“Twelve hundred pages of script.
It’s big, it’s very big.”
Plotting the story started with nailing the big tentpole choices, the ones that really make you sweat.
Desodt jokes that these decisions sparked some big arguments.
Depending on your actions, both Dale and the motel owner Joyce can be shot dead.
For Marchal, such strong reactions to these explosive moments helped her settle on including them.
“I was hesitant at the beginning,” she says.
“It means you lose two characters at once, but then I saw Charu’s reaction.”
“I was Sharon, and it was the worst acting ever,” says Desodt.
“No one was going to believe that.”
As the script started to take shape, other parts of the team were able to get to work.
That meant shooting film clips, before adding the sets, characters, lightning and audio, for example.
Marchal shares that their ambitions would sometimes push the tech to its limits, however.
“You see in a chapter for example, there’s no loading screen,” says Marchal.
“Very intentional, it was a requirement as well.
Marchal mimics her colleagues' reactions.
“‘Are you nuts?!
Eventually, though, they found a solution.
Marchal continues to say that this stage of constant iteration was often the toughest part of development.
It’s barely playable, it crashes, and everybody was tearing their hair out.
‘Oh god, it’s so bad, why are we even making this?
Is it going to work at some point?'”
Having gone through that cycle now, though, Marchal feels more optimistic about the future.
“Next time it happens, we can be like, ‘Oh, remember that February night?
How crap it was?'”
The pair also agree that, unsurprisingly, the pandemic was a challenging time for the studio.
They’re on Zoom but sometimes not on camera, you dont know how theyre doing.”
Desodt continues: “Suddenly, you know, we were trying to anticipate what was going to happen.
It was like, ‘Oh, we’re coming back in two weeks, aren’t we?’
and then we didn’t.”
“It’s like being in the trenches and crawling,” adds Marchal.
At one point, they even resorted to filming part of the game in Desodt’s back garden.
“We shot Zoe in your garden, thats true,” Marchal recalls.
“They werent allowed to come into your house, even for a loo break.”
“There was a side to get to the garden, through the side gate,” says Desodt.
“They were having a party in my garden.
I was really worried.
Very few people were allowed to meet at that point.”
Reflecting on all of these challenges, Desodt reflects on what they set themselves up for.
“Having all of those stacked up as your debut game is quite a feat.
But we’ve done it.”
Unsurprisingly, then, the pair seem more than happy with its overall reception.
“I love it.
Did we have somebody make Jay’s face in toast or something?”
says Desodt, laughing.
“I’m sure there was a tweet like that.”
That’s been really, really nice to see.
Carolines really good at sharing these messages as well.
Marchal shares this sentiment, while briefly looking to the future.
“I’d say we want to make an even bigger impact.
I think it’s great as a debut game, [we’re] super proud of it.
Suddenly, you don’t have to, that’s strange.
Like letting a child go.
It’s odd.”
So, it has to matter, it has to be great."
