"It seems to me that the main advantage of Hidden Deep is relatively high realism for a 2-D game and a multitude of different mechanics, such as using grappling hooks to scale walls or blast open new paths with bombs," says Lukasz. Hidden Deep fits the unusual genre of 2-D side-scroller, which isn't very common in the horror gaming space. The monsters do indeed feel like they could have come straight from any of those titles - from little flying menaces to giant tentacle-armed tyrants living in the ceilings that will snatch your poor character and yank them right above for lunch. "The most important works are Aliens, The Thing, Half-Life, and dozens of others that I can't even mention," says Lukasz. Set in a sub-oceanic mining facility, players embark on missions to search for their missing squadrons and uncover the mystery behind why the mines are filled with hungry parasites. Sucker For Love: First Date is available now on Steam for $9.99, and has generated overwhelmingly positive reviews.Īfter chatting about monster-romance, I caught up with Cogwheel Software developer Lukasz Kaluski to discuss 2-D sci-fi horror, Hidden Deep. What would it be like to smooch Ln'eta? Or to date a monster that's two stories tall? It excites us all over again." "Things that deviate from the path of least marketing resistance end up being brand new and recapture our imagination. "I think we might be drawn to unusual characters because we've seen the same thing marketed to us millions of times - unchallenging characters that are familiar to the point of losing their novelty," says Akabaka. Some may speculate that Sucker For Love is being released at the perfect time given the recent tsunami of love towards monstrous women in media (looking at a certain beloved towering, sadistic vampire lady from another horror series). I just had to be mindful to let the scary parts be scary, and the funny parts be funny." Both depend on subverting expectations or doing something unexpected. "What matters is they all play off of each other." Akabaka echoed similar feelings, saying, "Horror and comedy have more in common than I originally thought. "I've never really viewed the divide between genres as anything more than semantics," says Ted. There's a little bit of Love Hina mixed in, too!"ĭon't let the bright and bubbly art-style fool you, though- as you flip through the tome and flirt with your monstrous muse, the rituals range from minor body horror to summoning creatures from the depths of oblivion. " Golden Boy was another anime whose skirt-chasing main character inspired Sucker For Love's main character's smooch-obsessed personality. " Urusei Yatsura is that I think most will pick up on with how much Ln'eta says 'Darling', and the fact that the love interests are other-worldly," says Akabaka. So I called Akabaka and asked if he wanted to make a game where you date Cthulhu."Ĭthulhu would then manifest into the game as Ln'eta, a playful, pink-haired demon who tasks the player with conducting rituals through a bright pink spellbook (which she affectionately refers to as "a survival-guide") in exchange for a kiss. It popped into my head that Lovecraft, taken at face value, doesn't sound like someone who writes horror. "I was talking to my Polish friend at the time who told me a story about how due to her accent, someone thought she said "Visual Lover" instead of visual novel, so she ran with it and made a visual novel about dating paintings. " Sucker For Love came about when I was on a bike ride thinking of themes for the next Dread X Collection," says Ted. For background, Sucker For Love is a horror-romance point-and-click adventure with three separate chapters featuring multiple endings and monsters to be courted. First up, I chatted with Akabaka and Ted Hentschke on the development of Sucker For Love: First Date, and how they came up with the idea of adapting Lovecraftian monsters into a dating visual novel. I contacted developers of both games to dive deeper into what brought about their respective horror gems.
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