Hello, everyone!
For today’s interview, we wanted to open up about some of the toughest challenges we faced while preparing the current demo version, the struggles behind the scenes, and how overcoming them helped us grow stronger as a team.
A candid story of hardship, perseverance, and teamwork, straight from us.
Let’s dive in!
◈ The Hardest Moment? Building a Single Region
Like any creative work, developing Fatal Claw hasn’t been smooth sailing.
There were plenty of hurdles, but if we had to pick the most difficult moment for the entire team,
it would be when we were building the Elord Castle region.
Before we get into the struggles, let us briefly explain how we usually create a region.
The process goes something like this:
1. Region Planning: Defining events and stories, how Kisha grows, and the kind of fun we want players to experience.
2. Concept Designing: Turning those ideas into visual and functional concepts.
3. Path Testing: Using simple black tiles to test the flow of movement.
4. Image Application: Adding final image resources to complete the visual look of the region.
5. Other Refinement: Adding animations, FX, and sound to raise the overall quality.
Every step comes with challenges, but step 4, Image Application, was where we hit the biggest wall.
◈ The Most Exhausting Stage: Image Application
Each stage of building a region takes effort,
but applying images required far more time and creativity than we first imagined.
At the time, we believed this task should be handled by one person who had both strong artistic skills and a deep understanding of game design.
And so, in the early days of Elord Castle, a single team member was responsible for the entire process.
But the number of regions we wanted to create kept growing. Soon, it was clear one person couldn’t possibly keep up with the schedule we had set for ourselves.
What we thought would be manageable quickly turned into something that demanded much more time and energy than expected.
◈ The Dilemma: Quality vs. Reality
Facing this unexpected workload, we had some tough decisions to make:
“Should we lower the quality?”
No. That would have meant abandoning the heart of Fatal Claw.
Our goal was to maintain a consistent quality level from start to finish, and we didn’t want to compromise.
“Should we have multiple people work on different regions simultaneously?”
Not really... We’re still a small indie team and couldn’t suddenly expand manpower.
“Should we reduce the number of regions?”
Maybe the most rational choice, but that would mean cutting out stories we wanted to tell and experiences we wanted players to have. We didn’t want to sacrifice that either.
In the end, we decided to share responsibilities more flexibly: the game designer would focus on bringing out the story intent in each region, while the artist would refine the visual concept.
It may look like a simple division of labor, but since Fatal Claw is a Metroidvania, where every background detail carries meaning and every event requires strong aesthetic feedback, it demanded teamwork that went far beyond standard task-splitting.
◈ Solution: Teamwork
Finding a solution was never easy. At first, miscommunication led to creating spaces that didn’t fit together at all.
Sometimes we disagreed sharply about each other’s results.
But instead of giving up, we talked more often, tried to understand one another more deeply, and worked through the friction.
Through the struggle of building Elord Castle, we became more than just colleagues—we became a team that could trust each other completely.
Now, without lengthy explanations, we can anticipate each other’s intent and build regions that hit the quality we’ve always aimed for.
◈ Moving Forward: Building a Bigger World
Even now, we put the same care into every detail—whether it’s a background element in a new region or a single line from a passing NPC. Everything is crafted with teamwork and passion to reach the highest quality possible.
The demo version we’ve released is just the beginning—a small fragment of the vast world we’re building. About 1–2 hours of gameplay, just the prologue.
We’ll keep refining and expanding until the full release, always asking ourselves how to deliver more stories in the most engaging way.
Our passion and effort will continue until the day Fatal Claw brings you unforgettable joy. We won’t stop moving forward.
That’s our story of the hardships we faced, and how we overcame them together.
We hope this interview gave you a sense of the effort poured into even the smallest details.
If you felt some of that tension and atmosphere we wanted to convey, then it’s already worth it.
From here on, we’d like to keep building the story with you.
You can hear our voices most directly on Discord. It’s where we share updates, and also where you can just drop by for a casual chat.
We’ll be back with more exciting news in the next developer notes.
Thank you!