LAURA RIPOLL GALÁN TALKS IKAI
"It's been more terrifying than anything else"
Daniel John
Where a game such as 'Resident Evil', for example, has near thousands of people working on it, I believe the recent remake projects had around 800 people involved, you are but a studio of three developers. What are the challenges but also the advantages of being in a smaller team?
We have to wear many hats as indie developers, that is sometimes funny because you get to learn new skills out of your comfort zone, but it is very exhausting and, sometimes, multi-tasking can involve working in fields that you must cover, although you really don’t like, so I would say that this is the main disadvantage of being a small team. However, the benefits outweigh the negative aspects. Every member of the team has the power to make relevant decisions of the game, which makes us feel that it belongs to every member of the team in an equal way, no matter our area of expertise, we know everything about the project as a whole.
How did the three of you get together to form Endflame?
The three of us were studying a degree in design and development of video games, where we met, and took similar paths. We first began as interns into different video game companies and after that got a job in the industry. There was an inflection point where the company for which two of us were working, was about to shut down. We had to choose whether to look for a job in another company or start up our own studio. Our decision was to take the risk of setting up Endflame, hence we reached out to the third member to join us in this adventure.
Shinji Mikami, the creator of the mentioned 'Resident Evil' franchise, notoriously had his start in game development working on a myriad of Disney-games. What games did you work on, prior to scaring us with 'Ikai'?
Our period working in the industry lasted two years, so we didn’t have the chance to work in many games. Although we were developing serious games in our former company for most of this time, our artist took part in an indie game called 'Seven Masters', and I myself helped in the porting of 'YouTubers Life' as an intern.
In Sweden there's seemingly a new game-studio starting up every day, but then again, what else should we do, with our eight weeks of summer-time. Put a Swede in Spain, however, and not a lot would get done. But I guess one can not sit in the sun all the time. How did you first get started as a video game producer and designer. Why was it something you wanted to do?
I started in the video game field as a programmer because that was what I studied and I also liked it. However, the truth is that I have always loved narrative. I have been writing and making up stories since I was a child so the designer position would give me the chance to do it professionally, thus my job eventually turned into a designer. In regards to the producer role, this was a more organic progression because of my personality. I am very organised and methodical, maybe the most strict person in the team, that’s why I started plotting the main picture of the project and distributing the general and specific tasks among the team almost unintentionally and I liked this job too.
How long did you actually work on this before release?
The game development itself lasted roughly two years, yet it took more months until the release because of the porting process, the manufacturing of physical units, and so on. Overall, from the beginning until the launch, it has been approximately two and a half years.
On the other side of it, what does it feel like to finally have the game out, is it all smiles or is it a bit terrifying too, having people playing it?
I don’t know how future releases will be, but for the first game, it’s been more terrifying than anything else! Of course, we are really happy now, but at first we didn’t know what to expect or how people would react. We were full of doubts, hoping to survive as a new indie studio, but it has been such an enriching experience as well. We’ve learned and are still learning a lot about how a launch is. Now that we can see it with a bit of perspective, we are more than happy with the result and we enjoy watching people getting scared with the game.
Even if you do not know exactly how the future will play out, will Endflame continue on the path of nightmares?
We are still working on new ideas but I can say that whatever we will make next will be really appealing to our community.
Cinematically, Spain has become quite known for its own flair of horror. So what made you want to take on Japanese-folklore and Feudal Era-Japan rather than exploring something more close to home?
We wanted to make our contribution to horror games with an original theme and this setting has not been explored by many other horror games, so this was aligned with our idea that the theme should stand out. Besides, the three of us are very keen on Japanese culture, that’s why we came up with this setting almost naturally.
Was there any actual, real-life, Japanese shrine used as inspiration?
Not really, because there needed to be a level of design job to make the distribution of a shrine work within what the game entails. Indeed, there was a lot of research to design it accordingly and we’ve worked with lots of real-life references of shrines, not just a specific one.
'Ikai' is not the first horror game to make a point out of not letting the player fight back, but it might be the first time where you are still encouraged to approach the enemies. It is quite clever, of course, because the last thing the player wants to do is what they have to. The only way to progress in 'Ikai' is facing their own fears?
It is a feeling every human can relate to, we need to face our fears even if, sometimes, we don’t have the options to do it directly and have to find another way. We were trying to find a spot in the market when we realised that there were plenty of both combat horror games and fleeing horror games, but there was nothing in between. Then, we simply took what we thought was more interesting from each and combined it to get this mix. The resultant idea sounded very good.
Do you feel like it’s too much action in horror nowadays?
I wouldn’t say so, some horror games have action whilst others do not. My opinion is that the genre is just splitting into new sub-genres and it is good that we have this variety of choices. There’s people who enjoy action horror games instead of psychological ones, so they should also have their place on the market.
What horror games have you been playing recently?
I have recently played 'Phasmophobia' and 'Spirit Hunter: Death Mark', they are very different, yet I liked both in different ways.
Do you remember what the first horror game you ever played was?
The first horror game I ever played, I think it was 'Rule of Rose' on PS2, if I am not mistaken, the atmosphere was very good and it made me fall in love with the horror genre.
Were you always into all kinds of games?
Yes, I have always played all kind of games, regardless of the genre. If I think that something can be worth playing, I give it a try. The truth is that I used to play more types of games before I entered the industry, now I normally consume short games because I don’t have as much time to play and I also want to support the indie community, where I am now.
What is your favorite non-horror game, or just your favourite game in general?
My favorite game of all time is 'Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception', the quality was so overwhelming that I remember thinking it was as if I could control a film character.
