Rebellious Dead--A Video Game

Ok, here's the thing...a few months ago, I created a REALLY AWESOME VIDEO GAME loosely based on Shakespeare's Macbeth, where Banquo's Ghost gets to traverse anywhere from Scotland to England to even Ireland in his adventure, which takes place during and after the play. It's pretty self-explanatory, so I'll just let you read it for yourself, then tell me what you think!

Rebellious Dead

A Video Game by Hiram Johnson

In this video game, you do not play as someone in Macbeth who’s among the living…that would be far too boring. This game is unique…though it does involve someone who appeared in the play. But not someone evil…it’s something much, much more intriguing. In this game, you play the remnant spirit of Banquo, who, unlike his living counterpart, is more than willing to wreak immense destruction. The setting is the same as it is in the original Macbeth, but there’s a twist; the game begins near the middle of the play, and ends long after Macbeth is slain and Malcolm made king. At least, if that’s how you wish it to be…for, just as in other games like Myst or Fable, YOU, not the game, make the decisions. Your goals, however, are set in stone—you aim to wreak your vengeance upon one, two or all three of the following groups, whom brought about your untimely death: the Wayward Sisters and their queen, Hecate, who sowed the seeds of your death with but a few words, Macbeth and his wife, whom orchestrated your murder, or the group of murderers who slew you. And on this side of eternity, you have more than the means necessary to settle the scores…but it is totally up to you as to how you will use them, and whom you will use them upon…

“Hail! Hail! Hail!” (I.iii.65-67) the voices call out, shattering an eerie stillness. Transparent eyes flicker open, squinting slightly. All is fog and rain…

“Lesser than Macbeth and greater!” (I.iii.68) one of the three proclaims, a shattered, jagged shard of a memory, like lighting to the ears. The eyes adjust to the light, and their owner finds himself at the bottom of a ditch…

“Not so happy, yet much happier!” (I.iii.69) a second voice calls. Suddenly a gasp leaps from the wakening man’s lips and out into the fog.

He’s dead. Mortally wounded. Betrayed.

Yet somehow he finds more than enough strength to clamber over the lip of the ditch, expecting to exhaust what little remains of his energy in the process, yet exceeding his own expectations. As he lifts himself to his feet, he realizes that something is very wrong. He looks at his hands, and gasps in surprise.

His hands are pale and transparent, like a figure traced, with perfect detail, by the palest of the full moon’s light. He also realizes that he no longer feels weak…neither hunger, nor thirst, nor fatigue, nor loss of blood plague him now. What could possibly be the meaning of this?

Suddenly a voice speaks to him from behind…one which proves to be all too familiar to him.

“What bloody man is this?” (I.ii.1) the specter asks, a tone of sudden sorrow in his voice. As the figure puts his hand on the first figure’s shoulder, the main character whirls around…and discovers who exactly this voice belongs to.

The late, beloved King Duncan of Scotland.

“Milord!” he cries suddenly, falling to his knees in reverence, “My mind hath revolted ’gainst me… I believed that thou wert slain…” Banquo explains, bewildered. But the king’s response is less than affirming.

“I was.” He reassures sadly. Suddenly Banquo realizes what Duncan is trying to tell him.

“Then…dost this mean I too am slain?” the kneeling figure asks, looking up at his king with a countenance of shock and despair. The king closes his eyes, restrains his own sorrow, and then nods, brow and mouth furrowed.

“And by th’ selfsame fiend that life from mine breast let run.” The ghostly Duncan affirms.

For a moment, Banquo ponders whether his suspicions in life was accurate, but immediately realizes that the truth is beyond denial. And at this point, his rage grows to such a point that, as he raises himself to the sky, his body seems to explode with unleashed wrath. As the forms of numerous monsters, spawned by the three-fold union of ghostly power, tempestuous rage and immense betrayal, lash out into semi-being from his entire body, Duncan watches on…and a plan, dark and brutal, begins to take root in his mind…a plot to bring justice down upon the heads of those who slew the only one of his two best generals that had never been disloyal to him.

Suddenly a voice calls out into the mist.

“Who goest there? Speak, lest I slay thee!” the voice calls, somewhat familiar to Banquo.

It is the third of the murderers.

And he is not alone.

Suddenly Duncan reaches out and pulls Banquo to his feet.

“Wouldst thou have vengeance?” he asks, urgency in his voice. Banquo seems stunned.

“Indeed, I wouldst! But how shouldst I…” he replies, surprised. However, Duncan answers his question before it’s even out of his mouth.

“I shall teach thee…” he reassures.

Thus, the game begins…

The setting of the scene is a foggy, rainy clearing in the middle of the woods in which Banquo was slain; the night sky bears few stars, and the moon remains unseen.

The opening vignette is followed immediately by the tutorial, in which the player unlocks numerous different forms through using them to slay the men who come out of the surrounding rain and mist in search of intruders, and the tutorial is therefore long; the different manifestations mastered are, in order, Ghost (the average phantom with the ability to inflict harm without being wounded by most human weapons and the universal powers of ghosts), Ghast (a bloody and super-powered version of Ghost), Phantasm (a somewhat gaseous form of Ghost with malleable, wisp-adorned limbs with great grip and versatility of function), Warg (a black dog with both fiery eyes and powers, and great strength, speed, and size), Banshee (a white raven with powers of spontaneous explosions and spectral piercing), Mist (fog with the power to divide and lash out physically at all those within it), Entity (a ghostly silhouette of light with power over blinding lights, images, and sound), Shade (a moving shadow with power over nightmares, the human mind, and its own deadly malleability), Poltergeist (invisibly taking possession and controlling anything form doors, pantries, armor, gargoyles, or other designated inanimate objects), Specter (a dark, hooded being with long, bladelike claws and a few additional, mysterious powers), and lastly, the greatest form of all, Fiend (a massive monster with a combination of all the other abilities and a few of its own). As well as this, most semi-humanoid forms will be able to use Banquo’s mysterious, spectral sword, Macbane, which formed from an offshoot of the desire for justice that spawned all your character’s different forms. The reason for the glade being the setting for the tutorial is that it is the place where Banquo first realized in the play that Macbeth meant for him to die. The perfect spot to plot one’s revenge, don’t you think? At the end of the tutorial, a sub-vignette plays, in which the third murderer is slain…

“Speak if you can. What are you?” (I.iii. 50) the third murderer demands, inching up painfully against a tree in fear. A massive monster looms above him, with eyes like those of a crocodile, teeth like spiked, ivory fence-posts lining its maw, long tongue like a living whipcord, arms like a bear in their strength, long, gleaming claws on its hands, slick, and black, gleaming skin that seems to have a mind of its own in its apparent freedom of form and movement (it seems to like lengthening into black, fleshy tendrils). The third murderer’s left leg is snapped sidewise, a token of the monster’s fury. The great fiend suddenly swoops its whole body down, leaning inches from the third murderer’s face.

“I AM RECOMPENSE!” he roars, causing the man to whimper in fear. Suddenly realizing his fate, and wishing to be free of his present agony, the third murderer, very contrary to character, submits.

“Let it come down!” (III.iii.24), he whispers. Then, with a roar, Banquo lashes out…but finds that a searing pain gashes into his great hand as he breaks his victim’s neck. He looks at the eerie, silver fluid that drips from the wound he now possesses, and finds a silver dagger lying in the grass at his feet. He bends over to pick it up, but finds that it burns him to touch it. He cries out, his claws smoking, as the blade falls back to the grass in which it lay before. He looks at his great hand…

…silver can harm him…

So, the tutorial ends, with Duncan vanishing in a burst of bright light after giving Banquo a few words of wisdom, and with Banquo setting out towards Inverness…at which point, the second vignette plays.

Macbeth turns from his meeting with his hired band of cutthroats, for the most part satisfied—Banquo, at least, is dead The king toasts his thanes, wearing quite well the mantle of deception. But when he attempts to take a seat, just as he recalls the first murderer’s account of the death he inflicted, and of the assurance he’d felt that Banquo was well-slain, a voice, designed specifically to sound like wind passing over a bone-pile, slithers into the depths of his decaying mind.

“Hail, Macbeth…” the voice suddenly hisses, causing the Macbeth to jerk his head around to see the speaker. There sits Banquo’s Ghost, drenched in blood from the brow down, his hair matted with still-gleaming scarlet fluid. Macbeth recoils with revulsion and horror, a cry suddenly escaping his lips.

Banquo sits, one leg slightly crossed over the other, arms fully crossed, a cruel, tormenting sneer on his face, eyes glaring like a psychopath. Suddenly a different voice—the one used by Banquo in life—replaces the one that alerted the king of the specter’s presence. “Art thou not glad to see thine dear kinsman? Thine old friend, Banquo, back from his evening ride?” he questions, feigning obliviousness. However, he immediately moves to peel away the layers of his old friend’s mind. “Or dost thou feel guilty? Wherefore dost such shame grip thine liver as to produce the hue of lilies? Dost thou fear retribution?” he jeers, a good deal more vicious than he ever was in life. Macbeth looks on in horror, still unable to believe what has happened before him…

“Thou canst say I did it! Never shake thy gory locks at me!” (III.iv.61-62), he cries, pointing madly at what the thanes believe is an empty stool.

“Thou hast it now—King, Cawdor, and Glamis, all as the Weird Women promised, and I fear thou played’st most foully for’t (III.i.1-3). And so shalt thou be paid…thine price is blood!” Banquo laughs in reply, enjoying the torture-game he plays…

The vignette continues with Banquo further tormenting Macbeth with numerous horrific visions and cutting taunts. Eventually, however, just as in the play, he hides his presence, and watches as Macbeth and his wife argue alone, then decide to go to bed. The reason that the banquet was chosen for this vignette was because it makes the scene much more personal, interesting, and revealing than it already is in the play.

The second level opens with Lady Macbeth telling her husband of her plans to go to bed while he decides, last minute, to stay up a while longer and think by himself, while his wife is unknowingly being followed by the ghost of Banquo. The objective of the level is simple: make as much noise and disturbances as you can without being seen for too long, losing the queen’s trail, or scaring her so badly out of her wits that she calls to her husband for help (there is a meter to the left of the screen that indicates her stress level, and the bar must neither drop below or rise above the gray portion, or the level will be lost). How exactly you decide to haunt her is entirely up to you, but the best forms to use for this level are Shade, Poltergeist, Warg, Banshee, and Ghost (with the third-to-last being used sparingly, given its great size and fearsome appearance, and the last two to be used only in their invisible forms). Do whatever you want in order to keep Lady Macbeth’s stress level above white and below black; smash windows, break or possess statues, rustle tapestries, grope at her with unseen hands, scream in her ear, wail, send things up in flames…whatever you want. Just remember to keep her stress level balanced, so that she’s scared just enough so that she’s freaked out, but not enough to call to Macbeth, which will cause the storyline to deviate from its necessary path. When you’ve finally reached her bedchamber, switch to one of the more terrifying forms. A short scene will follow…

“Speak if you can! What are you?” (I.iii.50) she demands, turning to face the apparition behind her. Banquo laughs coldly.

“Thine guilt, thy shame, thine black despair! Fair is foul and foul is fair…(I.i.12). Thou art proof of the claim.” He answers, drawing closer. “Thou art haunted, hell-fiend; thine mind is fouled by the blood thou hast spilt with thine counsel. As has thine hand…” he adds, silently producing a vision for her. She looks at her hand, and suddenly cries out.

It’s dripping with blood.

“Out, damned spot!” (V.i.37) she whispers. Then, as the light goes out and Banquo changes into his Fiend guise, Lady Macbeth lets out a scream…

…the haunting of Lady Macbeth has begun.

The reason this location was chosen for the level is that it later seems to provide a great explanation as to how Macbeth and his wife grew more and more distant from one another, and, in an even greater extent, where the reminder of her own sins originates…and why she refuses to go anywhere without a candle…

Whether or not the level with Lady Macbeth was chosen, the third vignette remains the same...Banquo, unseen by the Wayward Sisters, watches on as they throw their gruesome ingredients into the cauldron, then cease upon Macbeth’s arrival.

“How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags? What is’t you do?” (IV.i.48-49) he barks, madness in his bloodshot eyes. Banquo smiles grimly as he admires his handiwork. Macbeth staggers like a drunken man into the witches’ stone hut, almost falling over from fatigue upon entering, due to the fact that fear of this phantom has denied him rest. His eyes, bloodshot with desperate need of sleep, seem to reflect the growing madness within. The Wayward Sisters seem pleased to see him.

“A deed without a name.” (IV.i.50) they answer, with hints of cunning malice in their voices. The ghost watches on as their conversation continues, with the raging, commanding Macbeth being lead around, as if by an invisible leash, by the witches, and then, meets their masters. By his own supernatural origin, Banquo’s Ghost knows the true names of the three apparitions (or, more rightly, Demons), that have been called up by the three Sisters; Cernunnos, the crowned youth with the tree in his hand, Baal, the armed head, and last, but certainly not least, Moloch, the bloody child. As the spirits give him counsel, Banquo realizes then that Macduff’s life is now in jeopardy, as are the lives of his family members. Macbeth now seems invincible, but shakily so…there are more than a few loopholes that could be slipped through. However, when he sees vision of the line of kings produced by the witches, he realizes that they spoke true about his descendents. However, after cursing the Wayward Sisters when they vanish from his sight, the unseen watcher learns of Macbeth’s plans to kill off Macduff and his family, as well as return to his home at Inverness.

However, after his old ‘friend’ departs, the witches reappear.

“Avaunt thee, foolish, incarnadine Midas!” one of the witches cackles cruelly, just as Macbeth disappears into the woods that surround their ‘cozy’ stone ruins.

“Seems Hecate spake rightly, though unrightly did she chide us.” The second one adds.

“Now, hie thee hither, black spirits and white, to grant us speed on this black night. To Acheron’s Pit we three do fly; to Sabbath dark, which calls us nigh!” the three hags howl, screaming with mirth as they explode into a trio of black trails of darkness, shadow, and ash. Brimstone smells heavily where they once stood. Banquo remains, caught in a tricky predicament…should he pursue the three Sisters, who brought about his death with a few prophetic words, Macbeth, who almost literally stabbed him in the back despite all the years of comradery they’d shared because his children might get in his way, or the murderers, who directly slew him and will soon be heading to Macduff’s Castle to fulfill their master’s bloody wishes? The choice is yours…and it isn’t limited to just one of these three.

The reason this scene is chosen for the third vignette is because it’s a very intriguing scene in the play, and provides a great point from which the player can really choose his fate. In short, it adds both drama and a heightened sense of control to the game.

The third vignette ends with a choice of what should be done next. The player has not three, but five choices, which include hunting down the Wayward Sisters and slaying them one by one, haunting Macbeth, his wife, and all his men and servants into madness, trying to stop the murderers from reaching Macduff’s Castle and later hunting them down across Scotland, England, and even Ireland to keep them from slaying your son, whom they still hate, taking all three tasks in chronological order, or choosing your missions as you go along. Though the possibilities are endless, the option reviewed here will be the fifth one, in which a mission of following the Witches to their Esbat at the Pit of Acheron and fighting the demonic creatures they’ve posted to guard against intruders is to be undertaken…

Rain rushes down from the fattened, black clouds like blood from the gashed neck of a sacrificial bull, illuminated only by the occasional flash of white lightning that seems to tear reality asunder. Thunder encompasses all, the incessant beating of a celestial war-drum. The perfect music for the all-out demonic bloodbath that is about to occur…

An eerie, white raven, unfathomably calm despite the pandemonium screaming around it, seems to gaze out at the dark, sinister bog with something akin to anticipation. Everything about the bog seems to scream “EVIL!” at the top of a Banshee’s lungs, and the numerous rumors that have abounded concerning this place don’t help its bad reputation, either. It was thought to have been a very popular spot for dumping off the bodies of those who’d succumbed to the Black Plague a few centuries back, but even so, many of those who dumped off the bodies were never seen again. Numerous great boulders, etched with occult and satanic runes and symbols, seem to mark the location as a place clutched close to Satan’s hell-blackened heart; in other words, close in proximity to Hell. No matter what the weather, the place is always thick with fog, and the black, brackish waters and peat pits of the bog never stir…as if something commands them to remain still at all times. Nothing living stirs within that place…and even if there is something, hidden deep within that fog, and someone is either crazy or brave enough to go looking for it, nothing that enters that fog leaves…ever again.

But the pale raven doesn’t seem to mind. Its eyes are set upon one of thirteen stones that seem to enclose the Bog of Acheron like a fence, it’s gaze focused in particular upon the pentagram that has been scrawled into this great stone by some unknown black magician. Its gaze flits to the other twelve boulders, one by one, and finds the same thing; pentacles, with the purpose of repelling anyone or anything that dares intrude upon the Esbat that is occurring at the bog’s center, the Pit of Acheron. But they’re no great obstacle for this bird…or, at least, they won’t be.

Suddenly the white raven lets out a thunderous squawk, which seems much too loud for a bird of such small size to produce, and instantly, the first of the great boulders it gazed upon explodes, seemingly from within, releasing a sudden, nine-foot jet of fire into the air with a loud, unending scream…an alarm. The bird’s cover is blown.

But is it really a bird?

Forced to finish its work quickly, the bird lets out twelve more coughing shrieks as numerous flames alight from within the fog of the bog, and suddenly rush towards its border and towards the bird itself.

Suddenly, a flaming arrow whistles past the bird’s head, missing by no more than an inch, and imbeds itself in the tree-trunk behind it. The raven looks down, just in time to see a small, horned creature with a deep, guttural chuckle notch another flaming arrow onto its bowstring.

Suddenly the bird seems to leap off of the branch, and transforms in midair, into a gigantic, hairy mass of muscle, teeth, and fire. The last thing the Demon beneath the descending creature sees before it’s sent back to Hell is a great pair of jaws lined with fangs like butcher knives, enveloping the monster whole.

After mutilating the body, the great hairy mass rises from the grass scorched by its own great paws, eyes searing red, little cinders being expelled from its body at random as well as whenever it breathes. The monstrous wolf is immense; easily big enough to kill a man with no trouble at all, and obviously not of this world. It watches as hundreds of other flames advance through the fog, towards its position. With a loud snarl, it dashes towards the bog, planning to meet its adversaries head on. However, as it leaps over the heads of at least a battalion of scattered Demons, it finds that it has leapt right into an opening in the black, brackish sludge of the bog. At first, this doesn’t seem to be a problem. But that’s before at least a hundred, bony hands and jaws clamp tightly onto the Warg’s hide and begin to drag it down to the darker, more hellish depths of the bog of Acheron. Suddenly the Warg seems to catch some dark chant rumbling through the black waters…

“Double, double, toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble!” (IV.i.10-11) the deep, hellish voices drone…

And by the way…this is you, and not only do you have to fight your way back to the surface by any means possible, but you also need to carve your way through wave after wave of Demons, towards the level’s boss, Moloch. Near the end of the level, there are nine portals, from which an unending onslaught of Demons are pouring out form Hell and into this world. In order to stop their endless advance, these portals must be shut down…by any means necessary. Blow them up, crush them, smash them closed, etc…the options are numerous. But regardless of what you do, the next objective is simple…take down Moloch.

After this, a fourth sub-scene plays, precluding the fight between Moloch and Banquo…

A small, red imp, his left horn cracked in half and one leg a bloody stump at the knee, hobbles as fast as his remaining limbs will carry him, desperate to get to Moloch before he, too, is destroyed. Weakly flapping his wings, he reaches the top of a great, stone ruin in the midst of the bog, where, on a throne of blackest obsidian, Moloch sits, his legs enveloped in flame. This is not the bloody child that presented itself to Macbeth earlier that day…this is a full-fledged Demon, a monster no mortal would dare face…

…but what is coming to fight him is no mortal.

“Your Lowness!” the Demon shrieks, bowing quickly as he enters the great Demon’s presence, “Your Lowness, it cometh, it…” but the Demon is cut off…literally. With a low, swishing hum, a ghostly sword whirls through the air and splits the Demon in half. The creature screams, then bursts into flames as it’s sent back to Hell, and the blade that cleaved it in two clatters along the stone floor of the ruined tower until it is stopped by one of Moloch’s flaming hooves.

“By the pricking of my thumbs…” Moloch growls, mimicking the recent words of the witch over whom it is sovereign, “Something wicked this way comes.”

He is answered by laughter. Up from the long, winding stairway that leads up to the peak of the ruined tower in the bog steps Banquo, wiping the black blood of the last Demon he slew from the blade of Macbane as he does, which has vanished from beneath Moloch’s hoof and reappeared in his hands.

“Speak if you can. What are you?” (I.iii.50) the Demon snarls, angered by the fact that a mere ghost had managed to decimate his footmen.

“A phantom-flame of vindication.” Banquo answers.

“Dost not Moloch dismay you? I, the babe-burner?” Moloch demands, expecting a shaky ‘ay’. However, he is disappointed.

“Yes, as sparrows eagles, or the hare the lion.” (I.ii.39) Banquo answers, shifting into his Fiend guise as he does to show his might. Moloch growls…then, suddenly lunges, a flaming axe in hand.

“Lay on, phantom, and damned be him that first cries ‘Hold! Enough!’” (V.viii.38-39) he screams. The two collide with titanic force…

The reason that this nonexistent location is chosen for this level is that it provides a further example of the good versus evil conflict that can be found throughout the play, and is also a great excuse to make a fighting level, which is essential to many great video games.

Throughout the game, Banquo’s Ghost changes a great deal, roughly along the same lines no matter what choices are made by the player. In the beginning, he’s merciful, to a point…but this changes after he learns of Macbeth’s total nonchalance about how he betrayed his best friend, and escalates into such things as brutally murdering the three witches and all three of the murderers, and traumatizing Lady Macbeth so greatly that she eventually kills herself. Also, he becomes a lot more of a psycho as the game progresses (this is not always the case…he can end up quite noble, if the player chooses). He peels away the layers of his victims’ minds, pries at their darkest shames and secrets, and torments them with horrific visions. He denies them all sleep when he can, and when he sees that the time is right, he finishes them off, but only after obtaining every last drop of vengeance that he possibly can. However, at the end of the game, if one was relatively noble, Banquo goes to Heaven (after finding out that he needed to fulfill some unfinished business before he could ‘pass on’), after telling his son goodbye and advising him on the future as best he can. However, if one was merciless and brutal, Banquo is dragged to Hell for his cruelty towards the living. If the player’s behavior is somewhere in between, Banquo will haunt the earth endlessly, and lose all his powers so that he may cause no more trouble to the living. In the end, however, no matter which way it goes, all the loose ends are tied up. The game begins, plays, and ends quite well…but only if you act wisely.

Be like Macbeth, and you’ll lose your way.

Be like Banquo, and you’ll find it.