GFEditorials

Recently, I pointed our viewers to an in-production game titled (un)Lucky7. The game is a "horror, sci-fi themed, jRPG-view, story-driven, pixelart puzzle game" that is now running active campaigns on IndieGoGo and Steam Greenlight.

Blaze Sanecki, one of the men behind the Indie game studio Asylum Creatures, who is creating the game, gratefully answered a few questions we had about the upcoming furry-themed title.

 Q: To start, and since this is a furry gaming site, we're interested in two things: One, what is your history in the gaming industry, including any past titles worked on; and two, what is your history in the fandom?

A: We met at the university and decided to help out with creation of some non-commercial games. The most interesting project that we were working on during that time was Indiana Jones and the Fountain of Youth - an adventure game made in Adventure Game Studio. Soon after graduation we were noticed by an entertainment company and we have spent two years working there as lead programmer and lead artist.

Unfortunately most of the projects we were working on were dropped (we would be happy to provide more information but our contract prevents us from telling or showing you anything about those projects). To be honest those failures were the reason we decided to leave and work on our own projects instead.

We have made an iOS game called Gorilla Smash – it was a small experiment that took us only 2.5 weeks of time to make. It has proven that we can do better on our own. How? We have worked on a similar game in the company we mentioned earlier. The production took almost a year when it could simply take less than a month to make! That's what we call bad management!

Making simple mobile games isn't our cup of tea though, that's why we decided to move on to our favorite genre – Adventure/Puzzle games. This is how (un)Lucky7 was born. You know the rest of the story

When it comes to the furry fandom we have a mixed team. Our two person team core is a perfect example of friendship between furry and non-furry people. We also have one additional furry artist on our team (https://www.furaffinity.net/user/hotbullydog) and as you all know we have hired Fox Amoore to create the soundtrack for our game.

Q: You've got a cast of seven main characters as part of the story. What lead you to choose the types/species of characters you did?

A: We started out by designing the character traits, quirks and their role in the story. When all the written design was done we tried to match the person with the animal based on the common personality traits assigned by humans to certain species of animals.

We usually ended up with 2 or 3 possible species to choose from for each character and picked the one that seemed to be more popular in the fandom or looked great in the concept art.

Q: Horror-themed, pixelart JRPGs are few and far between. What led you to making the game fit into this unique genre?

A: To be precise - It's a puzzle game with jRPG view. It has no battle mechanics nor other RPG related functionality. As for our motivation to choose this genre – the idea appeared while watching lets play videos of Ao Oni posted by Pewdiepie on YouTube.

This kind of game also needs less budget and less time to produce than a full-scale point and click adventure game while keeping the focus on the story, characters and the puzzle aspect – that's why it seemed to be a good idea for a first bigger project.

Q: We know that play-through times are sort of user specific, but about how long should we expect it to take a gamer to play through the entirety of (un)Lucky7's story?

A: We want a single play-through to be about 8 hours long. However, it all depends on the collected funds - with less money we may end up with 5-6 hours instead. Nevertheless, it will take many additional hours to discover all the endings and additional content.

Q: The game is already looking and sounding beautiful, but everyone has to be asking when we should expect to see the game made available for download. Is there an expected release window?

A: It's hard to estimate as this depends on the amount of funds collected on our IndieGoGo campaign. Right now we estimate the release date to be somewhere between June and July 2013.

Q: What are you most excited about seeing people react to during their first time through the game?

A: Three things:
1. Discovering the story behind the alien base and behind the characters.
2. Experiencing all the scary and creepy things.
3. Facing the consequences of their decisions.

screen1

Q: How has the reaction to your game been outside of the furry community?

A: We wanted the game to appeal to everyone – no matter if they're furry or not. We got some mean comments from furry haters, but the overall reception is pretty good so far. We also had some nice reviews from portals and people who have nothing to do with the furry community.

Even some people who don't like the anthropomorphic characters seem to appreciate the game for it's story and visual style (not to mention the great music!)

Q: Your game will have multiple endings and smaller, non-story-ending resolutions. What kind of factors can we expect to see affecting these outcomes?

A: The game keeps record of your relations with each team member and adjusts their actions and responses based on that – this is one of the most important factors that affect the outcome. Furthermore, there are some crucial decisions that you have to make throughout the game, many of which are in fact a dilemma of moral nature.

The game will never judge if you're good and evil though – your teammates are the only people who can do that. Some may agree with you, some may oppose you. Better pick your friends with caution!

 

Unlucky Seven is now available to purchase on Steam.

Thanks again, Enfuego!

Daxel
About Author:
Hey I’m Joshua Hyles! Owner and Editor of Gaming Furever. Married. He. Pan. Lover of cruises, travel, food, drinks, my wife and my family.
Other articles by Author:

Comments on (un)Lucky7 Interview with Blaze Sanecki

Be the first to comment
Please login to comment