Three years ago, during a school project, Kristian and Sebastiano, united by their passion for fantasy art and the world of video games, decided to develop a game with Horror tints. In the summer of the following year, the project consolidated itself when David and Jacopo joined the team and developed the social media pages, the website and various "marketing stuff", thus making the project more interesting for gamers.
After that Sezhes, an indie team made up of young and passionate guys at their first experience in creating a video game, was born. There are those ones with a graphic design background, some in illustration and some in comics, but in general we are all creative minds with a great desire to produce something unique.
Over time the team has grown with the addition of the Undreamed band, which created exceptional music, and Alberto, our super translator who helped us level up our work. A narrative game needed English localization with attention to the smallest details.
Just like the protagonists of our game, we also found ourselves facing difficulties during the development of Frail Hearts - Versicorae Domlion. From finding people who believed in the project, to finding resources while developing it during the pandemic (because there were not enough problems already, eh). But once the team and its operational members were formed, the development accelerated and we came up with one of the most exciting events for creatives: the Kickstarter campaign.
In October 2021, we embarked on one of the most turbulent adventures of our life. A roller coaster of joy and suffering finally reached the goal thanks to our fantastic backers to whom we are tremendously grateful for believing in our project. David handled the Kickstarter campaign and Jacopo made the first official trailer to promote the game, while the rest of the team worked tirelessly on the game under Kristian's guidance.
We have also collaborated with talented artists who have made wonderful art to promote the game. Two characters, Vudix and the Duke, and a boss, were also born from the creativity of our top backers. The city of Gris was getting more and more crowded. After an incredible month, we finally reached the goal, surpassed 100% and successfully completed the fundraising.
The moment we will never forget.
Credit: Caelpher (first two), Shin Bross
But you know, in the world of video games, after completing a mission, it is time to jump to the next task. After the Kickstarter campaign it was time to continue the development of the game and create the perks earned by the backers (artbook, guide, tarot and more). The period was characterized with a gigantic effort of the whole team to be able to create the perks and produce the physical ones while the development of the game required constant attention.
Credit: Kitsune Yoru, Irene di Oriente, Eugenio Belgrado
We also created our Steam page, making the Demo playable for everyone. Thanks to it, we saw interest in the game and its growth with hundreds of people adding it to their wishlists. This gave us even more energy and we understood that it was time to find a publisher, or was it who found us...
We had started thinking about publishers to contact when we found an email that left us speechless. Ravenage had tried our Demo and was interested in teaming up with us to take the game to another level. The publisher believed in us and was ready to field a team of great professionals to help us complete the project. The icing on the cake, and what icing!
And here we are, as turnips (you will have to play Frail Hearts - Versicorae Domlion to understand this quote) we have grown are almost ready for harvest. The dream has become the wish, which has turned into the goal, and it is now fulfilled. We are getting closer to the release and we are as excited as we were when the project was born.
Don’t hesitate to join us, add the game to your wishlist to immerse yourself in the world of Gris with us!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1412890/Frail_Hearts_Versicorae_Domlion/