Friday diaries: Games that inspire us - Part 3

 

Hello there!

It's time for another tale of inspirational games. This week we have the Sanitarium (1998), a demented and weird adventure game. The game is seen from an isometric perspective, with prerendered cutscenes thrown in between and in the middle of story sections.

Our mockup of Sanitarium set in the world of Kalaban.

I first saw this game in Pelit magazine back when it was released. During that time I was more interested in 3D shooters and real-time strategy games, so I never got my hands on this game back then. The first time I properly saw it in action was during a screenwriting session with Tuukka, in early 2011. The atmosphere was instantly haunting and chilling, as the game starts from an asylum, and you can't remember anything. Your head is wrapped in bandages, and you've been in an accident.

During an early section you explore a town filled with disfigured children, with no adults in sight. The story immediately raises scary questions: Who are these kids? What happened to the adults? Did the kids murder them?

I've always found psychological horror and atmospheric stories to be more interesting than straight-up gore fests. When I think of gory movies and games, I think of works such as Total Recall (1990) or Blood (1997). To me the gore factor takes away the tension, and it takes direction more towards a macabre thrillride. They may shock you, but they will not truly get inside your head.

On that note, there will be a couple of graphic scenes in Kalaban too. The game is seen from a topdown perspective though, so it takes a certain distance to the shock factor.

To me, one of the few works which successfully combines gore with psychological tension is John Carpenter's 1982 The Thing remake. It has a haunting atmosphere, filled with paranoia and suspense. And it also features truly nightmarish monster visuals, all done with masterful practical effects.

Sanitarium has some elements of graphic content, but it's always done in a way that enhances the atmosphere. I'm personally a huge fan of prerendered artwork, especially from an isometric perspective, so this game has a special place in my heart. There's just something about prerendered art that makes me feel cozy. One of my favorite games of all time, Diablo II (2000), also has really timeless prerendered art. Of course, prerendered art is not just a thing of the nineties and early 2000s, and it's still used in games today, like the Clash of Clans (2012) mobile game.

When we started creating the current topdown version of Kalaban back in January 2015, I remember thinking about this game. The writing on the first scene reminded me very much of the style in Sanitarium. The way you click on things, and the way Bob comments on them, etc.

Kalaban was originally designed as a three act story, but we decided to put our focus on the first act and make it as good as we can. The original idea was that first part would be more like an adventure game, second part would be more action-oriented with open-world exploration, and the final part would be all action. Now, all of those elements will be in the current game we're working on.

I'm a strong believer of games that serve a smaller world with lots of detail, instead of a huge open world sandbox with shallow gameplay. Sanitarium is definitely a game that belongs in the former category.


In case you haven't tested out the Early Access of Kalaban yet, then download the newest version now:




  

Friday diaries: Games that inspire us - Part 2

 
Hello again, readers!

This week we'll take another trip down the memory lane and talk about another game which has inspired us. These chosen few are not only games which have influenced the development of Kalaban, but our whole career as indie game developers.

" Enter Crimsonland " 

Over  fourteen years ago, when I first booted up the executable called "crimson.exe", I really had no idea what to expect. I had downloaded this freeware game, made by a couple of hobbyist game developers, from the Pelit magazine's gamedev forum. Pelit is a popular video game publication here in Finland, and around that time many young indie developers used to hang around those forums.

 
At first you're greeted with a topdown view of a featureless playfield. Then, little by little, gray alien creatures start to appear from the edge of the screen. You click on your left mouse button, and the virtual avatar fires a single shot from his pistol. Blood splurts from the enemy, and it falls over. Soon the whole screen is clogged up by slowly moving monsters, as you try to avoid them. Before long you get your first level up; a perk of your choosing. These range from weapons mastery, to regeneration, to faster movement and picking up objects from the distance with your mind.

The gameplay is simple, straightforward and fun. And I was instantly hooked to it. My fourteen-year-old self had found a game, which was exactly the kind of game I wanted to create at that time. Later, when the freeware Crimsonland evolved into the full version with multiple game modes and quests, I dreamed of creating a first person rendition of the same idea. Sadly, that concept never came to be.

Playing Crimsonland is like playing Doom (1993). Here's your gun, there's the monsters, no questions asked. The view is far enough from the player that you always have a clear vision of the battlefield. The weapon fx and bonus item effects still look great, thirteen years later. It takes courage and vision to hone the gameplay to such a pure and simplistic level that it just works. After that, you just add enough weapons, different foes and perks to keep it interesting.

The secret of Crimsonland is its spartan action, with everything useless removed from the UI and from the game itself. The idea is so simplistic that you can imagine any gun-wielding character in place of the player, blasting away endless foes. That is what drove me to vision my own version of it at the time. The exactly same gameplay would not work from a first person perspective however. If you have enemies approaching at you from 360 different angles, defending yourself becomes impossible. That's why you need some cover and structures at the playfield, to funnel those foes through.

When we began writing new combat system for Kalaban, I had this game in my mind. Attacking should feel intuitive and powerful. Enemies would occasionally drop loot and they would vary in speed, strength and style. Others would fire projectiles at your, others would be purely melee and others would blow up on touch. And attacks, blasts and damage would result in violent screenshake.

Recently, when we created the Shooter demo of Kalaban, we had these gameplay lessons in mind. We took the basic combat from the main game, and just added more spawning monsters and a high score which would rank up with every kill. We wanted to create a good view into the visual world of our game, without compromising the detail and depth of the actual game.

Who knows? Maybe we'll create a game purely built on combat in the future. In Kalaban we've wanted to make the experience atmospheric, filled with exploration, discovering story breadcrumbs and working with the NPCs to survive. And of course, there's plenty of combat...


You can download and test our shooter demo from below: