I’ve never really been a fan of horror games, or anything horror related in general. You won’t see me going to theaters to watch some side-crack horror film which involves terribly filmed first person perspective driven narrative.
But I recently picked up a title from the App Store which wasn’t necessarily depicted as a horror game, but something artistically mesmerising and mechanically intriguing with some horror components added to the game. (One puzzle required me to ‘drag’ the screen by consecutively swiping on my iPad and thus ‘pulling’ the level to find a missing puzzle piece- it was mindblowing).
The moment I finished the game (which also requires an additional Companion app if you want to delve into the backstory and lore of Year Walk) I knew I had to get in touch with the developers, so here is the interview with Simogo.
That is a lovely looking gramophone
INTERVIEW
A lovely good evening to you Simon Flesser (and Gordon if he is around), thank you for taking your time off to have this chat with us. How fares the chilly weather of Sweden?
Summer is actually here now, so everything is sunna and fine now!
Can you introduce yourself to our readers and tell us how you came about founding Simogo along with Magnus “Gordon” Gardebäck?
Simogo was founded in 2010, by me and Magnus. We worked at another company for 3 years making console games, and basically we just both wanted to run the show our own way, do small and creative things. So that’s what we did!
I just finished Year Walk on the iPad a week ago and it was really a horrifyingly chilly and atmospherically immersive experience. I enjoyed it a lot. The context however felt incredibly alien to me, just what drove the direction for you guys to create a game about the Scandinavian Swedish folklore?
My friend Jonas Tarestad presented showed me his short movie script called “Årsgång” based on different phenomena from the Swedish folk lore, that was based around the concept of year walking, and I remember finding it extremely odd and fascinating.
Almost casually and jokingly we started talking about turning it into a game, because it had an almost game-like structure. Things just rolled on from there.
His name is the Kyrkogrimen, The Church Grim. Are you frightened yet?
Year Walk for me felt like a grim dark-horror point and click adventure which is truly frightening at times. What made the decision to create the game in an interactive first-person perspective for Year Walk?
The idea for the perspective and controls came years ago, when we asked ourselves an odd question: “How would you make a first person game in 2D?”. We contiuned to talk about that, but never quite had a game to match it. When Jonas script came a long it felt like a natural match!
Personally for me, one of the most interesting sequence of the game was the portion with the Huldra because of the creative audio design approach to that level. How do you guys feel about the design process to create that section of the game?
We are very intrigued by using sounds in interesting ways in our games, as we feel it’s very unexplored by other developers. We think sound is equally important as the visuals so, I guess that’s why we come up with a lot of sound based designs and puzzles.
I really liked the idea of incorporating an additional application, the Companion app to complete the narrative storyline behind Year Walk. What was the idea behind creating the Companion application instead of including it into the core game?
The biggest reason for that was to make a narrative that would only be possible in a game, and even more specifically so on a mobile device. It’s a way to break the walls between the game and the players, and drag them out of their seat to make them more than observers.
And it also solves a lot of other things for us. It’s a neat little intro to the universe itself without spoiling anything in the game like a traditional demo. It also helps to keep the game clutter free, as we wanted to approach the game as a silent movie, relying more on atmosphere than an outspoken story.
Simogo is traditionally known for their past titles especially the award winning Beat Sneak Bandit for it’s innovative puzzle stealth rhythm gameplay. Was it a difficult process to develop Year Walk considering it is a more narrative plot-driven focused game?
Our development style is usually a lot more about improvising and coming up with ideas along the way, so doing something that has a start and finish and a path to follow took a lot of time to get used to.
We were a little worried about how people would react to something as Year Walk, but we also had a gut feeling that our fans like our creations not because of a certain look but a feel that is distinctly “simogo”. So our challange was to capture that in another type of game.
BEAT. SNEAK. BANDIT!
Looking at Simogo games, I guess it is safe to say that the genre for your games are fairly diverse and far off each other thus far. Are there any future titles planned or gameplay design you guys are looking to experiment with?
At this moment we’re keen to explore more narrative-driven games like Year Walk. That’s not to say that what we are making is anything like Year Walk, though!
Are there any tips you want to give for aspiring indie game developers?
Go by your gut feeling!
Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us Simon Flesser and best wishes to Simogo!
You can get Year Walk for the iOS right here and the Companion here.
Also check out Simogo’s website here!
P.S – I just realised today is my birthday.
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