These monsters aren’t just in the movies! Will you hunt the vampires, werewolves and others stalking Hollywood, or will you become a monster instead? Hunter: The Reckoning — Day for Night is a one-million-word interactive novel by Josh Labelle set in the World of Darkness. It releases this Thursday, September 17th, and you can wishlist it on Steam today! We sat down with Josh to discuss the game.

We’re so happy that you’ve returned to Choice of Games for another round! Your last title, A Crown of Sorcery and Steel, was high fantasy–pretty far away from the (sort of) real world of Hollywood that you’re writing in this time. What was the biggest shift for you in moving between genres? What felt liberating and/or constraining about moving to a grittier lower-magic setting?

It was so completely freeing to not have to make up everything that the player encounters in the world. I am a huge Hollywood and movie aficionado, and spent hours finding the exact right intersection or alley on Google Maps to set something at. It was also fun to slip in pieces of Hollywood trivia everywhere that I could.

World of Darkness source books were also a huge help and inspiration. When I needed to add a weapon or vehicle, I’d crack one open and pick something out or be inspired by one of the details about an NPC inside, and I tried wherever possible to capture the flavor of those source books.

The other advantage of writing a book set in a real place was that I could actually go and visit. I happened to be in Hollywood twice for work during the writing process, and I took the opportunity to marinate in the vibes and gather impressions and observations. That’s something you just can’t do when your book is set in a fantasy world of elves.

You’ve chosen a really distinctive literary style for the game, and an unusual structure as well. What drew you to those stylistic elements? What do you feel they bring to the game?

Day For Night is written in the style of a movie screenplay, with sluglines for scene headers, dialogue speakers denoted by character cues above each line, and at times even parentheticals describing facial expressions or performance subtext. Since the book is about Hollywood and moviemaking, and even allows you to play as a struggling ex-screenwriter, this seemed like it fit the subject matter. I wanted to put the player at the center of their very own monster-hunting action thriller.

I wish I could say that this was part of the initial conception and all part of my master plan, but the truth is that partway through working on the over one million words of this book, I hit a point where writing “Character X says” or finding some clever way to denote a speaker again was becoming less and less exciting. The screenplay format allowed me to break free of this kind of thing and keep the second person present tense prose breezy.

This also all felt in keeping with the vibe of World of Darkness source books where there are frequently sections written in the style of someone’s blog or some other in-world communication.

In terms of structure, Day For Night is focused on exploring Hollywood and tackling problems in any order you want. I was very inspired by Kyle Marquis’ brilliant Night Road and the feeling of freedom that created in me when playing.

One of my goals was to have as little of the book as possible on the critical path, and when I had to have things on the critical path, I tried to allow them to be tackled in different orders. Players are always given several quarries to focus on—investigating a werewolf sighting can be chapter 2, or 3, or 4, depending on how eager you are to get to it. Maybe on the next replay, you’ll tackle it last with more prep time, or first to meet a certain character faster.

Players can also completely ignore their quarries for a while and pursue Hollywood movie gigs, steal a Ferrari and go on a high speed chase, rob stores around Hollywood to acquire money (but watch out–you’ll be banned if caught), and splurge on cars, kit, weaponry, and upgrades for their skills.

Of the four major romanceable characters, three can die in the very first chapters that they’re introduced (some by the player’s hand!), while the fourth, you can choose to go the entire book without ever once meeting. There are entire sidequests involving cursed ventriloquist dummies, demonically possessed sitcom dads, vampires in cowboy boots, and suspected vampire sex murders that the player can completely miss if they choose not to engage with some factions. I’m hoping that players enjoy the level of freedom on offer, which is inspired by my experience playing tabletop.

Day For Night focuses on a veteran Hunter who has been dealing with the forces of darkness for more than five years now. Why did you choose to go this way instead of focusing on a Hunter at the beginning of their career slaying bloodsuckers?

Day For Night is a story about getting older, burning out, and navigating interpersonal relationships complicated by the hunt. To tell that story, I needed a Hunter with a history, who had been through some dark times already. I also felt that other Hunter books have told stories of becoming a Hunter quite well already, and I wanted to tell a different story.

When players first meet their Hunter, they’re at a low point, having just come off a disastrous hunt that left a good friend dead and most of their weapons and kit destroyed. Players will need to build themselves back up, face or run from their trauma, uncover their own past and baggage, deal with complicated existing relationships, and ultimately decide whether it’s time to call it quits.

…also, I figured that this would be the quickest way to get to the vampire killin’. Sue me!

Your other major ongoing work is for Disney Dreamlight Valley! Which I was excited to learn, because I’m a huge Disney fan. I imagine that it’s a lot of fun, but also a unique challenge to write in a canon with such well-established lore and such a dedicated fanbase–much like writing in World of Darkness! How do you approach playing in a sandbox like this?

My entire career has been defined by kind of a weird split. By day, I work on fun and colorful casual life sim games, and by night I write stuff with way more dragons, elves, vampires, and violence.

In the case of writing for World of Darkness, it was exciting and freeing to work on a property that’s known for tackling difficult and adult subject matter intelligently, and it was fun to get to go as gory as I wanted with action sequences.

In writing for these kinds of existing properties, I try to really soak in as much as I can of the source material and ask myself what fans might want to see or how I can play with their expectations.

In the case of World of Darkness, throughout the entire writing process, I kept a huge stack of the source books on my desk on one side while I had my Hunter: The Reckoning and Vampire: The Masquerade dice on the other. It helped to stay in the vibe.

The Los Angeles of World of Darkness is a wonderfully rich place to set a story. It was a complete thrill to incorporate Nelli G. into the book, allowing players to get more and more drawn into her web throughout the story if they so choose. As well, players should watch out for a chance to meet some of the Bone Gnawers of Griffith Park depending on some of their choices.

Players will eventually uncover a story that’s been happening in the background under the noses of the Anarch Barony throughout the past fifty years of Hollywood history, and this was incredibly exciting to get to weave into the fabric of this world.

Of course, if a player is completely new to the World of Darkness, Day For Night will introduce them to all of the elements above as a Hunter experiencing and discovering these strange things for the very first time. No prior knowledge required!

Day For Night shows a lot of love for Hollywood and filmmaking alongside its critiques of Hollywood culture. Who are some filmmakers that inspire you?

I went to film school and am a movie obsessive – I’m inspired by everything from film noir to old Hollywood musicals to ‘90s romcoms.

But during the writing process for this, I watched a lot of John Carpenter movies, and I hope his style infuses some of Day For Night.

I also spent a lot of time watching Shaw Brothers martial arts movies and other Hong Kong action flicks, as well as ridiculous ‘80s slashers (particular favorites are Blood Rage and Chopping Mall–check them out!), all of which inspired some of the completely gonzo action that happens throughout the book.

I hope players will particularly enjoy a fight scene on a waterbed where they can scissor off a vampire’s head with a pair of samurai swords (watch out for it, achievement hunters!), which is the kind of thing I never could have written if I hadn’t been watching movies like the above.

What are you working on next?

Well, first, it’s gonna be a really, really long nap, because it turns out that writing a million plus words of interactive vampire killin’ kind of takes it out of you. Then I’ll probably reconnect with some of the friends and family that I’ve been ignoring for the past two years while I frantically wrote more and more branches of this thing, completely unable to get myself to stop.

Ohhh, but you’re probably talking more like a next creative project. I’m not quite ready to leave Hollywood yet. I have another Hollywood vampire story set in the 1930 through ’50s that I’m very interested in telling at some point. (All after that really long nap, of course.)