Interview: Tales of the Neon Sea Dev Team
A retro-styled pixel adventure through a hard-boiled cyberpunk city, developed by Palm Pioneer and published by Zodiac Interactive, Tales of the Neon Sea walks players through a city of humans, robots, and vibrant technologies in earnest pursuit of the truth. With a Kickstarter currently underway, I chatted with the team on the philosophies and strategies guiding their work.
Erik Meyer: Tales of the Neon Sea combines pixel art with a cyberpunk detective story, dropping players into a missing person case in a huge near-future city, so from the get-go, what makes cyberpunk mesh with sprites so well? Do you see the popularity of 8-bit graphics tapping into gamer nostalgia, or are there other qualities that link the 2d art with the atmosphere and adventures you’re creating?
TotNS: There are multiple elements to this. For a start, our lead artist really knows how to make his pixels sing! Pixel art is one of our strengths and we’re trying to channel that to the best of our ability.
Secondly, while cyberpunk is obviously a forward looking concept, it is also undeniably retro. The classic experiences that helped form the notion of “cyberpunk” in many of our minds all seem to have occurred during an era of 8 or 16 bit gaming, so there’s definitely a link there.
Finally, and maybe this is just me, but there’s something about the idea of stripping away all the fancy polygons and shaders and getting right back to basic pixels that just seems to mesh with cyberpunk’s fascination with bare naked tech.
EM: The word ‘neon’ in the title and the corresponding bright colors/lighting give the game a glowing ambiance, so when it comes to consistent assets and the unifying theme, what is your philosophy behind the project’s visuals? What do you see as key to creating the right look/playfeel?
TotNS: Neon is obviously a key part of the future aesthetic we’re shooting for. It’s certainly not something we’ve invented ourselves, as it’s a well worn visual when it comes to this type of subject matter. But we wanted to embrace it, get lost in it, allow it to become almost a character in itself. It’s often dreamlike, a garish pink fairy-tale world – and this complements the slightly offbeat tone of our story.
EM: You provide options that allow for quirky exploration, like having players take control of William the Black Cat (as a way to go places the main character cannot). When making the decision to design and implement new features, what criteria do you hold, as a team? What must additional options accomplish, and in your studio hierarchy, what does the decision-making process look like?
TotNS: All of the features and gameplay ideas must serve the story, and this is really our main criteria. If we feel some ideas or designs are excellent, but we can’t integrate them properly into the game, we’ll take a few steps back and find a more suitable solution.
When designing gameplay elements for a particular section, we first think hard about the theme and story beats we want to express at that stage. Then we’ll brainstorm a variety of concepts/ideas and settle on those that creatively solve the problem. Hopefully what we’re left with will combine interesting gameplay with engrossing story moments.
EM: Kickstarter provides a revenue stream for studios but can be a tricky road to navigate. As you’ve prepared to launch the current campaign, what has been of paramount importance, and what kinds of interactions with fans/media have served you best? In dedicating time and resources to crowdfunding, what do you see as common mishaps to avoid?
TotNS: For us, Kickstarter is an interesting and terrifying experiment! We’ve taken the game to various trade shows, including PAX East in the US, and the response has been very positive. As a small team building an indie title, this kind of reception gives us encouragement – and so we decided to utilize Kickstarter both as a way to get over the final development financial bump, while also serving to make more people aware of the game’s existence. This is reflected in the relatively low funding target we’ve set.
As for things to avoid…ask us again if we fail to meet the target!
EM: I notice you’re setting scenes to have a cinematic feel, arranging visual elements carefully before adding lighting, etc, so going beyond the earlier questions about creating visual assets, how do you see efficient overall use of screen space playing into the game’s overall user experience? What qualifies as too busy, and how do you rank balance of visual space when it comes to the overall goals for a scene?
TotNS: When designing levels and individual scenes, you are correct to say that we are aiming for a cinematic experience where possible. We try to focus the visual center around the main character, and then through creative use of light and shadow or objects on the periphery of the player’s vision, we guide them towards areas of interest.
We also use animation to tug at a players subconscious understanding of videogame logic. Players will naturally gravitate towards what they feel the game is expecting them to interact with, so it’s possible to take advantage of this as a way to guide or avoid confusion.
EM: One question about the nature of the world itself: Not all cyberpunk being equal, what is the relative level of technology, in terms of the AI-driven robots and the dysfunctional human cities they occupy? What new innovations are emerging, and where has society faltered? In short, what unique aspects of this society/technological age set it apart from other incarnations of near-future detective adventures?
TotNS: I think this gets back to my earlier reference of the game being almost like a dreamlike fairy tale. We don’t really get into specifics with our technology, rather we let our artists be creative in their implementation of tech and their concepts of how it has evolved. I think a good example is the glowing, transparent newspaper our detective is reading at end of our trailer. Is that a practical evolution of traditional newspapers? Not really, but it certainly gels with the quirky tone. And I would hope that this is what makes us unique.
EM: The game’s Kickstarter trailer gives a window into your development environment, but given that you’re a studio working in China, what things most effect your pipeline and your day-to-day progress as devs? Similarly, what does the local dev community look like there, and when you look for criticism/feedback (within the studio or without), what does your testing process look like?
TotNS: Our workflow is as follows: organize ideas and feedback, brainstorm various options, integrate and determine the final direction. Whenever we receive new suggestions and ideas, be it from the Kickstarter trailer or other channels, we will review the current build to ensure the correct direction of development through positive feedback. The various materials required for the game’s marketing also affect the development progress to a certain degree. While it’s necessary for promotion, the production of marketing materials can sometimes get in the way of our development schedule.
We’ve been very involved in the indie game scene here in China, taking part in the community and attending trade shows, participating in game jams, and even inviting fans to our studio to try out and offer feedback on Tales of the Neon Sea. It can be exhausting and time-consuming, but we feel it will contribute to a solid final product.
EM: As you’ve progressed through the project, I imagine the game has taken different forms, so what ideas/avenues have caused you to change direction along the way? What have the moments been that have helped to define the project in its current form, and how have these moments changed the scope of your work and the initial creative thrust that got everything going?
TotNS: As a developer, every creative decision brings fresh vitality to our game. Chengdu, a magical city with modern technology and a long history, provides inspiration for the cyberpunk city we depict. Hard-boiled detective novels and, of course, the likes of Blade Runner all had a part to play in the protagonist and story of the game. All these inspirations serve to expand the content and structure of the game, and it has gradually evolved from a simple puzzle-based game to something with a much larger scope. As the experience changed throughout development and began to take shape, it was important that we didn’t lose sight of our original goal – tell an interesting story and deliver a fun experience.
In case you missed it, here’s the trailer:
