Valtel Route Writer's Commentary — Perfectly Generic Podcast

Introduction

Snowbound Blood, the visual novel tie-in for Vast Error, follows the investigation of Chief Regulator Secily Iopara into a stolen vial of blood. In Volume 8, Secily’s search takes her to meet one Valtel Gurtea: a renowned, but eccentric sculptor living in his secluded mansion. I had the pleasure of writing Valtel’s route and I’m going to crack open the curtains and talk a bit about what went into making it. This commentary is not spoiler-free, so in case you haven’t played the route yet and you want to experience it unspoiled, you should probably do that first.

The Story So Far

Snowbound Blood Volume 7 ends with Secily receiving a call from the adversary she’s been pursuing throughout the story: the troll she’s come to know as Noxious, or obnoxiousAntidote. Noxious has been targeting trolls online, harassing and manipulating them, and a number of them have taken their own lives as a result. Now, Noxious taunts Secily about his next target, wondering whether she’ll get to him before he does.

As you may have guessed, Noxious is talking about Valtel. In the interim between Volume 7 and 8, Secily gets a call from a previous interviewee, Endari, who informs her Valtel Gurtea has gone completely off the radar.

Flash forward to the present volume. Secily and Necron’s path is cut out for them: Go to Valtel’s house and find out what’s going on.

Horror Elements

Heather, Valtel’s creator, drew inspiration from horror games, in particular the Silent Hill series, in coming up with the character. With Silent Hill 2 being one of my favourite games in terms of overall mood and execution, that was something I wanted to channel into the route. My end goal was to create an atmosphere of suspense that would make the player feel at least some of the tension and apprehension that Secily is experiencing.

One of the ways I did that was present the player with more choices. With some small exceptions, the narration in SBB is linear, with mostly the sections where Secily interviews her suspects being interactive. On the other hand, one of the primary sources of tension and unease in SH2 (at least for me) is the need for the player themself to act: There are endless hallways lined with doors and you never know what’s on the other side of them, but you need to walk up to them and try to open them regardless. Anatomy, another horror game that I love and that terrifies me, does a similar thing, in which the main horror comes from playing back the tapes you collect. Yet, you must find them, bring them to the tape recorder, and actively choose to play them. In a way, that makes the scary events happen on your own terms, but at the same time, the tension is amplified and you become more involved in the action.

I attempted to translate that feeling into the visual novel format by adding more choice menus. In the beginning, they serve to increase immersion and the feeling that something bad is about to happen*. Throughout the route, they become false choices, or single-choice menus — another way to reflect Secily’s frantic single-mindedness.

Another way in which I leaned on the source material was the feeling of being utterly and completely alone that Silent Hill invokes. Obviously, Necron is an important part of the route who’s there to lend a hand when Secily needs it, but having this reassurance be present throughout would defeat the purpose of making the story feel Spooky™. So, instead of having this handsome beefy lad on the screen at all times, the paths that Secily walks down are too narrow for two people. Necron is forced to make up the rear and is off screen for the majority of the route.

After all, quite like Silent Hill, this route is as much about Secily going through a new location as it is about her going into herself and confronting some of her own fears. This case has really been taking its toll on her and bringing her doubts and insecurities to the forefront. That’s why this route calls back to Mshiri and Gerbat’s routes — both points that heavily affected her state of mind. Secily’s already off-kilter before she reaches Valtel’s mansion, what she’s about to witness here will only exacerbate that.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

*It is.

Locations

The Grove of Essence

The first part of Secily’s horror gauntlet is a forest known as the Grove of Essence. It’s a place of mystery on Repiton. The trees, so the legend goes, used to be trolls who came to this location to perform Life alchemy. It went disastrously wrong and they were trapped there, morphing into trees while they were still conscious. This theme of being changed against your will, of being paralysed or petrified, is going to echo throughout the route, leading up to its climax.

This section sets the tone for the rest of the route: it's tense and urgent, because Secily feels she’s running out of time. The trees look distorted and threatening, like they have a consciousness of their own and wish to harm any intruders. The environment is telling Secily that she’s in danger, that she doesn’t belong there — and is it odd if she starts to believe it?

Eventually, Secily and Necron find their way to the front gates of Valtel’s mansion. Both of them are on edge; Necron has expressed some of his concerns about Valtel. They have no choice but to keep going, however, and press on to the next location.

Did you doubt that Necron’s arm of unending utensils would make an appearance?

The Maze

The hedge maze that stretches around Valtel’s house is the biggest section of the route and it took the dev team some tinkering with the engine and assets to put it together. This is also where pragmaticNihilist’s track, for me, it’s always like this hits. It draws inspiration from the music of Silent Hill, and does an amazing job of capturing the eerie, haunting atmosphere.

This segment features a number of choice menus and several chance encounters.

This is where we get a first glimpse of Valtel’s statues. Realistic and beautifully made, at the same time they’re grotesque and depict suffering and anger. They’re supposed to disturb and unsettle. I imagine them similar to the statues you see throughout Yharnam in Bloodborne. Relatedly, that was also the inspiration behind the heavy screeching gates at the start of the area.

There are five intersections where the player can pick a direction, with either two or three available options. The correct path is hardcoded into the game, but several different events can occur if the player walks into a dead end. Additionally, after you have made your way through the maze once, the wrong options get striked through but are still selectable, in case you want to go looking for the random dead ends.

The first option for when you make a wrong turn is the generic dead end. This is the one you get the first time you make a wrong turn and each subsequent time when you don’t get one of the other three options.

Secondly, you can get the Gaiaeon endgame. In it, a set of Gaiaeon eyes flash on the screen before the game closes. It’s the closest this route comes to a jumpscare, and there’s a 5% chance of it triggering when you walk into a dead end. It unlocks a special achievement called X that is otherwise invisible in the Achievements menu.

Thirdly, there is the blood dead end. This is the first in-game indication for Secily that her mind is playing tricks on her. It starts off similar to the generic one, but then she sees blood* on the hedge and the ground. She attempts to investigate it, and a confused Necron remarks that he doesn’t see anything. In true Secily fashion, she shrugs it off and keeps going.

“Yes, this might as well be happening.” - Secily Iopara, probably.

And the last of the random encounters is the Gerbat dead end. We see that despite Secily’s resolution to pretend her meeting with him never happened, it’s still eating at her. Unsurprising, then, that it’s Gerbat’s form that her guilt and self-loathing take on when they come to the surface. He has some choice things to say about her, and she can’t bring herself to argue. It is her thoughts he’s echoing back, after all.

Once again, Necron helps to snap her out of it. As soon as she’s distracted from the illusion, it disappears. He’s somewhat nonplussed, but doesn’t press it. He either assumes that Secily is just Like That sometimes, or he recognises that he shouldn’t push her. Possibly both.

The Gerbat dead end, as well as the blood one, is random, with a chance of occurring 45% and 30% respectively. Each of them can only take place once per playthrough. However, the final dead end you reach is scripted and bound to occur. In it, Secily encounters Mshiri.

As mentioned previously, Mshiri’s route is one of the main beats in Secily’s emotional arc. Their relationship is deeply important to Secily, but she’s also conflicted about it, as it cannot be neatly slotted into a single quadrant. Both of them hold a lot of care and affection for each other, but they’re caught in a sort of liminal space where they’re unable to fully explore it. Relationship structures on Repiton are rigid and unforgiving. Secily blames herself for her feelings that don’t fit inside these structures, and feels guilt over potentially putting Mshiri in harm’s way. She believes she owes her a debt she has no means of repaying.

The Mshiri Secily meets in the final dead end is a projection of these thoughts — a vision that reflects her darkest fears. This Mshiri speaks words that Secily is both terrified of hearing and feels like she deserves. Once again, Secily remains silent. Even though she knows this isn’t the real Mshiri, the sentiment feels real to her and she’s unable to shake it off. So, she listens.

This time, too, it’s Necron that helps pull her back to reality. He’s had enough of Secily’s increasingly upset state, so he takes the lead for the final section of the maze. A rattled Secily follows.

There is one final choice menu before the duo exits the maze, and it’s among my favourite points in the route. Necron asks Secily what she saw in the dead end that made her so upset, and the player can choose between telling him and not doing so. However, even if you select the option to tell him, Secily isn’t able to. She starts, but then trails off. She’s caught inside her thoughts again, immobilised by her trauma, and even though she might want to talk about it, the words refuse to come out. Secily doesn’t have a lot of experience confiding in people; what’s more, the act of opening up itself is related to her trauma. That she’s willing to try at all is a significant step and a testament to her growth as a person and her trust in Necron.

Even when she refuses to answer him, Necron doesn’t betray that trust. He decides not to press the issue, and the two keep moving forward. It’s time to leave the maze.

*Cerulean. Secily did see a lot of that in Volume 7.

Valtel’s Mansion

We’re on the last leg of Secily’s quest to find Valtel. She’s high-strung and hectic, and single-minded about her purpose. While the maze section established a certain state of mind in Secily and the player, this part serves to build up suspense. The objective is within sight (or, technically, earshot), and the only thing left is to pursue it. Valtel’s house is a creepy affair, decorated top to bottom with his sculptures. Secily doesn’t stop to admire them, and instead heads directly to the top floor, where Valtel’s studio is. There is one final “choice” menu before you reach the studio: There’s a door she needs to open. She doesn’t want to, but that’s the only way to progress.

So, she goes in.

Meeting Valtel Gurtea

Valtel’s route is structured a bit differently than most other routes we’ve had in SBB so far, in that we don’t meet the titular character until the very end of it. Valtel’s appearance functions as the climax of the route for several reasons. For one, it’s in line with the horror genre to preserve the feeling of mystery as long as possible; more importantly, though, Valtel is in a state that makes him rather disinclined to engage in conversation. At the same time, I wanted to give the character enough chance to shine and grow on the player even in the relatively brief time he is on screen.

In many ways, Valtel is the embodiment of the struggling artist type. He’s somewhat reticent; he devotes himself to his work and ends up distanced from society as a result, and he has a bit of a reputation for being strange and eccentric. Early on in the route, Necron mentions a rumour that a troll that came to model for Valtel disappeared, and Secily (and consequently, the player) has no way to gauge the veracity of it. All this creates a certain mythos around Valtel that makes it easy to position him as a sort of antagonistic figure when he first appears.

Valtel’s quirk — using v’s instead of u’s and vv’s instead of w’s — is inspired by Latin, in line with his Classical Art aesthetic.

Ever since Noxious set his sights on Valtel, he’s been trapped in his home, isolated from everyone that he loves, haunted by strange and terrifying visions. He doesn’t know what’s happening to him; as far as he’s aware, he has been abandoned by his partner and the world. He’s experiencing withdrawal — the biochemical result of being separated from his bondmate for an extended period of time. His mental health dwindles and the line between hallucination and reality is ever harder to draw. His art is the one thing that keeps him going, but it’s hardly surprising that he struggles with it.*

Valtel is dejected and disheartened. He questions his worth when he’s unable to create art, wonders whether there is a point to anything — whether there’s a point to him. It’s a feeling that’s undoubtedly familiar to many artists. I wrote this with my own experience with it in mind, as I often stumble into the pitfall of conflating the creative work I put out with my self-worth. This is hardly a problem specific to artists, but rather the result of the capitalist drive towards productivity that’s instilled into everyone at a young age. However, Valtel’s struggle to find meaning comes from a very personal space. Valtel is a sculptor. That’s what his reputation and role in Repitionian society are built around; even his survival ability seems to match his artistic purposes. A lot is at stake when his art seems to be unsatisfactory, so it’s no surprise that his response to crisis is to try to create more.

Throughout Secily’s interview, Valtel remains dodgy and uncooperative. His mind struggles to focus on the conversation and he often speaks in vague and ominous ways or alludes to things Secily doesn’t have the context for. Only one of her questions sparks a more positive reaction from him: when Secily asks about his current project.

*It’s a necessary disclaimer to point out that this route was written and released before the COVID-19 pandemic. Regardless, Valtel’s feelings have only become more relatable in the meantime.

This is what Valtel is working on: a deformed, horrifying piece that he claims is his self-portrait. On one level, it reflects his mental state. Valtel is scared, lonely, angry, confused — an amalgamation of conflicting negative feelings that he can’t express in any other way but his art. Due to Noxious’s influence, he’s nearing the end of his rope; this is his internal tension given shape.

An additional interpretation came to me while I was writing that scene: That this reads rather like the action of a trans person experiencing gender dysphoria. I can see Valtel as someone who’s struggling with their gender identity and has maybe not “come out” to themself quite yet, but who feels this dissonance in the way they relate to the rest of the world.

But there’s no time to reflect on that in the current situation. Once Secily has exhausted her interview questions, and despite Valtel’s obvious unease, she pushes on to her main point of interest: Noxious. Valtel doesn’t respond, but she keeps pushing, despite his discomfort, Necron’s warnings, and her own better judgement.

She’s come this far.

She’ll have her answers.

Once again, Secily’s regulator instincts go too far. She places her investigation first, disregards Valtel’s mental state as well as her partner’s advice, and crosses a line. And once again, she gets punished for it.

Valtel’s survival ability allows him to petrify people in place. They cannot move, perceive, or interact with the outside world, but they’re still conscious and able to think about where they went wrong.

Secily loses.

Go into the timeout corner and think about what you’ve done, Secily.

Or she would, if she had been alone.

Thankfully, she has backup this time. Necron neutralises Valtel, picks him and Secily up like two troll-shaped sacks of produce, and makes a distinctly undignified exit, destroying a large section of the maze in the process. When Secily comes around, she’s back at Corporate. Necron, overjoyed at their victory, is primed to give her a very enthusiastic rundown of everything that transpired. Everyone is fine, Valtel is about to be reunited with his partner, and they have finally come ahead of Noxious. Possibly. Meanwhile, Secily needs to come to terms with the knowledge that she failed, and hurt yet another person in the process.

There is only one person who can help her with this.

Secily is learning to reach out for help when she needs it.

This final bittersweet note concludes the route. Secily has made it out of Silent Hill, but just like every other route so far, she is not the same person she was before she went to Valtel’s mansion. Once more, she was forced to confront her shortcomings and bear the consequences of her mistakes. It’s become even clearer that she can’t do this by herself, but there are people she can rely on. And she’s getting better at it

The chase continues, the case is still open. Secily cannot afford to slow down — lest the visions from the maze catch up on her.