Aymar Pescador: Hey

DJ Discord: heya

DJ Discord: thanks for taking the time to talk to us today/tonight

Aymar Pescador: oh, thanks for giving us the opportunity to show more about Damned in this interview

MrAndypanda: So, let’s kick this off then. Why don't you tell us a bit about Damned. What kind of game are you guys making here?

Aymar Pescador: Well, when we were developing our last game, Vitrum, we saw a lot of horror games being released...and we thought "we can make an innovative horror game, we can make a truly scary game, with stuff that hasn't been done before"

Aymar Pescador: Then we started studying articles on psychology of fear and horror

Aymar Pescador: And we came up with the base concept for Damned

Aymar Pescador: Damned is a game that deeply explores the feeling of being defenceless

Aymar Pescador: which is a very primal feeling

Aymar Pescador: it builds up anxiety and ultimately makes us really scared

DJ Discord: I know *I'D* be 'Damned' scared if I were trapped in an old hotel without a way to escape readily AND a slavering horror dogging my steps

MrAndypanda: I see what you did there.

Aymar Pescador: Haha

Aymar Pescador: well, I diverted from your question, sorry...

Aymar Pescador: Damned basically features a team of survivors, trying to get out of this haunted hotel. They are absolutely defenceless, pretty much like people in classichorror movies.

Aymar Pescador: And also, a 'team' consisting of one player, controlling the monster

Aymar Pescador: which is a supernatural force, really powerful, that can easily kill any survivor?

DJ Discord: what movies and/or games - past or present - would you say are the 'guide-posts' for the title's development?

Aymar Pescador: Pretty much every movie featuring a mysterious force from which people can only try to escape.

Regarding games, we saw a lot of good things in Amnesia, Slender, and the librarian from Metro 2033...

Aymar Pescador: in all those games the monster can't be killed

Aymar Pescador: so we tried to see what they did that worked, and what didn't, and we created the game design for our monster...

MrAndypanda: So, let’s talk about what the survivors can do. What goals do they have? Is there any way for them to slow this monster down or evade it?

Aymar Pescador: When playing as a survivor, you'll have to escape the hotel...It's pretty much what people are used to see in games, finding items and keys, and using them to fulfil an objective...

Aymar Pescador: but in damned every time you play, the objective changes

Aymar Pescador: and the path you have to follow to ultimately escape also changes

Aymar Pescador: and they can't slow the monster down, they can't do anything that directly affects the monster

Aymar Pescador: but they can outrun the monster

Aymar Pescador: provided they saved enough stamina

Aymar Pescador: they can also try to hold doors closed

Aymar Pescador: or hide in some places, like wardrobes

DJ Discord: speaking of things like stamina, what are the 'resources' for the survivors and the monster?  It wasn't very well defined in the Greenlight reveal for the title, but I image that was because it was in early alpha

Aymar Pescador: It still is in early alpha, we are still deciding a lot of things regarding gameplay...but for now, the survivors have stamina, which they use to run, and we're still discussing the possibility to add an insanity level for them too

Aymar Pescador: as for the monster

Aymar Pescador: he has his vital energy

Aymar Pescador: which is constantly being regenerated or consumed, depending on the form he is at a given moment (ghost or physical)

Aymar Pescador: we are running a Suggestions Discussion on Greenlight, which people can use to drop their thoughts, ideas and suggestions, we are really enjoying receiving all the feedback there...I wanted to use this opportunity to invite your readers to drop their suggestions there too

MrAndypanda: Most certainly, I have joined in on the discussion and love the way you are reacting to feedback and how open you are when communicating with people’s suggestions.

Aymar Pescador: I noticed your contribution there, thanks for taking some time to help us with Damned.

MrAndypanda: So, let’s talk more about the nasty monster. Is there a story behind him yet? Or the hotels setting? And what kind of hellish powers does this guy have to get the dirty deed done?

Aymar Pescador: The monster is very mysterious, the only known fact is that the hotel (build in the 1920s) was home to some demonic/ritualistic murders in the past, which unleashed evil spirits in the hotel...People soon started dying or fleeing from there...And the hotel stood there, abandoned, haunted, until this group of people decided to explore it.

Aymar Pescador: The monster is an evil spirit who can enter into this plane of existence and the "other one", where he lives as ghost...When he is physical, he have supernatural powers, like interrupting electric devices, making objects move on their own.

Aymar Pescador: We are still deciding which powers the monster will be able to collect, so it doesn't become too overpowered...

Aymar Pescador: This kind of setting is really a challenge; we know we're going to work a lot on balancing things out

MrAndypanda: Awesome, So you mentioned that the goals will change each time. What kind of concepts are you using here to keep things fresh for players?

Aymar Pescador: To complete a stage, the survivors will have to complete a series of mini objectives, to finally unlock one of the final objectives. Each one of these mini objectives is going to be randomized, and in an independent way, so in the end, a full stage will have lots and lots of different paths of objectives. Right now, the objectives are pretty simple, like opening a given door, or finding the combinations to open a safe, or finding a crowbar to break planks blocking a door

Aymar Pescador: And the final objective will probably be taking an elevator to another floor, leaving the monster trapped in that floor, or opening some "final" door, which would lead people out

Aymar Pescador: As the game develops we plan on adding more types of objectives to make it richer

Aymar Pescador: but we already feel it is "highly repayable"

DJ Discord: will the game support modding do you think?  I know that steam and several other online communities have robust modding cultures/groups that would probably love to get their hands on a title like Damned and really whip up some bizarre stuff

Aymar Pescador: It's really too soon to tell, but we could probably release some modding tools in the future

Aymar Pescador: our previous game, Vitrum, didn't have any modding tools at first, but after its launch, we worked for a couple of extra months and released a stage editor

Aymar Pescador: so, we have at least the technology to implement modding tools :)

MrAndypanda: So is the game multiplayer only? Are there any plans to add AI into the mix if you can't gather up a group of 5? What about a survivor only mode with the monster being controlled by an AI?

Aymar Pescador: We initially had plans to add AI, but since we're only 4 developers (and only 1 of us is a programmer), we felt that at least for the alpha we should focus our efforts on doing a very good multiplayer game. If people really enjoy the game after we release an "Early Access" version, and if they really miss the AI, we can adjust our plans and put some effort into developing a good AI for the monster...

Aymar Pescador: but as we see the game right now, playing with AI would be way less intense than letting an unknown person take control of the monster

MrAndypanda: That’s fair enough, many people enjoy playing the monster (myself included)

Aymar Pescador: Yea, I don't believe we are going to have a shortage of monsters :)

MrAndypanda: So it’s safe to say this one monster is the only bad guy roaming the halls at night?

Aymar Pescador: For now...we're still discussing what to do with dead players, and they MAY become ghosts and start helping the monster scare the remaining survivors

DJ Discord: took the words right outta my mouth Aymar - I was about to ask what happened to the survivors when they got killed, but there's that.   On a side-note, will there be a health system for the survivors?  Or will it be one hit, one kill for the monster?

Aymar Pescador: It's going to be one hit, one kill... but the insanity system may serve as a health system, as a survivor becomes more and more insane, he becomes more and more an easy target for the monster...

Aymar Pescador: But the monster has to kill anyone with one hit

Aymar Pescador: we're trying to create the reaction of seeing any hint of the monster and start running desperately from it...

Aymar Pescador: We can't give any chance for a survivor to live, if he encounters the monster and decides to "face" it

Aymar Pescador: that's not the kind of reaction we want people having in the game

Aymar Pescador: you have to fear intensely the monster

MrAndypanda: Ha, I can hear my screams already.

MrAndypanda: I've also seen a few people mention adding voice chat, to increase the tensions by having it based on your position to other people. Is this something you intend to look into for the future?

Aymar Pescador: that's one of the greatest suggestions we had so far. At the moment, whenever I get any free time, there I go, looking for C++ libraries, articles, and anything that may help in the development of this feature... I can't promise, but I strongly believe the game will have voice chat, with physics based attenuation (considering doors and walls between the listener and the talker)

DJ Discord: I like that idea too; I've lost track of the times I've been in a Left 4 Dead match and people got SO into it - you could almost feel the panic coming off their voices.

DJ Discord: Damned would definitely benefit from that

Aymar Pescador: That's exactly what I thought when I read the suggestion, my experiences from L4D

Aymar Pescador: Especially if you know the monster could be right behind a wall, and you have to whisper to try and avoid letting the monster hear you

DJ Discord: now THERE's an awesome idea - I've played a few games that incorporated that voice-chat feature; I think it’s called "localized voice" - everyone and anyone within a given radius - enemies and allies alike - can hear you.

DJ Discord: makes noise discipline a real big plus when you're trying to be sneaky

Aymar Pescador: and if we implement voice chat, it won't be just localized, it'll also be attenuated depending on the number of barriers between the speaker, so I believe it'll add a lot to immersion

DJ Discord: Definitely

MrAndypanda: maybe people won’t hear my whimpering in a cupboard :)

DJ Discord: So, with a four-man team making the game, how do you feel about the rate of overall progress in the development cycle is progressing?

Aymar Pescador: I'd say we can create game really fast, and with very few bugs, we try to follow strictly an agile method of development, and since we are a small group, we can take advantage of that, and keep everything we do organized, so we can develop things in a constant rate, we've been avoiding the famous "snow ball" in our development cycle pretty good so far, and we've been progressing fast...I believe we'll be able to release the first alpha version in two months (maybe less)

MrAndypanda: Oh nice!

Aymar Pescador: but we can't promise anything past the alpha, because we want to feel how people will react to the game, we want to feel if people are really enjoying, and start tweaking and adding stuff as we go...

Aymar Pescador: we've been saying that everything we planned so far can change, our ultimate goal is to create a game for the gamers

Aymar Pescador: and not the game we planned

MrAndypanda: So, how can people out there support Damned?

Aymar Pescador: we're currently running a crowd funding campaign on Indiegogo.

There people can give their contribution to the game, and also receive really cool perks, like becoming one of the survivors, or helping us design a brand new monster. Another very important thing we indie devs need is helping us spread the word, we suck at publicizing our stuff, we don't have the time nor the money to do this the right way, so each person sharing our stuff on Facebook, or asking their friends to vote for Damned on Greenlight are going to be helping us a lot.

Aymar Pescador: I feel Damned has the potential to become a hit, it just need people's support and help.

So, liked what you see? if you;re interested in supporting Damned, or if you just want to get your creep on check out the banners below to find out more.