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Chills and thrills for your iPad with Haunting Melissa
A teenage girl alone in a remote farmhouse, an absent father, a boyfriend off at college... and a locked door that conceals a tragic secret. These are the creepy, chilling tropes on display in Haunting Melissa, a serialized video horror story delivered in the form of an iOS app available today on the App Store. Watching the first episode is free, and then you'll wait -- and pay -- to keep going with the narrative. Haunting Melissa, and the underlying Hooked Digital Media content management platform that drives the serialized episode releases, is the brainchild of Hollywood producer Neal Edelstein. Edelstein has some serious scares on his resume: he produced the US versions of the scare-your-socks-off thrillers The Ring and The Ring 2. He describes the Haunting Melissa experience as "a ghost story created to be consumed in a dark corner with headphones on and iPhone or iPad in hand." Push notifications alert viewers when the next segment is ready -- and they'll come when you least expect them. Melissa even has a Twitter account (as does the actress who plays her, Kassia Warshawski). You might think that a spooky, atmospheric serial would suffer in the scale-down from cinematic or TV size onto the iPad or iPhone/iPod screen. In fact, watching Melissa and her friends explore her haunted house (in HD) from a first-person, Blair Witch-esque perspective is quite immersive. Adding headphones to the experience ramps up the creep factor dramatically; Edelstein and his creative team have the sound design chops to scare your ears just as much as the cinematography scares your eyes. If you do want to watch on the bigger screen, the app supports AirPlay output to the Apple TV. Haunting Melissa is designed to be social, with viewers sharing their impressions and guesses as the mystery deepens, and calling out details and clues that may have been missed on the first viewing. (What really happened to Melissa's dead mother? Why is Brandon being so cagey about coming home from college? Is Holly's little brother just a lovesick kid, or a malicious superhacker? Why doesn't Melissa close her laptop when she goes to bed? And what's the deal with all the crucifixes?) Personally, I'm not a big consumer of thrillers or horror films, but if that is the sort of thing you enjoy, Haunting Melissa raises the bar on quality when it comes to purpose-built iOS experiences. The basic Haunting Melissa app is free, with in-app US$0.99 purchases for individual episodes and a Season Pass option for the entire experience. Edelstein notes that he is in discussions with other directors and producers to explore bringing their creative ideas to this new storytelling platform. "The technology supports story first and foremost... [we believe] this new app technology will change distribution forever," he says. You can watch the Haunting Melissa teaser trailer below. Keep the lights on.
One Shots: Friendly advice
You never can tell what kind of strange and interesting people you'll run into at your local MMO tavern. Some prefer to drink and play cards, others prefer to gossip, and then there are those folks who use these social spots to find dungeon groups. Today's image from RIFT not only offers us a look at one such dungeon-running hopeful but also nets us some sage -- and funny -- advice. Undoubtedly anyone who has raided in World of Warcraft would take exception to the advice today's contributor, Melissa, received from this well-meaning gentleman. However, as this is from RIFT, Melissa wanted to pass it along: "I'm an explorer in MMO cities and will typically go to just about every corner of a building and meet all the town's citizens. In Sanctum I met Mitch, an un-Ascended Adventurer, and he gave me a bit of advice about dungeon fires. He also told me he has trouble finding groups for dungeons, since he can only die once." We love adventurers who find funny things in familiar MMO landscapes. For that matter, we love seeing games that aren't often featured here too! If you'd like to contribute to One Shots, it's very easy to do. Email a screenshot showing off a slice of life from the MMO you're currently playing to us here at oneshots@massively.com. Make sure you add in your name, the name of the game, and a note about what we're seeing in the picture as well. From there, we'll whip up a One Shots post spotlighting your image and post it here on Massively. %Gallery-112285%
One Shots: Ph'nglui Mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn
Sure, we know that Cthulhu isn't in the Lord of the Rings Online, but you have to admit this slime-covered boss makes a pretty decent stand-in for the madness-inspiring elder god of legend. Today's dread-filled screenshot of battle comes to us from Melissa, who has been working on getting her class quests out of the way in Lord of the Rings Online. She writes in to explain what we're seeing in today's One Shots: "With Carn Dum and Urugarth being the last two steps for my Warden class quest, I signed up for a run with a kin allied to ours. Imagine our surprise when we show up at the horn and all but one of us is a hobbit. Luckily the Elf was a Minstrel, and I got this great shot as we were fighting Helchgam." Have you pitted your skills against a boss recently? If you snapped a screenshot, we'd love to see a picture of the epic battle! Email those images to us here at oneshots@massively.com along with your name, the name of the game, and a description of what we're seeing. Please make sure your image is at least 1024px wide and has almost no visible UI. We'll post it out here for everyone to check out and give you the credit for sending it in. %Gallery-85937%
