had read in school.

L: You are primarily a writer. You alternate between your pieces for newspapers and magazines and genre literature. How did your literary journey begin?

M: Since childhood I have always enjoyed writing, not so much for the satisfaction of creating something completely my own, but for the chance to share it with others. For many years I enjoyed making text-based video games clumsily inspired by classics of the genre such as Zork and Adventure in the Castle, but without finding a way to propose them to a possibly interested audience. In the early 1990s there was very little access to the net in Italy, and magazines that published CDs on newsstands with selections of the best freeware software of the moment seemed unattainable to me (actually they were not, as I discovered a few years later, but I was shy).
So I began to try my hand at "non-interactive" fiction, which at least offered me the outlets of literary contests and eventual publications put up for grabs for the best. Actually, in text-based video games I had always been more fascinated by the ludic aspect than the literary one, but approaching reading and writing in a more careful way led me within a few years to find the professional outlet I was looking for and that would shortly allow me to revive my old passion for interactive fiction.

L: "Shadows" is an anthology of your short stories that dates back to 1998. Can you tell us about it? To whom would you recommend this reading?

M: Unfortunately, I cannot recommend this reading to anyone because the book has been out of print since 2001. The subsequent republication of some of the stories that made up the collection in other literary contexts prevented a reprint, however the memory of "Shadows" is indelible for me, as it was the first book I published. It all began with the Courmayeur Prize, a literary competition for short fantastic fiction that was very popular at the time, in which I participated with a science fiction story that made the shortlist of ten finalists. Even though I did not win, my town's newspaper was keen to break the news of my little literary exploit, attracting the attention of a local publisher who wanted to meet me and read my texts, to consider possible publication. Thus was born "Shadows", a collection of my early short stories having as a common thread a certain tendency toward tragic, particularly in the endings, and several fantastic elements, which were quite rare at the time, especially in works with a generational slant like mine.
The publisher was convinced that the book would sell well on the Riviera, in bookstores and affiliated newsstands. However, I was interested in making myself known outside Liguria as well, so I decided to equip myself with a modem (then still at 33.5 kbit/s...) and Internet subscription to invade the web with my 'fantanoir' stories and try to sell a few more copies. "Shadows" got good reviews just about everywhere, and as I said some stories were picked up by other publishers for inclusion in anthologies devoted to the emerging talents of the day. However, the greatest satisfaction came in the spring of 2000, when I found it in Dylan Dog's Almanac of Fear, reported by Luca Crovi among the best horror books of the year.

L: Your short story "Barefoot in Blood" is part of the anthology Horror Lovers. How did the collaboration with editor Gianfranco Staltari come about? Do you feel satisfied with the final product?

M: I have always enjoyed participating in themed anthologies, which have often turned out to be excellent showcases. In this case, since it was a horror collection, the interest was double! In the fall of 2011, Staltari, with whom I had already participated in a Ligurian noir anthology that had allowed us to be on the air at a very popular Radio 19 broadcast, wrote to me to present me with the project of a collection of short stories about "Horror Lovers," that is, stories that spoke of tragic, transgressive, perverse loves and that conveyed states of tension and disquiet, in an elegant way and without too many offal.
I decided to exploit the supernatural element linked to the horror matrix to set up a girl's love story with a ghost imprisoned in a tower, explaining how dangerous it is to fall in love (and have sex, in a rather bizarre way...) with someone who is no longer of this world. The title itself should be eloquent of the strangeness of the situation, juxtaposing such a pleasant idea as walking barefoot with the truculent detail of the pool of blood, which in the economy of the story represents the way the girl and the ghost can communicate.
Published by Cordero and presented last September at Delos Days in Milan, the anthology (also available in ebook and in a special format for the visually impaired) had the virtue of illustrating each story with a panel created by an emerging artist from the world of comics. In my case, Matteo Anselmo depicted the dark tale of Elena and her "paranormal" love triangle with a gloomy quotation from the game of the goose, which hints at how sometimes the ancient Latin motto "faber est suae quisque fortunae" is also true in reverse!

L: Marco Vallarino is primarily the author of a series of text-interface adventures that we might consider true reader's videogames. What is Darkiss. The vampire's kiss? Why the choice of a vampire as the main character?

M: Life is strange and reality almost always surpasses fantasy when it comes to plot twists. In 2010, fifteen years after I had given up (or almost given up) writing text-based video games to concentrate on "pure" fiction, it happened that I returned to my first great "love," at a time when the now-confirmed publishing crisis seemed to preclude me from publishing my novels in at least a dignified manner, not to mention the ever-increasing distribution problems that plagued almost all publishers, thwarting writers' attempts to promote their works effectively.
To play it safe, I decided to focus on a meta-literary work that could be disseminated for free through the Internet. In a country where people "read little" but "play a lot," interactive fiction seemed like the ideal outlet for what I had in mind. Thanks to the experience I had accumulated since childhood, I was familiar with the mechanics of interactive fiction and I was confident that they would allow me to stand out in the mass of short stories and novels that had saturated the Internet (and tended not to be read by anyone precisely because there were too many of them).
On the one hand, I wanted to see how many people were still interested in that kind of game, which is considered little more than a vintage staple; on the other hand, I was interested in "acquiring" a new kind of audience, to cope with the crisis in the book market, which was seeing sales plummet every year even for the 60%.
However, I also wanted something that was not only innovative as a format but also as a story (or game). And since I had always been a big fan of Dracula and other evil vampires such as the Kurt Barlow of "Salem's Lot," Jerry Dandridge of "Fright Night," etc. since I was a child, I chose to cast the player in the shoes of a gloomy blood-sucking monster that would give more personality to the work (at least compared to those in which the user impersonates the usual curmudgeonly occult scientist, fighting evil out of bias) and offer a more "unscrupulous" plan of action.

L: Your horror video game has reached 20,000 downloads in its first three years. What does this milestone represent for you?

M: More than an accomplishment, it is a starting point, certifying not only the potential of this type of work that is by no means obsolete, but also the public's desire to discover, at least on the web, 'new' forms of entertainment that break out of the usual banal commercial canons and attempt to offer, through the passion and commitment of the authors, more compelling and original stories. Now we need to see where this journey that has just (re)started can take us.
Beyond the large amount of feedback received (in many cases, thankfully, positive), what is giving me the most satisfaction is the intention of some players to become interactive fiction authors themselves. Many of those who have discovered this particular type of entertainment with Darkiss got so caught up in the dynamics of gaming that they decided to "switch sides," confident that they had found the right way to bring their creative projects to life. Besides, writing a text-based video game, even with Inform, is not as hard as people think.

L: The successes of the first chapter of your interactive fiction prompted you to repeat with Darkiss 2: Journey to Hell. How is it different from the first Darkiss? Tell us about it.

M: These are two very different games. The first was intended as an introductory chapter to the truculent vampire epic Martin Voigt, in terms of both story and setting. After many years of not writing such games (my last adventure, Enigma, dated back to 2001), I wanted to see if there was anyone still interested in the 'product' and at the same time I had to make sure that those who were approaching such a particular type of work for the first time, either through Google or a referral to a site or forum, would not have too much trouble understanding how it worked.
Thus, having to work on something inherently simple, I focused on the care of the setting, embellishing the vampire's story with truculent anecdotes and taking care of every detail of the scenery, partly to make the exploration of the dark dungeon in which the action took place more intriguing. Then there was the fact that, according to the story, Martin Voigt had just awakened from a long sleep and, being very weak, could not make use of the sensational powers that enabled him to transform into bat, wolf, and fog. His only strength was his gray matter, which, however, was more than enough to get through the first part of the story.

In Darkiss 2 the vampire is in top form and, having to go on a mission to a hellish dimension full of dangers, he needs the powers, and how! Ovranilla's "outdoor" setting is designed to give as much emphasis as possible to Martin's ability to transform, something that by the way I think is quite innovative in a text-based video game, where the character can hardly fly, climb or even dissolve to overcome the obstacles he encounters. Darkiss 2 was, however, already planned with Darkiss 1, as well as Darkiss 3, which I hope to release by the end of 2014 to allow Martin Voigt's fans to finally measure themselves against the vampire's arch-enemy, Professor Anderson ... to whom, however, a spin-off of the series could be dedicated, to increase the pathos of the future confrontation.

L: Who would you recommend your video games to? Why?

M: All lovers of books and video games should find interactive fiction interesting, as it is a type of work that builds on the strengths of these two forms of entertainment, attempting to create through a synergy of styles and concepts an even more immersive and cathartic experience. Who, as a reader, has not dreamed of experiencing a story firsthand, being able to manage its unfolding at will? And who, as a gamer, hasn't dreamed of being the character in a novel so that he or she could change the plot to his or her liking?

L: Why should a video gamer play Darkiss rather than a more traditional genre video game? What are the substantial differences between the text interface video game and more modern video games?

M: I don't think one necessarily has to choose between a video game with graphics and sound and a text-based one, in the free time of a good 'gamer' there should be room for both, since they are different experiences that provide different approaches and stimuli. However, those who are fed up with the usual repetitive settings and plots of many modern video games and their styles oriented toward shoot-and-run or exploration of scenery with exaggerated realism will find in interactive fiction something more stimulating from a point of view of the relationship to the purpose of the game and the way in which it is to be achieved.

L: Do you plan to continue your saga? Do you have any new projects in the dark or horror field anyway?

M: Darkiss 3 is in the works, and although it will feature the long-awaited clash between Martin Voigt and Professor Anderson, it may not be the last chapter in the saga. I would also like to dedicate a spin-off to Professor Anderson, to give more space to his character in view of the final battle, and also to explain how the rivalry for Martin came about. Then I have half an idea of trying to do an ebook with an old dark thriller novel of mine that has unfortunately remained in the drawer, and from which I could make another interactive fiction. The projects are many and there is no shortage of ideas, unlike the weather, also because being a big horror fan I also like to spend time reading, playing games and watching movies as well as writing my own stories.

L: Going back to your passions, what are your favorite titles always in the genre, as far as video games are concerned?

M: Unbelievable but true, I am a great lover of sports titles such as the old "Kick Off 2" on the Amiga, the "Super Sidekicks" series on the Neo Geo, and the more recent and acclaimed "PES" on the Play Station. I also enjoy fighting games, although I have remained deeply entrenched in the old 2D of "Street Fighter," "Fatal Fury," and so on. On the adventure front, I remember the fantastic horror series of "Elvira, Mistress of the dark," and then especially "Personal nightmare," in which the protagonist had to investigate a town haunted by monsters of all kinds to find his missing father, a priest who had become a devil worshipper! Infocom's very good "Lurking horror" was also very good, while in Italy among horror films, Tommaso Caldarola's "Uno zombie a Deadville" has always been a sensation, in which one has the honor of playing a (very) hungry undead anxious to "re-embrace" his former best friend. They are not horror, but I was also thrilled by the early gdr series "Ultima" and "Final Fantasy," and FTL's legendary "Dungeon master," which was quite creepy in places.

L: Does your love of dark veins also embrace cinema? Are there any titles that have particularly struck you in recent years?

M: As I said at the beginning, cinema was the expressive medium that made me discover and fall in love with horror as a child, much more than Dylan Dog comics, novels and video games, which apart from very rare cases never conveyed real states of tension to me. In recent years I have been quite terrified by "Paranormal Activity" and "Rec" because of the extreme realism that that kind of filming managed to give the story, but I have also enjoyed more smash-hit works such as the various "Resident Evil" and seemingly 'minor' ones like "Chernobyl Diaries," "Frozen" and "Vacancy." Like many, I too fear that we have lost the Dario Argento "of yesteryear," but instead of complaining to the master about the ugliness of the last few films I think it would be more interesting to ask why in Italy in the last 20 years there has not emerged a director capable of picking up his heavy legacy from the 1970s and 1980s.

L: What do you think are the best movie transpositions of video games?

M: On the horror front, the "Resident Evils" seemed to me to be almost all appreciable, or at least decent. Otherwise, I can't think of anything striking, quite the contrary. The "Double Dragon" and "Super Mario" spin-offs were bad, and the "Street Fighter" one barely sufficient, despite the usual Van Damme. Conversely, I consider "Wreck-it Ralph," a modern fairy tale based on an invented video game that was then specially made as a gadget of the film, to be a masterpiece. In that story, in addition to such laudable quotes as Q-Bert, there are the elements that can make both a movie and a video game great.

L: An opinion of your own on this interview?

M: Really excellent, I hope I haven't written too much, but rarely have I been faced with such a complex and comprehensive set of questions that could allow me to fully dissect my passion for horror and approach to writing. Also remarkable is the fact that it was able to reach out to virtually every area of my creative life.

L: Leave a message to the DarkVeins community!

M: Don't be afraid to be afraid -- boo!

L: Thank you for your time!