We’ve already gone through the first four pages of Horrors Untold, breaking down how meticulously they were laid out and how they slyly introduce a whole range of narrative and gameplay threads, and, now, it’s time to turn our attention to the remaining five pages of this experimental hybrid book’s opening. By the time this little tour is completed, you’ll have the best possible understanding of just how absorbing an experience Untold’s horror mystery really is – and just how deeply the world-building and atmosphere run (arguably the most important task of the entire endeavor, given that the project as a whole was intended to do nothing short of recreating the thematic immersion of a theme park in literary form).

Let’s quickly touch upon these next five pages to see how, exactly, all this was accomplished.

The title page (page five)

Yes, even here, with this otherwise-pedestrian element of every other book in existence, we have an ace up our sleeve.

Well, more than one, actually; we wanted to continue to show off our illustrator, Elena Maria Sanchez’s, striking artwork, but we also wanted to continue to subvert the reader’s expectations (of, y’know, a normal reading experience from a normal book) by asking you to yet again interact with the page – in this case, specifically, by tearing it out, an instruction delivered, as always, by the two nameless characters that’re known internally only as Writers 1 and 2. Initially, the idea was that this could double as a bookmark and as a note card, of sorts, helping you solve the various riddles and otherwise jot down any notes or observations you may have, but this approach had to be (largely) dropped due to the continual tweaking and reformatting of the book throughout the creation process; where we ended up landing is advising you to carry this page around with you physically into different locations or environments, including the rather relevant one of a haunted house. Why this language was included so early is something of a spoiler for later on in the story, but I will, for the moment, say this: we wanted to keep the subject matter of haunts firmly planted in your mind (you are reading a book that is, at least in part, dedicated to Halloween Horror Nights Orlando, after all), and the same goes for a good-luck charm, since both are concepts that will continue to unspool and intermix all throughout the narrative.

(We do still have Writer 2, in her pervasive red handwriting, suggest that you should document your emotional state somewhere on the page, but this became more symbolic than practical. Why we decided to keep this is twofold: one, so many of the materials that our faceless friend inserted afterwards into the book are journal entries themselves [from the disgraced folklorist Marjorie Holden], and, two, it’s a nice bit of foreshadowing to those original-story chapters. It also doesn’t hurt that this proves to be yet another instance of Horrors Untold collapsing form and function, which is already, at this early point, proving to be one of its dominant leit motifs.)

There’s one last card at play here on page five, and it revolves around Writer 2’s warning that the illustrated eye will always be watching you – yet another way we attempted to insert tension or suspense into the experience. I’m aware that I keep saying this in these behind-the-scenes articles, but it really is true: trying to recreate the atmosphere of a haunted house was paramount to our efforts, and no detail was too small – or too oblique – in our mission.

The first puzzle (page six)

After teasing the existence of Horrors Untold’s puzzles and introducing some of their elements to you right from page one, we wanted to more fully deliver on the promise here with the very first riddle proper. Because it is the first, we felt it needed to be remarkably straightforward, to help you wade into the challenging waters without any hesitation whatsoever; you’re fully expected to be able to solve it pretty much the moment you land on it, especially considering that all we’re asking you to do, in somewhat poetic language, is to draw a circle around a design (and insert three symbols from the bottom of the page up into that design).

But, as with nearly everything else in the book, it’s a deceptive enterprise, too – while the “gameplay” aspect is short and sweet, the narrative underlying it is decidedly less so… though it’ll take you to the very end of the story to fully discover both how and why. (Would you like a hint? The physical act of drawing a circle on the page is meant to be illustrative of drawing a magic circle in “real” magickal practice, an act that purports to erect a barrier that protects you from whatever malevolent forces that may dwell out there. The trick here, of course, is that a seal can also trap things inside with you just as easily as it can keep others outside.)

The table of contents (pages seven and eight)

In case the interjections of the mysterious Writer 2 didn’t make it clear already that she has intercepted – and tampered with – your book, the table of contents will put any doubt to rest: in one fell swoop, you can see, clearly laid out in front of you, which sections of the book were removed by her meddlesome hand and which new chapters were inserted. (Some of the most fun I, personally, had was in sketching out what the nixed sections’ subjects would be, such as “the art and design” and “the future” of HHN. After coming up with them, I wanted to read them myself – which, just maybe, in the best of all possible worlds, could be accomplished in a potential follow-up to Horrors Untold.)

There are just two quick further points I’d like to make regarding the TOC. Firstly, you’ll notice how Writer 2’s rearrangement of the book forced the page numbers to be crossed out and changed, which is a very small detail that, actually, took quite a long time for us on the team to figure out – what would the page number have been in the original, Writer 1 incarnation of the book? It’s minor elements like these that go such a long way to selling the (somewhat-outlandish) premise, helping us inch that much closer to verisimilitude. And, secondly, you’ll notice, off to the side of chapter XIII’s title, a series of strange symbols jotted down. This is an encrypted word written in a special alphabet that was designed specifically for this project, one that forms the basis of Writer 2’s various puzzles: as you progress through all the original-story chapters, you’ll decode each letter, ultimately resulting in you being able to translate a whole slew of secret passages and words – how you unlock the extra narrative content, or epilogues, for this particular storyline.

(Okay, one final item to point out before we move on: believe it or not, these two pages actually went through some of the biggest revisions across the entire book – we originally had it in our minds that this section would be far more interactive, with a number of blank spaces for where the various chapters’ page numbers would be and, even, their titles themselves, so that you could write them in as you went along the Horrors Untold journey. [At one point, there was also the desire to make the user put the chapters in the correct chronological order herself.] All of this was in the effort to make the table of contents into something of a puzzle itself, but it became clear that it was just too much of a heavy lift, especially this early in the experience.)

The dedication page (page nine)

This final page in our initial batch may be the simplest and most straightforward, but there are still a few secrets hidden within its contents; in what is clearly another recurring theme by this point, we wanted to subvert the idea of a dedication page just as much as we did the title page.

The biggest item of note here is the coloration of the page, which, obviously, changes from white to cream – the surefire indication that the book is being taken over by what can only be described as a spirit or apparation (in case this seems like a major spoiler, it really isn’t – on only the next page, we have yet another puzzle, also simple in its scope and difficulty, which reveals not only the spectral presence, but also its identity). Yes, that’s right: with the presence of this additional figure, that makes for a total of three characters who are working behind the scenes to manipulate the book and, therefore, control the flow of information to you – in this case, as you are literally holding it in your hands.

Lastly, at the risk of revealing all those aforementioned tricks up our sleeve, look very, very closely at the bottom of the page. Hidden messages like these – which are significantly harder to spot when in ink on a page as opposed to images on your screen, where the brightness and contrast are far higher – aren’t too frequent throughout the book, but they’re common enough to keep you on your toes, providing yet another hidden element in an experience that is chock full of them.

This is part four of an ongoing series about Horrors Untold, the HHN guidebook/immersive horror mystery. You can read samples and buy your copy here or jump back to the table of contents here.