🫵 YOU.

games i liked in 2023 (And Other)

I like games ! You know that ?! and I played a lot 2023! and I liked a lot :). They aren't in any specific order, it's just a little highlight of games that stood out to me this year. I've attempted to write a few thoughts on each so I hope take a look. I wrote playtimes for some also but that is very subjective.

-Ones that actually came out 2023-

Lunacid https://store.steampowered.com/app/1745510/Lunacid/ I think I mentioned enjoying this in 2022 but it officially released so I can say it was one of my favorite games in 2023 :3! I like to feel around this game's walls for secrets. I like the npcs that are full of hope and whimsy despite the bleakness of its world. Chill and occasionally spooky first person dungeon crawling around moody caverns and ruins varying from underground forests to vampire castles and blood lake. (Blood lake!!!! Lake of blood!!! Big creature there.) Lots of fun weapons and spells to find, I like the one that lets you turn blood into coffins.

~20 hours

Orbo's Odyssey https://feverdreamjohnny.itch.io/orbos-odyssey If you played the massively popular demo for "Peeb Adventures" by feverdreamjohnny then you know that Johnny makes some fun and funny games and this is certainly one of them. speedy and satisfying platforming! funny dracula moments! short and sweet.

~2 hours

A Walk in the Woods https://mooncaller.itch.io/a-walk-in-the-woods Quaint little GBStudio game :) Made by some friends of mine for a jam :) It's cute I like it. There's minigames where you catch bugs and birdwatch.

~30 minutes long

Undertale Yellow https://gamejolt.com/games/UndertaleYellow/136925 I've only completed the pacifist run and checked out a neutral run so far. as the title somewhat implies, this is a prequel to Undertale where you play as the fallen human who had the yellow colored soul. This Undertale fangame has a lot of charm!!! A lot of battles really feel like they could have been in the original, with quite a bit of extra flair in some circumstances.

~10 hours

vs really cool bird https://bobacupcake.itch.io/vs-really-cool-bird you know that really cool bird that rob bobacupcake made well you can fight it in undertale and it's really fun. yeah two undertale fangames. . . wat of it …

~30 minutes

Misericorde: Volume One https://xeecee.itch.io/misericorde I wont lie the main draw for me into this was cute anime nuns I sure didn't know a whole lot else about it when I dug into it. But it's (the first part of) a VN murder mystery! And I enjoyed it a whole lot. All the characters are memorable and I really enjoy how all of them have differentiating designs. The protagonist is so failgirl. She sucks so much and I love her. I'm very intrigued by the mechanics of the game's world, it clues you in near the beginning to expect something a bit supernatural/fantastical, which gives you (and later the protagonist) a curiosity about what's real and what isn't. The music is all very impressive too, with the ost reaching past 100 tracks varying through post-rock, folk, drum & bass, and others. (Remembering when the track "Scandal" played and my friends and I took a moment to be like- okay hang on this track pwns.) Big fan of its haunting locals and how the aesthetic of the game fits them well. Also the humor is a lot of fun, and I love all the moments getting to know the different characters. Very excited to see the eventual continuation of this.

~12 hours

Absolutely Perfect Specimen https://chambersoft.itch.io/absolutely-perfect-specimen It seems like a lot of people are craving toxic horror yuri lately. Here's a recommendation. It's a VN about the android maid "Pan" and the mad scientist girl who created her. Horrifying & gut wrenching & largely about having other people define you. The art and music is haunting & poignant and matches the ever increasing feeling of dread throughout. It's yuri with the chunks. Peak robotgirl horror for those who can stomach it.

~90 minutes

Wordhopper https://kokoscript.itch.io/wordhopper Very quaint word search type puzzle game for ms dos! I think its style is very slick and that's pretty impressive to see. Chill game with nice vibes and eyecandy visuals. also it was so cool to have played this and then ended up seeing the dev's booth at Vintage Computer Festival Midwest. I was like omg woah I just played this.

~bunny

Bossgame https://lilyv.itch.io/bossgame This game is yuriful as f*ck. Delightful humor and fun character dynamics! A simple-to-understand-difficult-to-master boss rush battle system that makes you satisfied to get it right, and enticing to get just a little farther if you get it wrong. There's a lot of detail and charm to this game's menus and dialogues and win screens, I remember noticing that once you beat a boss there would be some marquee text that would pass by with some prose on it. I love how it balances its silly moments with its heartfelt moments and its high octane moments. I like the character development and revelations had throughout the plot. & I like how good the protagonists are for each other :) It's very sweet. It's hype as hell. if you want some boss rush action paired well with that sweet sweet girl's love, you *will* play this game.

~5 hours

Elly's Adventure https://bikwins.itch.io/ellys-adventure Very cute and witchy!! You are the little witch girl "Elly" on an adventure to get your toys back!! Feels like a pretty authentic gameboy type experience, it takes a lot of design cues from Kirby's adventure and the like. I am a big fan of how playful it feels.

~1 hour

Nour https://store.steampowered.com/app/1141050/Nour_Play_with_Your_Food/ This was a treat for me, but I understand that not everybody is going to get it. It's a game where you play with food(and food accessories). And that's it. It knows what it was going for. I think a lot of people were expecting something else for some reason. It's a cute little toy game and I felt satisfied with my time with it.

~food

Hi-Fi Rush https://store.steampowered.com/app/1817230/HiFi_RUSH/ Do I have to say this game is super fun? It's a big one everybody probably already knows it. This game's dopey humor made me laugh a lot and I'm not afraid to admit it.

~12 hours

WHISKEY.ST2007S https://bonicle.itch.io/whiskey-st2007nes One of the last games I played in the year because it released super last minute. Does anybody else get a rush when running a shopping cart down the parking lot? This emulates that feeling. Short game where you collect whisky stones in the whisky stone dimension because you forgot to go christmas shopping until the very last minute. it rules. It's very short you can go play it right now & get a highscore.

~5 minutes

re:curse https://devpalmer.itch.io/re-curse Discovered this one near the very end of the year also. Fun little rpg maker horror/humor game about a weird scientist lady, her butch, and an evil clown computer virus that figured out how to warp reality. I got a kick out of it. and also enjoyed digging through the game's files, which was actively encouraged by the dev, which I thought was very fun.

~90 minutes

-Didn't technically get to until 2024 but released last year-

SWOLLEN TO BURSTING UNTIL I AM DISAPPEARING ON PURPOSE https://1207.itch.io/swollen-to-bursting-until-i-am-disappearing-on-purpose People love to dunk on a lot of indie rpgs for being "quirky Earthbound inspired and about depression" or whatever. Earthbound's great. If people can nail the kind of humor and absurdity it likes to pull off while also balancing difficult topics I think that deserves a high mark. SWOLLEN TO BURSTING was fun. Bizarre and charming places to explore & distressing secrets to find. I like how it blends meander-around-the-town gameplay with Yume Nikki sort of exploration and effects. Also I'm a big fan of the music. I like how it has the lofi sound which matches the early 3d look of the game.

~6 hours

HalOPE https://starbage.itch.io/halope Another for the fans of sweet little rpg maker games that have a lot of heart. HalOPE is about an incomplete little angel wondering through worlds. Each has a theme, usually to do with an emotion or feeling, and they do well at evoking that feeling as well as its antithesis. a lot of the music is very homey and charming at moments and unnerving at others, sometimes lonely, all doing well in their corresponding chapters to further the feeling of its specified theme. There are so many delightful characters and designs in this & I found myself feeling really attached to their tiny little stories. The narrative at the core of it all hit me. If I may be vulnerable, I cried a whole lot at various moments in this game. It was really cathartic. I feel very excited for people to experience this game.

~5 hours

-Favs I finally got around to that didn't come out 2023-

An Outcry https://quinnk.itch.io/an-outcry Kind of sad it took me so long to get to this one, but glad it meant I got to play the "definitive" updated version of it. Apartment wandering RPG maker horror. Bum smokes from your neighbors and use them to save the game. I wish I could unwrap a lot more of what I like about this game than I can without spoiling too much. But if I could, I'd probably go on for too long. Let me attempt to be succinct & not giving too much away. You can tell pretty early on that An Outcry is about taking action when necessary & not turning a blind eye. What it explores about player vs protagonist agency is very fascinating to me as well, and I enjoyed learning about the inspirations for why the game's narrative works the way it does. The character Anne is such a sweetie and I love her a whole lot. This game has a very tangible feeling, this apartment complex is dirty and crumby, it smells of smoke, and there's a surrounding desperation you can feel.

~5 hours

Pigments https://punkcake.itch.io/pigments Honestly I had gotten this game in a bundle and while I was playing it I hadn't looked at the name and I just kept calling it FRUIT. On call with my friends I'd be like "hey im gonna play more FRUIT". I straight up didn't read the title screen. But it's called Pigments. You play as a fruit and you try to paint the whole floor and not get sliced by buzzsaws. Fun little arcade type game.

~fruit

Bridge, October 3rd https://lowpolis.itch.io/bridge-october-3rd Very short vignette. I like it. It's what it says it is. I'm not going to overexplain.

~like a minute

-Other Games I Want To Mention-

Pseudoregalia https://store.steampowered.com/app/2365810/Pseudoregalia/ I think a lot of people might have already known this one but I felt like it was a pretty fun 3d platformer. There were a few issues I had with it (boss fight at the beginning was frustrating, and I got lost a lot [but it looks like there's been a map patch by now, so, perhaps for some that is a fix]). I enjoyed it but sure felt weird that the only accessibility option was to give the protagonist pants. What kind of joke is that?

~5 hours

Mushroom Musume https://mortallymoonstruckgames.itch.io/mushroom-musume (Disclaimer, this game is still early access, but I saw a lot of people talking about it last year. SO I will mention here?) Haven't played much of this yet, but I have enjoyed what I played so far!! As of writing I've gone through 6 playthroughs, I feel like I've hardly scratched the surface and I've been so impressed by its depth. It's very charming, you never know what sorts of fairytale shenanigans are going to happen, and it's very cool to see how your different stats will affect things. It very much plays out like a roguelike vn. Which is not the sort of thing you may expect to make much sense but it pulls this off well. Also all the mushroom girls are very cute and I love them very much. I hope the sad goopy one who had bugs in her skin rests in peace.

~mushroom

Knuckle Sandwich https://andybrophy.itch.io/knuckle-sandwich -_- Hm. Where do I start with this one. I was pretty excited for this one since the demo and kickstarter in 2018. I felt like the demo was a hell of a hook that got me curious & horrified. As time went on, it seemed to be shaping up into something really cool. turn based combat with action commands and wario-ware-type microgames?? with a banging soundtrack?? like, count me in!! Then it released and well, the gameplay, art, music all delivered. It was very fun and engaging in those aspects. But the story… oh it just devolves into disappointing nonsensical randomness. The whole hook at the beginning seemed to be completely thrown away for the wild goose chase plot that ensues, leaving you to wonder if it was ever going to be relevant again. It felt like it had no idea what it was trying to say or do. It disappointed me that a game that has so much good in so much else about it gets brought down so much for me by this plot.

~12 hours

Rhythm Doctor https://store.steampowered.com/app/774181/Rhythm_Doctor/ (Putting this one in mentions because it is early access.) I really enjoyed the act 5 release. When I first saw this game, I kind of shrugged it off, thinking "that base mechanic doesn't seem like it will last". I thought it was basically just that one ghost shooting game from Rhythm Heaven which I Hate. Well let's just say I am now seeking penitence for my previous transgressions. It's really fun. There's a lot more to it that I didn't know when I first took a look. Also, consistently amazed by people's custom levels, I had no idea that its level editor allows people to do so much in it, I look at some levels and think "This editor seems as complex as an industry standard video editor". I'm looking forward to what they're planning next, very curious how they could possibly one-up the last update.

~rhythm

El Paso Elsewhere https://strangescaffold.itch.io/el-paso-elsewhere This was really fun & funny so far but unfortunately I had been encountering an issue with a certain level where the game would crash. I reported the issue, got a response, and there has been an update since then so I think there's a possibility that it got fixed but I have not tried yet. I would like to return to this sometime but having to relearn controls midway through is always daunting to me.

~?

-Things that looked good but didn't get around to-

Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood https://store.steampowered.com/app/1340480/The_Cosmic_Wheel_Sisterhood/ Still don't know a whole lot about this. But there are witches, and I like witches.

Casette Beasts https://store.steampowered.com/app/1321440/Cassette_Beasts/ I haven't felt thrilled about Pokémon lately. I know a lot of people seemed to really enjoy this little monster-collecting-rpg. The style is appealing to me as a die-hard gen 5 fan. I started playing it but haven't set aside the dedicated time for it yet, but I'm excited to dig in more when I do.

Little Goody Two Shoes https://store.steampowered.com/app/1812370/Little_Goody_Two_Shoes/ Started watching a friend play this, and I'm certainly curious.. Some sort of horror fairytale but also there's yuri? Yum. Enjoyed the style and animation in the nightmare segments that I saw.

Venba https://store.steampowered.com/app/1491670/Venba/ I've picked this up a while ago but still haven't gotten around to it, but I'm eager to, I've heard nothing but good things.

Goodbye Volcano High https://store.steampowered.com/app/1310330/Goodbye_Volcano_High/ I think there are gay dinosaurs in a band and it's going to be the apocalypse? I have also heard nothing but good things about this.

-Things I watched friends play-

Signalis https://store.steampowered.com/app/1262350/SIGNALIS/ This was a pretty big one. You probably already know it, right? Watched a friend play this and I missed various parts but I understood a solid bit of it. hey. robotgirls are always getting put in these fucked up situations. have you noticed this? one time i got really high and cried about it. it isn't fair

Bomb Rush Cyberfunk https://store.steampowered.com/app/1353230/Bomb_Rush_Cyberfunk/ This one was also probably big enough you don't need me to sing its praises. but it looked really neat. swag.

-Various Thoughts-

Lately I've been thinking more about design and narrative. I feel like I haven't been doing as much analysis as I should be when it comes to games. I want to dissect more what games are saying and figure out meaning. Also attempt to see how the mechanics aid in that. I feel like most of my own work is pretty abstract & random. I simply make what I like. While that's fun and all, I still want to improve in a lot of ways, especially in having more of a theme or message. Figuring out how other games accomplish this is obviously a good step toward this.

If you saw games here that interest you I highly urge you to take a look, many are pretty short, and I pretty explicitly wanted to highlight some smaller titles. If you know me you know I like to uplift small games. (Save for the occasional big game, but that's rare these days) I think it's healthy for you to play and support independently developed & published works. I don't want to ramble too much this time about why that's important, but I hope that you might have found something you may enjoy here and if not then I encourage you to find small stuff that you would like. And I would like to encourage everybody to share their findings as well! Little games need our help to be seen and talked about! They don't have the budgets the big ones do for advertising, and advertising on your own is a whole ton of work. If you like something, spread the word! I'm sure the developers would very much appreciate that.

INTERVIEW WITH SAM BARLOW AND TOMM HULETT ON SILENT HILL SHATTERED MEMORIES

As part of my Shattered Memories video, I decided to try and reach out to Designer Sam Barlow and Producer Tomm Hulett to ask them some questions. And I was delighted that they said yes! I couldn't fit everything into my video, but what they shared was too interesting not to post somewhere in its entirety! HERE IT GOES:

What was it like building the profiling system and what kind of resources did you tap into? I read that professionals helped and even analysed some of the team members! What psychological test was most surprising and interesting to you?

SAM: It was a deep dive into psychometrics! Yeah we spoke with academics who had done work into eye tracking. We put the team through a battery of personality tests to have some data to work off of. I worked with a therapist who insisted I attend sessions as a patient and genuinely, in order to make things credible. The most fun (surprising!?) anecdote is that we were working off the 5 factor personality model, which is the popular one. The fifth factor of the 5 is psychopathy. But we ended up dropping that factor because we found that everyone naturally behaves a bit like a psychopath when playing a game! So it kinda skewed the data.

TOMM: My related answer - As soon as I read the pitch with the psych profiling and how it would change the game world, I instantly (if slightly presumptuously) demanded to Produce the game. This was the type of outside-the-box thinking that I felt suited Silent Hill as a brand, but could also drive it forward with new innovations that would surprise players. Management granted my request, and I made it my personal mission to protect this feature from outside meddling, and to evangelize it across Konami.

In regards to elements of the game (character appearances, dialogue etc.) being tailored to the player’s profile, were there any other features you would have liked to implement that would also change depending on the profile? Also any other things you would have liked to have affected the profile? I saw mentions of Mii data and the Weather Channel for example!

SAM: I think always it was a question of how deep we could go -- the more specific we got, the more money it would have cost! So there were compromises in terms of the number of variations. We'd go in asking for as much as we could think of and then end up compromising and picking the key ones. Could always have used more hairstyles, outfits, or set dressing! It was particularly tight on things like monster animations -- those had to be generic, but fit against any additional animation bones, say an udder -- rather than be unique to each form. The way they moved could have been a real nice differentiator.

Yeah, we really wanted to do some stuff where we pulled in the player's Mii data, or tapped into the local weather/time for their console. But all of those things ended up being things that would have possibly upset the Nintendo guidelines, so we kinda skipped over those. We wanted to find as many ways we could make the player feel seen, and add to the feeling that the Harry they were making was tied to them.

I read that when speaking to some of the developers of the original game, you sought to understand some of their goals with the first title in order to aim for those same targets in SM. What were those goals? Was there anything the developers would have liked to do for the first game (but couldn’t for whatever reason) which were then included in SM?

SAM: Hmmm, I'm not sure we spoke directly to anyone for SH:SM. I know we had access to some people at Konami on Origins, but it was slightly difficult -- a lot of the files/documentation didn't exist anymore, so it wasn't always straightforward to tap into intentions -- as well, SH:1 was kinda of a miracle and product of a very particular moment in time so I think a lot of how the original turned out was organic. We certainly wanted to make something that would feel -- in a fresh way -- like the original felt; rather than rehashing it in a way that would feel like diminishing returns. We wanted to take some of the themes of the first game, and also some of the ideas thrown out by 2 and 3, and take them to a place that was a little bit more lived in. Like there was a vibe I got when going into the K. Gordon house in SH1 that felt so real and domestic and it had a real presence... walking into a domestic living area, that atmosphere of it being abandoned, the proximity of the horror to the domesticity, the uncanny feel. We wanted to tap into that. And to remind people that it was snowing in Silent Hill 1!

Sam, was there anything you took from SM that applied to or evolved in your future games? I think I first noticed your mark the second the VHS intro started playing with a menu in the style of a typical TV interface, the use of technology as an immersive viewpoint in your other titles has been something I’ve always loved!

SAM: Yeah, clearly I have a real interface-within-an-interface thing going on! You could argue that the principal's office puzzle is basically Her Story 0.1! I definitely enjoyed the use of the frame narrative and the idea we had that 'the player is not the protagonist' -- the idea that you create tension between the main character and the player, and explore that for dramatic effect. We deliberately kept shifting POV (3rd to 1st person) and introduced time jumps to create a disconnect with Harry. Also a lot of the way the profile system worked -- vector math and fuzzy logic underpinning choices, rather than binary trees -- has been something I've used in every game since. Under the surface the way that Her Story or Immortality knows about its scenes and connects things, and plays music, etc. is all using a similar setup.

Not a question, but I adored how going into the options/quit game menu would also display that TV interface style, like Cheryl’s view was that outer layer in the narrative that gets peeled back at the end. Reminds me of the use of the screen reflection in Telling Lies in a way!

SAM: Yeah, again, I think this is clearly my thing! Creating layers *between* the player and the narrative in a way that can actually help with a kind of immersion.

I read in a few interviews that it was an important point that every player could finish the game, with some adjustments kicking in if players were struggling. Where do you think your philosophy of prioritising players getting to experience the full story over the possibility of them getting ‘stuck’ at a difficult obstacle in the game came from? Did that stem from personal frustration you have with other games? Do you think this philosophy contended with the existing SH fanbase who were used to the perhaps more unforgiving nature of survival horror conventions?

SAM: I think if you're going to give the player something 'different', you also need to balance that out with a kind of generosity. You can't ask them to meet you halfway and then keep punishing them. It's also very much a truth that the more you make players repeat things, the more you make them stuck, the more they see the illusion -- they start to see the clockwork, the seams of the experience. So it was very important to me that we help players move smoothly through this experience to properly deliver our emotional payload.

Yeah, I think there's definitely a minority who look for a very specific game template and equate difficulty/obfuscation (and the resulting padded game time!) with the kind of survival horror experience. I don't think Shattered Memories was a game for them, in that sense. For me it's all in service of engaging the player. Sometimes challenge can do that. But the classic survival horror template definitely can also take that too far.

I read that Cold Heart turned into SM as Konami had greenlit a SH1 remake, although SM was a reimagining instead. As a result, there seemed to be a little disconnect between the marketing and what the game actually was. What were some of these differences?

SAM: I guess if there was a disconnect ultimately it was that there were probably high up bosses who thought this was a very traditional remake (just with Wii controls?) rather than a reimagining. That was something that I'm not sure was ever run all the way up the chain! But I think generally marketing got that aspect -- we would reference Battlestar Galactica and they liked that comparison. Really the big disconnect was that we'd made a game from the (new) Wii audience and most of the marketing went into positioning it as a 'gamer's game on the Wii.' That was a real missed opportunity to be honest.

What were some of the challenging aspects of making a reimagining with existing characters as opposed to brand new characters? Were there some advantages even?

SAM: I think it was all upside for us. It's great to have something to start with that you can then springboard off of. And a lot of the intent of SH:SM was that we would create a weird Deja Vu for people who *had* played the original -- a sense of things being recognizable but also very different. That was a whole extra level of vibes and emotional responses that we could tap into. This was much more fun than, say, Silent Hill: Origins where it was all downside... there it felt like we were making fan fiction, having to embellish and add small details to an existing story that had no real spare room or need for those embellishments!

Now that there have been many years to reflect, were there any ideas that you wished made it into the game? Or anything you think would have been better to have been changed or removed?

TOMM: Late-ish in development after getting a lot of feedback and considering how consumers might react, I pitched Climax on adding an element of threat and tension to the "normal" world. Nothing like overt combat or enemies, but just something so the player wouldn't feel entirely safe. This didn't go in obviously, but I sometimes wonder how it may have changed initial reactions from players.

(still third question I hit enter accidentally)  Also I wish the western releases of the game didn't have a bug making one ending harder to get than intended.  That's the main regret.

I think the only other SH game to have pushed the series out of its comfort zone as much as you did with SM is PT. Do you think players/critics these days are more accepting of change in their favorite franchises than they were when SM released? How did you feel when you first saw PT? Was there some specific joy in seeing the series you worked on go into a new direction like SM did?

TOMM: PT was the first (only?) SH game I got to experience after leaving Konami and I certainly think it owes something to SHSM. I'm very proud that our game was essentially a "walking simulator" before that term existed, and how favorably it compares to the notable games of that type, when we were charting our course without a map as it were.  On the right day, I do think critics now are more accepting of changes and I think we owe the indie scene for that a bit. Many critics even EXPECT new titles to change up familiar elements, rather than sticking in the same molds.  That said, fans are still fans. When they hear about a strange new mechanic in a series they love, I hope they remember first-person Resident Evil, Yakuza RPG, and maybe SHSM, and give it a fair chance.

SAM: Maybe? We're definitely living through an age of renewed nostalgia and backwards thinking. So many reboots and remakes! So maybe now is the wrong time to push franchises in fresh directions. Which is a shame. But outside that, I think the audience is definitely open to new experiences and the definitions of genres have expanded. P.T. was great -- I loved how it was delivered, the impact on players. To be honest, in all likelihood how things turned out was probably best? I can't imagine the full Silent Hill reboot ending up having the same impact that P.T. (and it's being lost to time!) was able to generate? I definitely appreciated the ways in which P.T. recalled some of the non euclidian domestic stuff we did in our later 'nowhere' sequence, and just that sense of immersion in a domestic space.

What do you think the legacy for SM was? Any lasting effects you feel were left on the series or community, maybe even the horror genre as a whole?

TOMM: (kind of answered a bit above but we'll try). I hope SHSM takes some of the credit for expanding what a "horror" game can be. It was pretty strict beforehand, you had your RE-style actiony games, and your SH-style atmosphere games that that's how the genre was judged. Horror games these days have such a huge range now and it's wonderful. Weird text-driven meta things, or PS1 throwbacks like Signalis. It's great. Horror only works when it surprises you, so I'm glad it all doesn't fit into 2 rigid definitions anymore.

SAM: Clearly a lot of what we did in SH:SM ended up becoming quite standard -- the flight rather than fight gameplay; the sense of open, immersive spaces with no loading; the 'walking simulator' aspects of our storytelling, etc. I couldn't say whether any of that was directly because of SH:SM, or just in the water anyway! I have heard some developers call out SH:SM, so it does sometimes feel like we had an outsized reaction from particular press, or particular groups of developers -- rather than the world at large.

Sam, this is more out of my own curiosity than anything… but I read that you saw similarities in the chase sequences and an experience you had as a child. Apparently you were in Tanzania being chased by baboons around a swimming pool?! I need to know more!!

SAM: Yeah, when we were devving the first vertical slice, I was obsessed with the swimming pool area. The size of it, the dimensions, how the enemies out to flow around it. At the same time I was pushing the animators and artists to have the enemies on all fours, and hairy! This was a challenge as it made the camera very hard to program so it could see the enemy chasing you; and hair was a challenge on that level of tech. But I kept pushing. And everyone was like, 'why is Sam so set on these ideas??' Then one day I remembered and realized it all went back to this time when I lived in Tanzania and as a 5 year old was chased around a swimming pool by a pack of baboons. My memory is the adults just watched and laughed. It was very traumatic! I was trying to recreate that trauma for the players, but after that mini closure, I relented and let the enemies stand on two feet...

What were the best/most fun parts of development for you?

TOMM: The most fun part of development for me was sharing this weird new game with so many people. Climax developed it so that the first 20-30 minutes of the game were our "Vertical Slice" which would be used to sell the game internally. So I would present this to a room full of Konami folks and make a different person answer each opening therapy question, or make key choices along the way, and I had it all choreographed so I knew when to look at a scary image, when to call a random phone number, etc.  This same section of game was then used as our demo at E3 and Gamescom, and watching all those new players giggle at "Have you cheated on a partner?" or realize their neighbor was having a different path through the demo than they did... it's just great seeing an idea come together so perfectly. Climax hit it out of the park and I was glad to be a part of it.

Anything else you’d like to share? I love hearing fun little stories or memories about game development so feel free to let loose!

TOMM: My most frustrating presentation was showing the game in its alpha state to the head of Marketing. I was showing him the Memento you get from the dart board in the bar, and how you could turn it around to view it using the Wii Remote. He got really fixated on the dart board and tried convincing me we should spend the rest of development making darts playable.  People lose all kinds of time in GTA playing darts and stuff.  He was relentless.  I kept trying to explain the player's mindset in a horror game is different than in GTA but he kept pushing.  Needless to say we did not make darts playable.

SAM: Ooh, I don't know... um.... how about that the clinic where Kaufmann works was inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water building? I gave the artists a bunch of photos of this classic piece of architecture for how I wanted the lighthouse clinic to look. It was only when someone then pointed it out to me that I learned the other name for this famous building? "The Kaufmann house". Mind blown.

Apart from the playable darts, were there any other odd ideas put forward outside of the team during development? Or any other instances where you had to protect the vision for SM?

SAM: I guess we were always on the backfoot in terms of not having traditional combat (or wiimote waving crowbar action) so that was one we had to keep running defense on. Mostly we were so busy executing on all the ideas we did have that we didn't really have too much time to entertain additional ideas, so we just kept moving! Stuff like ensuring that every element of the environment was readable/made sense in the narrative/imagery, etc. was something that was a real and constant effort -- the kind of detail and involvement of the narrative team across the art that just wasn't something you normally did.

A HUGE thank you to them both for participating in the interview!! You can find them on twitter:

Tomm: https://twitter.com/Hypnocrite

Sam: https://twitter.com/mrsambarlow

#silenthill #interview

shrike inspired deinonychus can stab someone in so many ways

I'm having a big sale on my storenvy shop!! EVERYTHING is 35% off!!

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I'm a bit of a hobbyist writer, crafter, artist ♥ Thank you!

COMMISSIONS OPEN

HI. i wanna save up money for stuff so i figured i should make a new commissions post. HOWEVER.. i am a very inconsistent artist so flat prices do not really seem to work well for me! heres a bunch of shit i drew.

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i will NOT do NSFW, fetish, or hate art, and i'm not really any Good at "proper" backgrounds or mecha so buyer beware there, but otherwise almost anything goes! i have teh right to reject any comm for any reason but generally im pretty easygoing!

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Hey I Love You Thank God It’s Spring

3 colour riso prints :) available here !!

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