Settling on my Torture Device Choices!

Now that I got a reply from the email I sent to Stuart, I can start settling down on what torture devices I want to humanise, and what phobia to pair them up with. Here is the reply I got from him.

"I think the main obstacle will be that there is a relatively small number of medieval torture devices, and many of them are similar in execution.  To promote variety I think your best bet may be to look at slightly more obscure phobias and how one device could potentially link in to several of them.  For instance, the iron maiden you mention could trigger not only claustrophobia but aichmophobia, the fear of sharp things.  And possibly even haemophobia, the fear of blood, if it's used! 

As phobias are irrational they don't rely on the trigger actually posing any threat, so it's possible to have something passive still be a danger to the player.  For instance an oubliette could engender both athazagoraphobia (fear of being forgotten / forgetting) and cleithrophobia (fear of being trapped in an enclosed space - like a more specific claustrophobia.) 

Something to perhaps bear in mind is that avoidance is key to the behaviour of people with phobias.  People will go to huge lengths to avoid anything that can set off the anxiety and panic of a phobic response.  I'm not sure how that could translate into gameplay but it's a thought!"

Once I read the email I realised he was correct about the small number of devices and them being similar in execution. I don't want the images to be too similar otherwise they would become a bit generic and there would be no fun in designing them. I have already gone through all the research into different torture devices so I won't be repeating that information here (see post http://hazelshivegadyear3.blogspot.com/2015/10/looking-into-torture-devices.html for all the information)

Here is my list of my chosen items to concept from, along with a collection of research images

To begin with I knew straight away from starting my research that I would love to use the Iron Maiden in my designs. The look of it is so striking that I can see myself having a lot of fun with different visual experiments and as Stuart mentions in the email, I can link it / use it to trigger various sorts of phobias. Even though the Iron Maiden was probably not actually used as an item of torture, the visual of the device and the implied threat still make this a device of fear and torture.

The second device I have chosen is the Pear of Anguish. I can see a lot of potential costume wise with the petals that make up the main body of the device, the device itself is non life threatening (unless pushed to its limit of opening) which makes it different method than the Iron Maiden, 

The last one I was really torn about, I originally wanted to do the Brazen Bull as I thought I could get some amazing designs out of it, but referred back to the email I got from Stuart I realised that this device would be very similar to the Iron Maiden, they both feature the same mechanic of having people be put inside although the torture method was different, I've decided to go with Waterboarding, I feel like I will need to talk to Mark about this because the images I'd be using in my research might be a bit more graphic as they generally just show the process not the equipment that is used. 

EDIT!

Rat torture has the go ahead!