At E3 this year I stumbled across a game I had never heard of before called Grave. A procedurally generated open world horror game. Grave is being independently developed by Tristan Moore and his small but dedicated team. As a big fan of the horror genre I was lucky enough to grab Tristan for a quick Q + A session where he agreed to answer a selection of questions posed by our community members.
ImmortalTanz:
What previous games have influenced you?
I'm a huge fan of Resident Evil 1, Silent Hill, back when those games were all about making you fear death and scary things around the next corner. Modern games like Amnesia, Slender: The Arrival and Outlast have really helped test the boundaries of what horror can do. If I'm going to get really old-school, I would give a shout-out to the early Terminal Reality games, like Nocturne or Blair Witch Volume 1: Rustin Parr. I've always been a fan of things that make you a bit uncomfortable in your own skin.
What can you tell us that this game brings that others in this genre doesn’t?
Our goal with grave is to fuse the experiences of old-school, inventory-based horror with modern scares, almost like Silent Hill meets amnesia. By using strictly light-based weapons, we're creating a world where every enemy responds differently to your attacks and you have to constantly adjust your strategy to stay alive. Throw in our dynamically procedural world, where the environments are changing from day to day, and we think that you'll see a lot of unusual things in Grave.
Freetosaynomore:
How have you found working with the ID@Xbox program? Are you working closer with Microsoft, and if so does it feel more restrictive, or have you had the freedom to pursue your own vision?
So far Microsoft has been really great about the whole thing. Our reps with ID@Xbox are great and they've been really supportive. We aren't first party developers so it isn't really a "partnership" arrangement, we're being offered their platform for release and they've been supportive of our game as what it is, which we're really happy about.
Does you have plans to make use of Kinect or Smartglass, in this or any future titles? Or do you think these accessories will be a major factor in future game development, or are they too gimmicky?
I can't really comment too much on extra features. We're interested in VR tech and are bringing the game to Oculus Rift on PC. I can't say exactly what console features we'll decide to go with but we want to pick the options that can genuinely enhance the experience.
Caws 09:
With games like Left for Dead and Alan Wake on the market from big companies, was the time right to fill the gap in the market for a horror survival game in the indie genre?
Horror is something that I don't think has every really gone away, it's a genre that stays pretty persistent. I've wanted to work on a horror title for a while, and I felt that there was a gap in between what indie titles offer and what is available for AAA franchises. We started our first plans for Grave as "Stygian Shade" in early 2013, and our decisions to move it into production were based on a combination of our circumstances and the development of the game's concept. To be honest, I'm less focused on markets and more on building a solid game so that it can compete for the attention of gamers.
TheWayneG:
What made you decide to use light as a weapon instead of traditional weapons? We wanted to find a space for Grave in between the Resident Evils and Outlasts of the world. Removing guns is a big part of increasing tension in modern horror games, and we saw the value of this when doing our early prototypes. That being said, we want you to be be able to fight and make decisions that affected the outcome of confrontations, so we settled on a type of weapon that was not directly combative. That also gave us the ability to make these weapons affect every enemy differently, which makes for a lot more interesting experiences.
EmotionalWorm:
What different types of enemies will there be?
We actually don't want to give all of this away because part of the fun in Grave is seeing what creatures you will encounter, many of which get really freaky as the game goes on. Expect to see living statues, "Wraiths" that sneak behind you and are very vulnerable to light but don't adhere to the laws of physics, the Orphans, screaming children that grab onto you and alert other enemies of your presence. We have more, but we'll be keeping them a bit under wraps until our next demo!
Markos 6969:
I didn’t see any blood scenes which help in horror, just skeleton/zombie creatures , are these the only enemies you face? or is there a variety so you dont get to kill the same things over and over?
We have a bunch of creatures planned, many we'll be revealing soon. As far as blood goes, we've actually been really careful not to include that kind of imagery. This isn't because we're against that, but it ties into the experience we want people to have. Grave is about loneliness and isolation, about the way your brain plays tricks on you when you start getting nervous. A lot of games use gore as a crutch and we want to try something different.
M4ST3R KK:
What kind of challenges did you face or facing while making an open world game?
We're building a dynamically procedural open-world, so our challenges have been a bit different. We're building content in chunks that can then become populated in the world based on algorithms, progress and a bunch of other factors. To be honest, it's been a really fun experience so far. Because we get to build the world in a lot of small chunks, we can focus really heavily on those areas and making them individually distinct. The biggest challenge for us is to make sure the player can have a good experience with the world constantly changing. We've made a lot of decisions about how that system will work so that it doesn't add undue confusion or stress.
TheAshCohen09:
How difficult has it been to promote the game heavily - seeing you`re a small team?
We've been really lucky to meet up with awesome people in the games press who have checked out the game and really enjoyed it. For me, I've had to break up my time into press outreach and development. During the Kickstarter, we couldn't get any development done because outreach took priority. I'd say it's been challenging, but we've gotten really lucky and it was super helpful to have a playable game. I think most of the press we've gotten has come from Youtube Let's Plays and that has been a godsend. Millions of people have gotten to see our game through that and for indie developers, it's one of the fastest ways to attract attention.
DanLH16:
What has been the biggest Challenge since Jan 2013 (The start)?
There have been a lot of challenges to overcome since the beginning, so it's hard to pick one. To be honest, I'd say there was a lot of time where the hardest thing was having faith that we could get it done on our own. The game is very close to my heart and it's easy to work on something for a long time without knowing if anyone else is going to like it or not. As a startup team, we were taking a bit of a risk by pursuing Grave. I had to request leave from my studio job to work on it and that could have ruined us financially had the Kickstarter failed. When you put something out there to be judged and you know it's not done, you take a big creative and personal risk. I'm glad that people were able to see the glimmer of promise and give us the chance to make the full game a reality.
Big B 1970:
When wearing so many hats and taking on multiple roles, are there parts that are more of a chore and which roles have given you the most satisfaction?
I've been a bit of a designer/programmer/artist on Grave, but for me the content creation stuff has started to take a back seat to mechanics design and implementation. I'm spending a lot more time staring at spreadsheets and script files these days than I am in a modeling application. Fortunately we have an awesome team of artists so I can stay focused on where I'm most engaged, seeing the game's mechanics come to life.
Emotionalworm:
When do you expect to complete the game?
We're investigating early access on Steam and are looking to launch the full version of the game in first quarter of 2015, though we can't give an exact date just yet.
I would just like to thank Tristan for taking time out to answer all our questions and wish him the best with Grave and for the future.