This is a sub-page of Prerelease:Silent Hill: Shattered Memories.

Oh dear, I do believe I have the vapors. This page contains content that is not safe for work or other locations with the potential for personal embarrassment. Such as: Early concept art of the Rawshock, the main enemy in the game, with visible genitalia.

To do: Missing rawshock concept arts. Add the TON of map renders available.

The development of the game may have started among April to June 2008 implied by many job posting by Climax.¹²³⁴⁵

Interviews#

The reinterpretation of Cheryl as a broken and traumatized adult, the idea of Harry being product of the imagination of Cheryl and the subplot where Cheryl attacks a security guard of the Toluca Mall were inspired by the bad endings of Silent Hill 1 and Silent Hill 3.⁶

Initially the game was pitched to have a combat feature, similar to the previously presented in Cold Heart pitch, however Sam Barlow insisted in completely remove combat and due to a confusion moment caused by the change of producer as the previously mentioned William Oertel left the project they were able to remove it.⁷

Despite the "typical" development cycle where the game is in preproduction and in production at the same time the game took over 6 months to get fully designed. Sam Barlow also mentions how this process was a bit of a fight against Konami as frequently wanted to implement or change certain ideas.⁸⁹¹⁰

Sam Barlow wanted Rawshock to be quadrupeds unconsciously inspired by a traumatic experience which also lead in the addition of the pool in the first nightmare section. This was changed as this would have made Rawshocks harder to see them coming. This show off a bit in the final game as the first nightmare cutscene and some animations show them acting like if they were monkeys walking in four legs additionally some concept arts shows them in standing in four legs.

During an interview with Tomm Hulett and Mark Simmons by Game Informer the interviewer asks "Is Dr. K Dr. Kaufmann?" which was answered by Mark who responded "We can't say. However, here is an excerpt from the design docs on Dr. K" and then the page shows a transcription of the game design document. Here it is extracted from the article:¹¹

Dr. K graduated from __________ Medical School in the early 70s and went straight into training as a psychoanalyst, eager to test out theories “in the wild.” After working for the New York psychoanalyst Charles __________ for several years, Dr. K branched out and opened his own practice. His bravado and self-perpetuated reputation for innovation saw him taken on by several high profile clients, and at the same time attracted some ire from the more conservative members of his profession. In the 80s there were rumors of an affair with his patient  __________ (the actress and daughter of  __________ ). The minor controversies only added to the doctor's rock and roll reputation amongst the rich set. In the background to this, Dr. K was developing a moderate  __________. Privately he subjected  __________ humiliating  __________ experiments,  __________ out on the 80s New York socialite scene and  __________ recount her  __________  afterwards. Dr. K often justified these elements of his life as being part of his need to explore the edges of mental experience in order to better understand the human mind.

During an interview made by Silent Hill Forum members and in an interview with Tomm Hulett by Joystiq he mentions how the developers of the game got in contact with Team Silent members (developers of the franchise from Silent Hill [1999] to Silent Hill 4: The Room) asking them how they would modernize the game. In the interview by Silent Hill Forum members Sam Barlow further elaborates on this replying:¹²

We had a couple of calls and Q&As via translators with the remaining team members from SH1 still at Konami. They answered all our questions (or those they could remember the answers to) regarding the original game, its secrets, and their original intentions. Some of the answers were surprising, but we're sworn to secrecy!

A last minute idea that weren't able to add was a reverse psychological profile feature where the player would have been able to play with an inverse version of their psychological profile of their first playthrough. This idea came after many journalists, who were able to get early copies of the game, tried to experience the different psychological profiles, but they ended making most of the same decisions or behaving the same as previous playthrough making their new playthrough almost identical to their previous one.

Apparently the nightmare sequences where intended to have more gameplay features that were cut due the limited amount of team available for the project.¹³

In The Making Of article it is said that the game sold around 444k units through all releases and platforms. Sam Barlow pointed out that one of the main reasons was the fact of being a Silent Hill game, the Wii platform itself and marketing of the game labeling it as a "Core gamer" title.

Silent Hill: Forum Interview#

On June 20, 2009 an extensive interview hosted on Silent Hill Forum was released, many questions are specially related to elements of the game that were not public, as the game hadn't been released at that point, but there are a few questions that goes further to directly ask about the game development and their inspirations.¹⁴

Question: What is the A.I. of the monsters like? Do they follow simple routines, or do they react to the player and his/her actions?
Answer:

• Tomm Hullet: The creatures, which are called Raw Shocks, have a very advanced AI. They don’t have any patrol routes that they follow or anything that you’ve encountered in “sneak games.” They prowl about the Nightmare areas sniffing Harry out and communicating to one another, so if Harry is spotted, the other creatures will arrive soon. They’re a lot more agile than Harry and they know the environment, so they can break off from the group and flank him, or follow him through hidden tunnels, etc. They will definitely keep you on your toes.
  

'''Question: I'm worried about the running from monsters. Will there still be surprises if the monsters are only in the dark world, and the light world is just puzzles? Will I still feel like something might jump out at me?
Answer:

• Tomm Hullet: I’m going to toss this question to Sam Barlow from Climax, the game’s Lead Designer.
• Sam Barlow: We have had focus testers ask to stop playing because they are 'too scared' during exploration. The world of Silent Hill is not a nice place, so exploring it isn't a walk in the park. Yes there are scares, but in the main it's about suspense -- the atmosphere of dread and not knowing when the nightmare is coming -- in this case it's not always as clear cut as it was in the previous games (where the nightmare would come once you'd ticked off 90% of the map). Also, given the things you will see and hear there, it's not accurate to call exploration the "light world". It's a place where bad things happen; things so bad they have to be frozen.
  

Question: In terms of story what has been one of the major influences the team has focused on?
Answer:

• Tomm Hullet: Sam wrote a great story for Shattered Memories...
• Sam Barlow: The story is about memory and family. Many of the team are parents of young children and we have drawn upon our experiences and our hopes and fears to create a story that explores these ideas. In its essence, family is physical memory -- DNA carries its memories across generations -- but it is also about non-physical memory: shared stories, aural histories and individual recollections. As is often the case, it is the extreme moments in life -- such as a car crash -- that bring to the fore exactly what family means. Exploring Harry's experience allowed us to create what we believe is a deep exploration of these ideas.
  

Question: Why did you choose to change the plotline so that Harry and Cheryl live in SH? Doesn't making it Harry’s hometown take away from the fear of being in an unknown area and alone? How can you tell the original story, of Alessa calling Cheryl to the town, if Cheryl has lived there the entire time? And by the age/physical appearance of Dahlia, the new plotline seems to have absolutely nothing to do with the original SH, so why not just make it an entirely new game, instead of tramping about on an already existing plotline? Was it to bring in old fans while still targeting old fans, or some other reason?
Answer:

• Tomm Hullet: Silent Hill is about characters who realize that reality is not what they thought it was at the start of the game. James thought his wife died of illness 3 years earlier. Heather thought she was a regular girl. Henry thought he’d bought a sweet apartment with low rent, a view, and convenient shopping nearby.
  
  By reimagining the original game, we can place fans directly into Silent Hill. You think you know what "reality" is, and you think you know what to expect ... but you don’t, because you’re in Silent Hill now. You’re part of the experience on a level that newcomers can’t be. When Dahlia showed up in the trailer, you didn’t think "I wonder what role that character will play." like you did when you first saw Angela and Eddie. You probably thought “That’s not Dahlia! What’s going on!?” You probably felt a bit like James when he first met Maria. This is at the core of why we chose to reimagine the original.
  

Question: I don't know if this has been cleared up elsewhere, but I'd quite like to know the reasoning behind choosing ice. Obviously you wanted to differentiate the game from previous canon, but is there a more in depth reason?
Answer:

• Tomm Hullet: In Silent Hill 2, there is a scene with Angela in the staircase (my favorite scene in the series actually). Everything is on fire, and something she says reveals that this is her “otherworld” just like James’s had been kind of dark and moldy and wet to that point. This has huge ramifications across the series, that each person has their own personal hell.
  
  However, everyone seems to have forgotten this and picture Alessa’s Nightmare as the only otherworld: red, rusty, off we go. Ever since I saw Angela on that staircase, though, I knew that if I was in charge of a Silent Hill game, I would make sure to explore this theme. Here we are.
  

Question: What sources, other then previous Silent hill titles, have you used as an inspiration for SH:SM? (other games, movies, books and such)
Answer:

• Tomm Hullet: I personally get a lot of inspiration from non-horror games and movies. It’s helpful when you’re trying to think outside the box to look outside of that box for inspiration. But I imagine the guys at Climax have their own sources, too ...
• Sam Barlow: Here’s an excerpt from our design doc listing reference materials:
  

Hitchcock’s Vertigo, Clouzot’s Les Diaboliques, Boileau & Narcejac’s “Who was Clare Jallu?”, Friday the 13th, Halloween, Psycho, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Brood, The Machinist, Bunuel, David Lynch, Hitchcock, Max Ernst, Edward Hopper, Troy Paiva, Jim Thompson, Gene Wolfe, Kobo Abe, Georges Bataille, Freud, Eric Berne, Baudelaire

Psychological Profile#

Watch on YouTubeClimax released a video covering on their Facebook covering a bit of how the Psychological Profile system works, using a debug Wii version, it shows the interface used to count the seven main values that attribute to the psychological profile.¹⁵

During an interview with Tom Hulett by G4TV he mentions that the psychological profile is based upon the Myers Briggs Type Indication model.¹⁶

The specific name of the values and two tables that explains in futher detail how the psychological profile works can be found inside the files of the game.

Development Blog#

Around October 2009 a development blog post for the game went public in the European page of the game¹⁷, this development blog started in June 2009 and lasted up to December 2009, in this dev blog cover extensively some non-spoiling elements of the game, inspirations and the development environment of the game.¹⁸

Here is a list with link to all post, additionally highlighting interesting details from them:

• June 10, 2009 - Welcome to the Silent Hill: Shattered Memories Blog
• June 23, 2009 - Alpha Time
  • The game has started it's Alpha state that defined by Tomm Hullet (game producer; blog's writer) "An “Alpha” build is the first time the entire game is playable from start to finish."
  • A big list counting elements to polish and bug fixes was created by Tomm Hullet and Mark Simmons (game director)
• July 18, 2009 - Now I know ESRB’s, next time won’t you play with me?
  • Game went into the ESRB age rating
• August 23, 2009 - Happy Belated GamesCom everybody!
• September 21, 2009 - Meet Mark Simmons (Guest Blogger: Mark Simmons)
• October 13, 2009 - Blog…? What’s going on with that blog?
• October 15, 2009 - The Sam Barlow Hour (Guest Blogger: Sam Barlow)
  • This blog post cover some of the inspirations of the game
  • The image attached with this blog post shows a workstation that shows an image of one of the illustrations of the traditional English children's tale "Babes in the Wood", some concept arts with lots of unreadable text due image's low quality however one may be representing the wood section, and a PSP dev kit which has a debug build of the game running, possibly at some section of the school
• October 20, 2009 - Blog 4 Silent Hill
  • The E3 Demo was originally a vertical slice pitch for the game, a vertical slice defined by Tomm Hullet as: "The Vertical Slice is a small section of the game (a slice, if you will) where all the elements of the game have been polished to final quality." Additionally, Tom Hullet mentions that he was testing it during November 2008 at the UK offices of Climax
  • The image attached with this blog post shows a board that has a concept art
• October 23, 2009 - Well, hello there…
• October 27, 2009 - 3 Different Worlds
  • This blog post cover some points of the porting process
• October 30, 2009 - James? Is that you? (Guest Blogger: James Sharman)
  • This blog post cover some of the graphical elements of the Wii version
  • The image attached with this blog post shows a Wii debug build with many elements like the psychological profile stats and a PSP dev kit aside
• November 06, 2009 - Fog and Candy Corn
• November 14, 2009 - Greetings from the United Kingdom
• November 26, 2009 - Horror Movies and Pacing
• December 03, 2009 - The “Art” of Re-Imagination (Guest Blogger: Neale Williams)
• December 08, 2009 - It Won’t be Long Now!
• December 11, 2009 - Re-Imagine your Expectations

Level Design#

Shane Bromham (One of the lead level designers) portfolio has some early renders of the resort town area, an early render of the lighthouse exterior, an early design for a puzzle at the Balkan and a document level design of the Green Lion Pawnshop dated from March 2009.¹⁹

Green Lion Pawnshop's Design Document#

Download Silent Hill: Shattered Memories Green Lion Pawnshop's Design Document File: SH1R_D_Pawnshop_Apartment.zip (1.89 MB) (info)

Details that can be highlighted from the document are:

• The camera mode where the player interact with object for puzzles is internally named as "POV mode"
• The light in front of the door that lead to the apartments was supposed to flicker
• The "We, Ouroboros" memento was originally named "Double Ouroboros Ring" and is inspired by the "Ouroboros" line of rings by Badaly Jewelry
• The two of the three lighting variation of the Green Lion Pawnshop and the Apartment where changed. The "Punk" variation was intended to have green lighting instead of purple lighting and the "Stoner" variation was intended to have yellow lighting instead of green lighting

Green Lion Pawnshop Puzzle Concept#

Resort Town Concepts#

"Your Diamond Heart" Memento Puzzle Concept#

Finding Key Puzzle Inside a Cookie Jar Concept#

This part of the puzzle appears when Harry searches the keys of the SUV at the Balkan. In the final game, this puzzle was simplified to just opening the cabinet and then cookie jar.

Concept Arts#

Characters Concept Arts#

During the marketing campaing and through the years after the release many concept arts were released, many of them released by Climax through their Facebook page during 2013 and Massive Black released some of them in their old website and in the Massive Black Vol. 2 art book and their official web, plus an additional concept art revealed in the digital version of the "Making of" article.

Harry's Concept Arts#

Cherly's Concept Arts#

Dahlia's Concept Arts#

Lisa's Concept Arts#

Dr. Kaufmann's Concept Arts#

Cybil and Michelle Concept Arts#

Early Rawshock Concept Arts#

The Climax's Facebook page and "The Making" Of article, from the Edge Magazine, contains concept arts of the early designs of the Rawshocks.²⁰

The following content is and has been hidden by default. Click to reveal content: ;

Environments#

Frozen Environments and Dr. Kaufmann's Office#

In Stephen Cooper's portfolio there are two concept art for the frozen parts of the game and a few concepts art of the design of Kaufmann's office.²¹

Phone#

In Marcus Bordan portfolio's there are a few concept arts of the Harry's ²²

Raw Transitions Audio#

In the files of the PSP version a raw version of the audios used when the world transition into the nightmare world in the wood section and transitions to the normal world can be found inside of the game files, the sound is practically identical to the Wii counterpart of the audios.

Early Cutscenes#

Watch on YouTubeSatoshi Michael Nagasaka who worked as Cinematics Co-Director for the game shared an early version of the ending "Hero forever" and the extra scene where Cheryl closes the box with the mementos that the player grabbed through the game.

The model used for Harry resembles to the Nintendo Power's screenshots and the early model seen in some early screenshots PSP version.

Andrew Borman (better known as PToP Online) has published four videos early footage of some of the game cutscenes.

Watch on YouTubeThe early Red Dressed Michelle variation scene only changes that can be spotted are a few different camera angles in the part where Michelle shows Harry a picture of Cheryl and different photos.

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTubeThis mocap video shows an unknown footage of a recording while having the Always In My Mind song in the background. Fortunately Sam Barlow clarified on Twitter that this mocap was made for a music video of the song which is unreleased, also mentioning the mocap recording of the scene where Harry falls from the stairs at the Hospital was the most fun and dangerous to record.²³

Watch on YouTubeThis video is the first cutscene from the game. The description says that it is from November 14, 2008.

• Completely different shots during 1:27 to 1:37
  • These shots can be briefly seen in the pre-E3 2009 teaser trailer named "Lost in Snow" from 0:35 to 0:43
• Objects in the Kaufmann's desk are different, similar to the seen in a preview image from April 2009
• Early floor seen in some early pre-release images, gameplays and in the PSP and PS2 final releases is present
• Early Harry's model
• The receptionist voice is unedited
• Glasses in the mini-bar that are not present in the final release
• Different bottle marks
• When the car is crashed the pilot window breaks and front wheels are slightly moved to the left while in final neither the window breaks nor the front wheels are moved

Joe Romersa's Behind Scenes Videos#

Watch on YouTubeWatch on YouTube

Joe Romersa recorded a two part video of the recording process of two lyrical songs, those being "Acceptance" and briefly "When You're Gone".

Differences that can be listened are only from "Acceptance": it was going to use drums instead of a xylophone and the chorus could have featured a lyric which sounds to have been improvised.

The PS2 and PSP ports

As part of the deal with Konami to greenlight the game a PSP port was greenlighted, however, it was originally a derivative of the Wii version instead of a direct port of the Wii version, apparently, it was intended to be a game surrounding Michelle, and it would have featured some scenes from the Wii version. This version was scrapped as order of Konami as it was cheaper to directly port the main game rather than create another game.²⁴

The PS2 version came during the production as some interviews points that it came later in production,²⁵²⁶ however it actually was during mid production as when the game was announced it was confirmed to release on PS2, but the web page of Climax had a section were news of upcoming titles were shared, in that section an unannounced game Wii and PSP game for Konami was listed without mentioning PS2.²⁷²⁸

In "The Making Of" article it is said that the PS2 version was ditched at some point of the development due monetary restraints, but it was put in development again as this quote says:

"Towards the end of development, just as were coming up to the end of production [in late 2009], it was decided Wii was not doing great. In order to make this project make [financial] sense, we needed a PS2 SKU, because in South America the PS2 was still huge and there was an audience for this kind of game out there and in a couple of other territories."

The PS2 version was never cancelled publicly, however some hints may suggest the irrelevancy of this port:

• The american PS2 and PSP releases were delayed by one month²⁹
• The almost null coverage of the PS2 version during the marketing campaing

Sam Barlow during the E3 conference and Tomm Hulett in an interview by Joystiq mentioned that Climax have a team dedicated to the PSP version.³⁰

References

References#