Back in the year 2006, life couldn't possibly get any worse. I was about to get out of high school, I was miserable, I felt no motivation in life, didn't see how college would have any redeeming qualities, the life of a 17 year old, is it ever so difficult! Emotions running high, it felt like I had hit rock bottom and there was no way to get out of the hole I had fallen into. So rather than trying to climb upwards, I started to dig the dirt in front of me, creating a tunnel that just led me circling around, creating a maze of caverns that I wandered for a few years.

When I started doing this theoretical digging, I started out making a game that began with no apparent plot. I had recently discovered Clock Tower for the SNES after Shadowiii pointed it out to me, and I wanted to create a horror game for the OHR. After all, there weren't (and still aren't) many titles in the horror genre for the engine.

So without any real direction considered, I began to create some tilesets and enemies. I started out with a gory bathroom. What would be horrific to find in said bathroom? A dead pregnant mother and her baby, torn out without any apparent explanation how, save by some malevolent force?

Now this dead mother wasn't old. It is always tragic to have an expectant mother die – well, it's tragic to have anyone die (unless you know, they are someone with no regard for human life and are a sociopathic plague to society), but if it's a young mother, that's even more tragic. Great. So she'll be in her early adulthood. Now how about we give her a younger brother, who, surprise! Discovers her dead body?

Like a lot of main characters in video games, Reed's personality is a basic template. He reacts to the horrific world of Bloodlust in a way any average person would. He fears the dark, he runs when he sees monsters, and is motivated to find his loved ones – which serves to send him running further and further into the dark depths of chaos when most of us would wet ourselves and hide in a broom closet. He is typically sympathetic to those suffering and dead, and feels an obligation to protect Janie upon discovering her at the elementary school. He harbors a grudge against Sarah Dhullogo, a histrionic girl who seems to be enjoying the hellish world a little too much.

On the surface, Reed isn't anything spectacular. He's an 18 year old just barely out of high school in modern day times, thrust into a world where everything is out to maim and murder. If one were to imagine Reed as a person, he would probably be thought of as a typical young adult, with nothing particularly special standing out about him.

This is of course, part of the twist to Reed. When I began to develop the storyline to Bloodlust, I had a basic premise in mind – create a modern day world overtaken by a dark evil force, and in the end, the clues lead to the protagonist also being the antagonist. In this case, they are split, the good and evil side (and in this case, Janie is Reed in a purely untainted form), but they are of the same being. Originally, Reed was going to already start off a cynical asshole, a sociopath who enjoyed the world's hell. However, after consulting with Longebane, he suggested that it would be better if the protagonist was sympathetic, as it would allow the player to better relate with Reed. It was a good thing that he then got a 180 to his personality. The story worked out much better with Reed being a typical hero character. He was whiny and stereotypical at times, but when the big twist came, it did make both normal Reed and evil Reed's personalities stand out more and contrast just how much the events prior to the actual night of the Bloodlust changed him.

It took me three years to finally finish Bloodlust. It was the first complete product I was proud of, and I had grown a lot since starting the project. I actually ended up completing the game after I started digging upwards out of the caverns I had been digging for more than two years, only to find myself falling into another hole in another area away from the caverns I had been in. However, I was much better prepared this time and Bloodlust was not completed out of my angst. It had started off the product of rage, but ended with me beginning to find peace. I guess in a way, Reed did the same. Even though Evil Reed would dominate, his good side (on the true ending) had experienced enough in a way that gave even his dark side a touch of sympathy so that he wouldn't become completely heartless.

Reed's torment isn't over. Releasing Bloodlust to the OHR community was great – but the serious lack of feedback was a downer. People not playing it or excusing it as something emo or other (only speculation at this point) is discouraging – but the people who have played it and given feedback have made feel better, knowing that they at least got enjoyment out of it (and it creeped people out as intended).

I've recently begun to get a feel of the Adventure Game Studio, another game creation engine. I plan on creating a remake of sorts of Bloodlust, where I will take Reed and turn the storyline up several notches – how much he will be the same person in this game, it's hard to say. But Reed was always meant to be a template easy to manipulate, like many video game protagonists. Reed might not even be Reed when he next makes his appearance in another Bloodlust. It could be a completely different character, but still somebody who the player would be able to relate to in a world gone wrong.