Mag-log in bilang miyembro
Nakipag-usap kami sa CEO ng developer na Dlala Studios upang malaman pa ang tungkol sa kanilang paparating na action title, na magiging unang orihinal na proyekto ng kumpanya sa loob ng halos isang dekada.
"Hello everyone and welcome back. As you can probably tell by the lovely backdrop we've got behind me here, I'm currently at Dlala's booth at Gamescom to talk a little bit about Murals. Now this is a fascinating game, AJ, because it's your first original game in a long while actually. So tell me, why did you want to go down this route and why did you want to make your own original game after Battletoads and Illusion Island? Yeah, no one wanted to work with us. Look, we were presented a really rare opportunity in which we could co-fund and publish our own title. And we'd had such a great time with Battletoads and Illusion Island, and we also really learned a lot of lessons about, you know, establishing worlds and characters. And so like, we had this idea of like, okay, well, let's do something for us. And this concept of fairy tales came up and I loved it because it meant I didn't have to be completely original. I could just rip off a load of note. You know, it was just, it was a way for us to express ourselves and do something that felt like really authentically Dlala. Like, you know, it's a little bit cheekier than some of our previous games. So yeah, no, it was a really great opportunity for us. And you've already shown off a few of the different murals that you're going to feature, some of the fairy tales that they're going to be based around. How did you decide which fairy tales you wanted to focus on in the game? Yeah, look, it was a super interesting process. It was completely collaborative in the sense that, like, all the team got to suggest stories. So everyone got to suggest different kind of fairy tales, folklore and fables. And then we kind of figured out, like, what got us excited. And, you know, for some of them it was, it really got our art director, Lucy, excited about creating a new visual world. For some of them it was our lead writer Kelsey had a really good gag and we wanted to just work around that gag and build a world. And then like Grant, our design director and his team, they had some really interesting concepts. Like the demo you saw of the Little Mermaid, Grant had this idea of like traveling along a seabed that had been drained of water and then flipping it when the water rises. Spoilers. And so like, So really the choice came from like, was there something that got all of us excited? But you know, getting to try and take some stuff that felt familiar and then making it feel fresh was really interesting. And it's a linear game, right? It's got a beginning and it's got an end. So how does that work with the various different murals? You know, once you've been through one, is that it? Can you return to it or, you know, what's the process? No, it's done. So once you resolve a mural, that is closed off and you can't go back into it again. And one of the things you, well that was obvious in the demo is the different types of enemies, and as you described it, Doom-like. Enemies have one thing that they do really well, and that's kind of the way that they work. I did notice that they kind of looked themed to the level. Is that a design choice, to have enemies that sort of feel fitting to each mural? It's more that, like, I think because they're very fluid, they're made of paint, right? So they merge into the levels really well, in a good way, while being clear. So our kind of approach for enemies is more like additive. So each time you're going into a new level, we're introducing enemies, but you're going to see those that you've come across before. And what this means is, like, over the course of the game, we're building up a library of enemies that we can try in different and new combinations and settings. And the Ares are a fascinating part of the game as well because they allow the player to put their own stamp on it. What led you to wanting to create this system and how does it evolve the gameplay of murals? Yeah, so we're big fans of a lot of modern roguelikes. And we really love the item approach they have, where you get these augmentations to combat. But I'm a grumpy old man. I don't do well with permadeath nowadays. And so the challenge we set ourselves was, could we take that system and develop it in a way in which it's sustainable across an entire linear experience? And so that was the goal when we set out, these augmentations that you get as you're going. When you play Murals, you'll get a big old inventory of these by the end of the game, but your limiting factor is your number of slots you've got. So you're permanently making decisions of like, do I stick with the build I've got now or do I experiment and try something different? Like, do I lean into my playstyle or encourage myself to try a different playstyle? And I'll be completely honest with you, like, It was scary at first because we were like, if this system doesn't work, we've screwed ourselves here. So when we kind of got it in and it really started to play and we were doing the playtest with the team, it was just really fun to see all the different experiments they tried and also a big relief that I hadn't just wasted a load of time and money. We've got to talk about him. Obviously, he's one of the few people that have been announced as part of the cast at this point. Bob Mortimer, how did that happen? I mean, it still does not feel real talking about it, to be honest. So myself and Kelsey, my lead writer, we wrote the game together, and we're obsessed with Bob Mortimer, right? So when we were writing the character Magic Dave, we did the rather cheeky thing of being like, should we just rip off Bob Mortimer? Like, should we just make Magic Dave? In fact, he was called Magic Bob before Bob Mortimer was involved. And we wrote him, and we were having a great time. And I went, you know what? I've got to ask someone. And so I rung up Mark at Side, who is wonderful and he's a long-time friend of the studio. And I just said, Mark, like, you know, I always ask ridiculous questions. Is there any chance we could get Bob Mortimer? And Mark's just lovely. He said, oh, wait, I'll get back to you, AJ. And a couple of hours later, he was like, OK, so like, we've got hold of the representatives. They like the pitch."
"And Bob would like to see a couple of pages of script. Now the problem was, all me and Kelsey had at that point was a load of gags. So we had all these, so like we spent all that night, we stayed up all night, Kelsey in LA, me in Essex, just like putting together like three really strong pages. And he turned around and said yes, and honestly like, I ran up to our COO Gemma's office, and I have a little bit of a reputation of overspending on our games, of our own money for what it's worth. I said, look, consider this the only bonus I'll ever take, the only present I'll ever need. I need a little bit of extra money and we can have Bob Mortimer. And obviously she was up for it. But Kelsey flew over and we directed him ourselves in the VO booth."
"He was incredible and he is more lovely and funny than you even see on TV and he was such a generous performer and like yeah I mean having Bob Mortimer in your game like dream come true, absolute dream come true. So far we know Murals is coming in 2027, and I think you've only confirmed it for PC, but a lot of your games have come to a lot of different platforms, including Illusion Island, which is available almost everywhere. So are you looking at a full, wider release with Murals down the line as well? Yeah, so for us right now, Steam is our main focus, especially with like publishing, we've gone for a really focused early campaign, trying to drive the wish lists, which is all brand new to us and scary. We're always thinking about the future, right? And you know, we always try to stay up to date with ourselves as a studio, but like our focus right now is really PC Steam. Well, we'll no doubt get more information about murals relatively soon. 2027 don't have any title window yet, so that'll be coming at some point. But for the time being, just take a look at the gameplay. I'm sure you're going to fall in love with it. It looks absolutely wonderful. And yeah, we'll see more for murals down the line."
