Hey there, everyone! We’ve got goodies galore for you today, including a tiny peek behind the game dev curtain, a Q&A with developer Gab, and an in-depth look at a brand new area: the Homunculi Village! Let’s jump right in with a status update. Skip to the end of this segment if you'd like to avoid minor spoilers!
A little while after you’ve finished playing hide-and-seek with your homunculi buddy on Floor 3, you enter a huge natural cavern that’s home to the Homunculi Village. It seems that, long before our one-armed hero arrived, the homunculi have been hard at work building a place to live.
Whatever the reason, it seems the work has taken its toll on the noble (wretched) and kind (creepy) creatures. Just what happened here?
If you strike up conversation with our lovely friends, they’ll have some things to say. Developer Gab made these voice lines extra-freaky by recording himself speaking backwards in French, then reversing the clips so it sounds like real speech.
As you proceed deeper into the level, you’re presented with a challenge not seen until this point in the game: total darkness. Don’t worry, though! You soon find a torch to light your way. Implementing a dynamic light source like this was a challenge, and it required some hacky, old-school methods to get just right– but the results speak for themselves. It can even light other torches!
Now for a short Q&A with Gab, who makes up one half of the team at WildArts!
Thanks so much for meeting with me today! For starters, can you tell me a little bit about WildArts as a studio? Who are you, and why do you make games?
Gab: It’s a pleasure! WildArts is composed of myself, Gab, and my partner, Nicolas. We’re both French-Canadian, and we’ve been making games for 4 years now! Games are an incredible medium to work with, since the added aspect of interactivity allows players to really delve into worlds and experience stories like nowhere else. Seeing people explore the worlds we crafted and play around with the systems we designed is super rewarding to us, and it’s what motivates us to make more!
How is Caput Mortum's development going? Has it been smooth sailing so far?
Development is going well, and the game is about 80% done! Following early feedback, we made a few areas bigger and added some surprises in the first levels for people who played the demo. Our goal is to keep players on their toes and constantly make them wonder “Oh crap, what next?”
Awesome! My next question is about the control scheme. The PSX-era tank controls and independent hand movement are some of the game's most unique features. How did the team come up with the idea?
Gab: The idea came when I first tried King’s Field 4 for myself. I loved the vibes and found the experience of relearning a control scheme in an hostile and spooky environment super refreshing! It reminded me of how much scarier and tense games were when I was little and unsure of my gaming skills. This felt like the perfect starting point for a horror game!
When you were prototyping the control scheme, did it take a lot of iteration to strike a good balance between accessibility and deliberate clunkiness?
Gab: Not really, actually. The control scheme in King’s Field 4 is very disorienting at first and I knew it’d be a big barrier of entry, so I decided to start from scratch. I figured an intuitive alternative to the right analogue stick would be the triggers since it felt like pointing left and right. Then I assigned up and down to the bumpers, and the idea for the hand mechanic came when wondering what the right analogue stick would be used for! By keeping the character’s movement standard with the left analogue stick, the game strikes a nice balance between hard to control but forgiving.
As a studio, WildArts definitely has roots in horror with its debut title, Helltown. Then you released Born of Bread: a fun, colorful turn-based RPG. What inspired your return to the horror genre?
Gab: Our love for it! Nic and I are both big horror aficionados, but we equally love cutesy animated stuff, so that’s why our projects go back and forth between colorful fun and grotesque horror! Maybe someday we’ll try to merge the two, who knows ;)
Were there any big ideas you had to cut while the game was in its planning stages?
Gab: Thankfully no! I knew from the get go this would be a game with a small scope and planned accordingly. Ideas for Caput Mortum came pretty easily once I settled on a core theme, and we actually ended up adding more stuff once Nic joined the project and we started receiving playtesting feedback.
It's been so much fun chatting with you today. Any final thoughts you'd like to share with our lovely readers?
Gab: We’re both really proud of this project and I really hope it’ll stick in players’ minds once they reach the end. We’re working hard to make this special and it wouldn’t be happening without the support of everyone around us, so thank you!
That’s all we’ve got for you this time. If you have questions you’d like answered in the next dev diary, drop us a line in the comments! Thanks for reading!