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It’s clear Thomas put his experience with the Cradle to good use when creating these moments. A lot of its creepiest moments happen in the basement areas, including the surreal image of a plaster sculpture sitting on a chair, facing a corner, lit by a flashing light as Patti Page’s recording of “(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?” plays eerily. However, despite this vivid use of colour, there’s still plenty of darkness elsewhere in Fort Frolic. “I was raised in Seattle and we draw back from bright colour and hiss like flabby draculas.”
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That’s something of a cliche now, but as of the first BioShock that idea still felt new to me.” Scott Sinclair and his art team were responsible for the bold, colourful look of the atrium, and Thomas adds that took him a while to get used to it. It asserts, wordlessly, that it is a character unto itself. “I love the moment when a semi-abandoned space comes to life, with power restored. “Honestly that was me stealing from myself, as far back as the Cradle,” says Thomas. This is a subtle way of telling you that Cohen is intrinsically linked to this place. When Cohen speaks the lights in the room turn purple, and if you anger him-attacking his artwork, for example-they turn red to mirror his rage. It’s dark when you first enter, then Schyman’s score swells as a collection of gorgeous, colourful neon lights advertising Frolic’s stores and bars blink into life. After you defeat them he grants you entry to the atrium-a visually stunning central hub for the Fort Frolic level. “So say goodbye to those two blowhards, and hello to an evening with Sander Cohen!”Īt this point, Cohen tests your mettle by sending a group of splicers after you. The artist has a duty to seduce the ear and delight the spirit.” Then he perks up suddenly. “Time was you could get something decent on the radio. “Atlas, Ryan, Atlas, Ryan,” he says wearily. The deranged artist’s voice booms from some unknown source as the bathysphere sinks into the water. Here's a collection of our favourite bits from throughout the series. Then composer Garry Schyman’s beautiful, haunting “Dancers on a String” plays as figures encased in plaster descend from the ceiling, posed like ballerinas and spinning slowly to the music.įort Frolic isn't Bioshock's only great moment. Jack approaches the bathysphere in Fort Frolic’s metro station to travel to the next part of the city, but the gate slams shut. Go figure!”Ĭohen’s introduction is one of BioShock’s most memorable moments. But people read that much dirtier than we intended. “We also tried to hint at, without getting pornographic, Cohen’s conflict with his own sexuality. “It was psychodrama externalised,” says Thomas. “I really wanted Cohen to use the living and the dead interchangeably in his ‘art’ so that when you finally made the decision to kill or spare him, you could make some kind of counter-statement, up to and including taking a final death portrait of the man himself.” Thomas also worked closely with the AI team, including John Abercrombie, to make the plaster statues move when you weren’t looking.Ĭohen’s obsession with the statues had roots in cinema, particularly Norman Bates’ mother in Psycho and Rupert Pupkin’s imaginary basement audience in Martin Scorsese’s The King of Comedy. “I begged the art team to help with the plaster statue scenes, which were kind of my baby,” says Thomas. You think they’re just sculptures at first, but get closer and you can see blood leaking from the cracks, revealing the grim truth. Almost everywhere you go in Fort Frolic you find bodies encased in plaster, posed by Cohen. Not everyone made it out before the closure, however, and many of these unfortunate souls ended up as bizarre works of art themselves. Literally, in Cohen’s case.”Ĭohen closed Fort Frolic to the public following the 1959 civil war that ultimately ruined Rapture, but promised the people “one final frolic”. A core contradiction in terms, but guys like Ryan and Cohen push people away when they don’t match the mental model. “There’s a line I wrote for Andrew Ryan in BioShock 2 to sum that concept up, where he says to himself: at last, I am alone with my city. “The fundamental sadness of these Great Men who want, above all, to boil people down to their ideals and aesthetics-to replace them with abstracts,” he says. I ask Thomas what he wanted Fort Frolic to reveal about Rapture.