Eugene Sax sits down with Owl Machine to chat about their upcoming pacifist bullet-hell title, Key Fairy.
TRANSCRIPT:
GameCritics.com: Hello everyone. Thank you so much for joining me once again. This is Eugene Sax for GameCritics.com. Today we have something a little different. I initially was looking through a lot of the Summer Game Fest stuff, and one in particular kind of caught my eye when it was initially announced here. This was on the Frosty Game Showcase. And by all means correct me if I’m wrong. I’m pretty sure that’s where you guys were first coming up here. But it was initially with a streamercalled NoHandsNZ and they had praised this game and the developers as far as their accessibility items and their kind of openness for how they were addressing accessibility for this game. So, I wanted to go ahead and give it a look and this really quickly became a game that I am really excited about here as well. So reached out to them and they were both more than happy to sit down here with me a little bit to talk about their game Key Fairy. Tex, Tex Barnes and Niosis, thank you so much for joining me today!
Tex Barnes: Thanks for having us.
Niosis: Yeah, thank you so much for having us.
GC: Yeah, of course. So let’s go ahead and do the kind of easy easy questions here right off the top. We’ll go ahead either one of you who would like to start, can you go ahead and just give me a quick history from you both here? What is your background in games? What got you into gaming as a hobby? And kind of what are your roles here for Key Fairy?
Tex:Yeah. Do you want to start with that, Niosis?
Niosis: Yeah, sure. So I guess my history is that I got into like independent game development pretty early on. I’ve been actually into this since like high school. So like yeah, I got really enchanted with all the beautiful art that was coming out of the independent scene and like all of the kind of stranger approaches to game development. And ended up pursuing it from there. Yeah.
Tex: Yeah. I I didn’t make games until like five years ago and then I got really into the like micro rapid development game jam space.
GC: Mhm.
Tex: And then I really wanted to make tiny little focused experiences and then worked back backwards into making larger things.
Niosis: Yeah, we both kind of just like ended up turning going from like little small things to like slowly spiraling out to this.
GC: Very cool. Very cool. So if memory serves here from kind of what I’m seeing here on the game, Tex, you’re kind of the I guess kind of head for programming and then Niosis, you are kind of more of the art side of this game for Keyfairy. Is that correct?
Niosis: Yeah, that’s right.
GC: Right. Perfect. Excellent.
Tex: But with a studio of this size, we sort of just wiggle around in different roles.
Niosis: Yeah. Yeah, I mean like yeah, Tex does a whole bunch of the like you know graphics programming stuff and I do every now and then like do a bit of graph programming and other things. Yeah. So it kind of mixes and matches.
GC: Yeah. With a team of two that makes sense. You got to both of you got to wear a lot of hats, right?
Niosis: Yeah.
GC: Sounds good. Well, talk to me about Key Fairy, like what was the initial inspiration for it?
Niosis: Yeah. Oh, I was going to say like I feel like a lot of it came out of specifically the idea of trying to make a game that explores like the theme of non-violence and how you make a game that is like energetic and fun to play in a kind of action oriented way but that isn’t just about like reskinning violence. And like trying to, yeah, communicate pacifism through the response that your character has to violence itself.
GC: Mhm. Okay.
Tex: Yeah. It’s from taking stuff away, right? Like is bullet hells are a very action heavy genre and all about like shooting things. But if you actually play a shoot them up or a bullet hell, you just sort of hold down the attack button and then dodge. And so you can just entirely refocus the game around evasion and then you get all of this different story stuff that can come out of it because you’re now playing this character who’s constantly defensive and never really attacks.
Niosis: Yeah, there are plenty of bullet hells where like shooting is so default that you don’t even need to press a button for it. So if you’re not pressing a button for it, you can just skip it entirely. It was a little bit of it. Yeah.
GC: Gotcha. That kind of went into my immediate next question there as well. So, it sounds as far as like ’cause exactly like you said, bullet hells, I always think of it as, you know, lots of bullets on screen, you’re shooting at everything all the time. And it sounds like, and definitely correct me if I’m wrong, but kind of the idea as far as making it that pacifist style was kind of I guess trying to break that norm of bullet hells, like specifically making it with a pacifist focused. Is that right?
Tex: Yeah. Yeah, it’s I mean I think good games ask questions about genre and about like design and I think ultimately one of the big questions we’re asking is like do you need to be a character who’s constantly attacking? Does that actually add to the experience? And I think that’s what we’re sort of exploring in the in the game. But there is still a lot of like attacks on screen at points. It’s just not your attacks.
GC: Mhm. Yeah. There was a part in the demo where you’re facing a couple of I guess we’ll call them ranged characters ’cause I’m not sure their exact name, but like the witches that kind of shoot out little bullets at you and then one of the one of the giant cubes that just throws itself around in the arena. And that one I got stuck on that for quite a bit of time.
Tex: Yeah, it gets pretty hard. I mean like so a lot of pacifist games, a lot of non-violent games are really really cozy. It’s like you’ll play the Sims or something and it’s like you’re just chilling and that’s great and I like that experience, but I really like really fast play paced frenetic games and I struggle to get that experience without a character who’s just going through the world stabbing everything with their big sword.
GC: Speaking of the big sword, the one that you specifically call out, no, you don’t attack with it, it is a sword.
Niosis: Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we were trying to come up with ideas for the game and early on we were like, “Oh, you know, be hilarious, right? Is you get a sword and then the sword it’s just for dashing.” Like, it’s just like, you know, you become a Dark Souls protagonist, but only the dodge roll part.
GC: It’s so good. I love it. And and it is such a unique way, too, cuz it is this like especially compared to like your main character, it feels like a massive sword and it’s only half a sword cuz it’s broken when you initially get it, right? And the entire point is like, hey, no, this is this is a sword. It gives you the option to move around more, but you don’t attack with it. You specifically do not attack with it.
Tex: Yeah. The whole focus is on movement. Like that’s the the the name of the game is just how can you move in more complicated and interesting ways? Because if you’re taking away the ability to attack, you need to replace it with something because otherwise it just feels like it’s less game. And I think we’ve replaced it with a more complicated movement system where you got a really floaty character and then you’ve got a grappling hook and then you’ve got a dash ability on top of that and it just becomes exponentially a really high skill ceiling for…
GC: Right. Yeah, 100% agreed. Like I know when I was starting it, I was kind of just using the grapple hook and hooking onto the environment as far as like any of the walls and just trying doing like the straight line kind of around, but definitely in some of the like the trailers and that that are on your guys’ Steam page easily like Yeah. hook onto the enemy and just swing around them. You can you can do that. Nothing stopping you except for you know your skill.
Tex: Yeah. I mean that’s why they drop stars. Initially, initially the idea was like maybe you just wait them out and then they calm down. But having them drop stars forces you to get really close to them. And so now you’re constantly trying to not get hit whilst getting as close as physically possible to the monsters so you can collect the stars that they drop before they despawn. Which weirdly makes it like in a lot of ways it makes it play harder than a traditional bullet hell where you’re constantly trying to like back away from everything and get into your little safe space.
GC: Mhm.
Tex: Yeah.
GC: Very nice. Perfect. So let I want to go into the art a little bit there as well because I first off love the art. I love the very like black and whitevery stark colors and then how when you get into combat it does kind of encroach in a little bit. What what was some of the inspiration from you Niosis as far as the art from this game and the world design?
Niosis: Yeah, well the art like I think the big inspirations come from like old tabletop role playing game art. Like if you look at original D&D, it’s all like Zines basically. Mhm. With this really stark kind of sketchy ink style as well as like you know old medieval woodblock paintings and fairy tale books and things like that. But also a little bit because like growing up I’ve been doing a lot of art and it’s all just been like ink traditional traditional ink art. And so when we were starting this game and we had two people we had to make this decision between like art that we could both make or just going really heavily on like a really stylized look. So I ended up becoming the dedicated artist. And yeah, it’s all just like things from my sketchbook that I find and then scan in. Was like the first chunk of the art was like literally just flicking through old sketchbooks and taking photos and editing it all up.
GC: Gotcha. Very cool. Because I know like from the and from the like Steam page and all that like everything is like all about like kind of a folklore and everything like that. Were you drawing inspiration from any type of folklore in particular or just kind of a mismatch or?
Niosis: Yeah, I mean not yet. But it’s basically Yeah, basically just been like the general storytelling style that that Folktale has. As well as like you know there’s a lot of things that that cut very close to real life fairy tales but we’ve also been trying to avoid like overt references as much as possible. Sure. And so like you know there was this moment where I really wanted Sleeping Beauty but then we ended up like reorientating you know so we’re trying to keep it agnostic in a way that feels a bit like timeless but also more rooted in like as well as like yeah rooted in like gothic fantasy and that kind of look of it.
GC: Okay, understood. And yeah, I think the the black and white kind of from starting is definitely a good way to invoke kind of the Gothic style as well, just ’cause that’s, you know, I mean, that is kind of traditional as far as the like color palette, I guess. But definitely like I’m thinking right near the end of your demo with facing off against some of the like the princesses and that definitely I can see how that kind of invokes like the kind of fairy tale aspect to it.
Niosis: Yeah. Yeah. I mean like fairy tales are all like this kind of interesting mix between spooky and whimsical, and I think you know like Tex brings the whimsical and I bring the spooky and it ends up like hitting the right niche.
Tex: I think a lot of people when they’re like oh fairy tales are actually a lot weirder than you think. What they mean is that like they’re a lot darker. But if you actually read a lot of like spoken word folklore it’s just bizarre. It’s so bizarrely written in in both that it’s darker and that just characters act in these strange ways and talk in these strange ways that isn’t really replicated in a lot of modern storytelling, and we’re trying to bring some of that energy.
GC: Gotcha. Yeah, that’s and that’s very cool. It definitely gives Key Fairy a very unique style and definitely its own like unique energy. I mean even just looking at the game, but yeah, actually sitting down and playing with it, I can definitely see that and that’s one of the things that stuck out to me with getting into it and why I really wanted to have this conversation. So, I think you knocked it out of the park with that.
Niosis:Thank you.
GC: But yeah, so I guess the let’s get into the little more of the meat and potatoes as far as kind of the reason why I wanted to have this conversation in the first place. So like I said at the top GameCritics.com we go out of our way to specifically like highlight any of the accessibility functions whether it is like for deaf and hard of hearing as far as like captions are concerned for any type of remappable controls or anything like that and with such a presence there as far as your openness to that accessibility I guess journey going through this game. Like I was reading a lot of your blog posts Tex about the accessibility function you wanted to add it in. But tell me a little more about it. Like what went into the planning for all of these accessibility options and how did you prioritize different ones over the other?
Tex: Yeah, so I think accessibility seems like a big scary thing if you’re developing especially because it’s something that’s not really taught at university or whatever. But it’s not that tricky. There’s the big place is GA game accessibility guidelines. There’s a there’s a website where a bunch of researchers have gathered a a big long list of all of the major things that you should be looking out for. There’s other stuff that’s not on the list and it’s worth asking around and play testing a lot, but those are the big things to keep an eye out on and categorize them based on the level of impact and difficulty to implement. So, a lot of the really hard things to implement also only impact an extremely small percentage of the population. But that doesn’t mean they’re not worth doing. It’s just a thing to think about. You’re… we’re trying to think about what’s going to have the biggest impact for our audience, but also what’s core to the experience that we’re making and what elements are outside of that core experience, but could be a sticking point for some players. That’s a big thing to keep track of. Like if if this game isn’t a puzzle game, if there was a puzzle that some players were getting stuck on, they should be able to skip it because that’s not core to the experience and they shouldn’t be hampered from the main experience by this like random off side thing or like a fishing minigame shouldn’t be preventing you from progression or whatever.
GC: Yeah.
Tex: So in the initial planning phase when we were designing the game, we thought about what the games weaknesses would be in terms of accessibility and what its strengths would be. Because there’s a lot of things that the actual design of it works in its favor. It’s pretty good for color blindness that the game’s all black and white. It’s pretty good for people who are hard of hearing that all of the writing is just written on the screen. But then we added a bunch of random effects to the text. So, we also need to provide the options to simplify the font. And it’s just it’s just making a lot of lists, to be honest. It’s something you should be able to have an eye for if you’ve spent enough time developing games, understanding what’s going to be easy and what’s going to be hard for you, yeah. But then you just compile a list and figure out what’s easy and what’s going to have the most impact.
Niosis: Yeah. I mean one thing like you’re talking about like prioritization a little part of it is yeah just having it in front of people and then every now and then someone will come to us and say like ah you know I want to be into this game but this thing is having I’m having trouble with this thing so like you know the the trees kind of sparkle in the background and that sometimes that’s too noisy for some people and so you know as soon as someone brings that up then that’s a pretty simple fix, and so like a lot of the changes have been like preemptive, but a lot of them have also been reactive to what we’re seeing in front of us. And just being like open to the feedback that like, yeah, there can be simple things that are not core to the experience that are just some side visual thing that we put in there for fun that doesn’t need to be there always or doesn’t need to be there at all and we can work around it, things like that, you know.
GC: Okay, very cool. So I I’m assuming one of those was probably at least as far as the feedback was concerned, one of the big ones from your blog post was the camera and how it initially was sitting to follow the player, but now it’s been switched to in 99% of cases to where it’s just static for the room, right?
Tex: Yeah. So, it we we initially had it be all static in all the rooms and then we wanted to have larger rooms and it made sense to have the follow camera and we sort of got too lost in the sauce. I got too lost in the sauce. Niosis kept being like you don’t need a follow camera in this room. I really like the follow camera ’cause it makes you super It makes it spooky. It gives it a horror game vibe in some of the rooms where you’ll enter a room and then a monster will just appear. But that experience isn’t actually core to the game. And so it’s pretty reasonable to add in an option at least that for almost all of the rooms, especially any room in which you have to do an engagement where a monster’s going to attack you, you should be able to lock that camera. Because it just gave people it gave some people motion sickness. Small percentage of people. And there’s no reason to prevent them from playing the game for their experience.
GC: Yeah. Especially with having the grapple hook and having movement be such a core thing, I can imagine that with a moving camera, you’re moving really fast if you’re like doing chain grapples and all that. Yeah, I could see how that could trigger some motion sickness for people.
Tex: There’s still some long tunnels where at this point it makes sense to keep the follow camera, but those are places where you’re just moving in a straight line and there’s nothing attacking you. And so I feel like that’s probably okay. But I might make it that the camera moves more linearly rather than sort of sliding around.
GC: Okay, understood. Gotcha. So kind of piggybacking off of some of the like accessibility options there, what was the specific idea behind like some of the color palettes? I know you went into a little more in depth on it on the blog post, but I’m thinking like I’ve seen a lot of games where if they do different modes for color blind, like they’ll specifically call out like, “Hey, here is this very specific type of color blindness versus this one versus this one,” ’cause I know there’s a couple of different versions of it, right? Most of the color palette options that you all have starts out black and white, which is probably pretty safe to kind of cover most, vision impairments or anything like that, but then they don’t necessarily have the specific like I guess quote scientific name for the color blind.
Tex: The color palettes aren’t really for color blindness ’cause as far as I’m aware, and we’ve play tested a fair amount, color blindness doesn’t impact your experience of the game. The the big issue with color blindness, this is actually a general design thing, if you’re making a game that isn’t black and white. The big issue with color blindness is if the only thing distinguishing two states or two objects is color. And so what you generally want to do isn’t just provide an option that swaps the colors. It’s put symbols on things, provide audio cues, provide a bunch of additional stuff that makes it clear that these are two separate objects. And so even if they look gray to a player or if they both look the same color to a player, they’ll be like, “Oh, this one’s got a triangle on it and this one’s got a square on it, so these are different.”
Niosis: Yeah, there’s a lot of different parts. Like we’re finding that there’s a lot of different information that you can communicate that isn’t just color, like shape and value and noise versus the opposite of noise, I guess. And then we’re having to like you work around, you know, we’re having to do that anyway. And so that’s becomes just like part of the development is making it visually clear regardless of the colors of it.
Tex: Yeah. The value of the pallets from an accessibility point though is eye strain actually. If you it’s easy to to get worn out essentially from just this really high contrast. And so we the the base pallets that we’ve provided reduce the contrast really heavily. So you can have it be like more gray or more like blues. But then it’s also just like a nice gameplay thing that you can unlock more pallets as you go along. And it makes it easier for me to play to be honest being able to change the palette every now and again ’cause I do get a little I’m going a little bit crazy.
Niosis: Yeah, an entire year worth of only black and white.
GC: Well, especially with how often you’re all looking at it day in day out doing the development for it, too. Like I I can imagine the eye train would be would be pretty intense.
Tex: Yeah. Whenever I look at a game that has like color, it blows my my mind.
GC: Well, very cool. Was there any other big I guess accessibility thing that either made it harder to develop the rest of it for or anything in particular that like oh I like the thing that comes to mind was when you were talking a little more about some of the stuff that you were borrowing from Celeste for instance and the like speed option that you implemented I know initially it’s for you know accessibility is like Hey, people, especially with a game being this fast, they may want to slow it down a little bit so that way they can more easily process and be able to follow along a little more, but then you even made the comment on your blog post as far as like, well, this is actually good for speedrunners as well. They could just boot it up to the max and they can just zip through anything. Was there any other similar stories like that when you’re programming in the accessibility stuff?
Tex: A little bit. So like the Celeste has become the sort of cornerstone for good accessibility design because they make they do a bunch of really smart things. Especially putting a warning before the assist mode being like this is our intentions as designers. These options specifically could break the flow of the game if you don’t need them. But if you do need them, they’re here. And so I think that’s really good. And we have had friends who are like, I had to stop playing the game initially, but now I can continue playing it because I could tweak it ever so slightly so it would just be just be manageable. So that’s great. But the other thing that I think weirdly changed the experience for some people was the the one-handed options. We provided some options so that you can play it with just a mouse or just a keyboard or just like one joystick essentially. So it’ll all be using the buttons on that side, which is really useful if somebody only has one hand that they can use to play it, but also it sort of makes the game a little bit… On mouse and keyboard, the mouse has a lot more fluidity of movement because it can go in any direction whereas the keyboard is pretty four directional. And so it sort of feels more fluid to play just with the mouse for some people, even if they don’t need to, which I thought was funny.
Niosis: Yeah. I mean, that’s the thing about like all accessibility settings is that, I think a lot of people miss the fact that, like disabilities aren’t something that exist outside of the context of the society that you live in. Like they exist within the world that you’re you’re in. and the the accessibility that exists within that. And as a result of that, accessibility settings and assistance can be useful to anyone like they don’t you don’t need like a special card to find them helpful to find them like enriching and fulfilling. Yeah, yeah. So I think we found that like it’s just useful to everyone this kind of stuff in different ways and for different people.
GC: Yeah. At the end of the day, it’s about just getting your game to as many people who are interested in it and don’t have any type of blockers that would stop them from enjoying the experience, right?
Niosis: Yeah. And like it’s just the case that like you know, every single person has their own needs and that like being able to tweak to those needs regardless of who you are is really valuable.
Tex: Yeah, that’s the big thing is is providing a bunch of sliders and toggles and and options so that it can be tailored to the person because everybody’s different.
GC: Yeah. Very cool. So, one of the last couple ones I have here. So, I know right now Key Fairy is still being developed. The demo is still available. So, everyone like go download it right now and go play it. It’s great. But what else do like what else do players have to look forward to as the game is being developed? Like is there going to be like a demo 2.0 or anything like that or…?
Niosis: We’re currently debating on the 2.0 like we are looking forward to NextFest coming up which will be our next big thing as we get nearer and nearer to a release date announcement. Yeah. So, that’s coming sometime eventually in the future.
Tex: Thich it is the thing that every demo takes time to make that you could otherwise be spending making the full game. And we’re getting quite close to the full game.
GC: Oo, that’s exciting!
Tex: We’ll have to see, keep your eyes peeled.
GC: Excellent. I love a little bit of mystery. Well, perfect. Last thing I have for you all. So with de with all your demo work and all of your game developing, everything, I’m assuming you’ve probably take some time to kind of relax and take a break. Are there any games in particular that you are all enjoying currently? And what stands out to them as far as being kind of your go-to, go-to game?
Tex: What have you been playing, Niosis?
Niosis: Well, I just recently finished all that is currently out for Abiotic Factor, which is a New Zealand game. It’s a lot of fun. It’s like I have never played Half Life, but apparently it’s like Half Life. But like if it was kind of immersive sim cross survival sandbox. And it’s a lot of fun. Good old crunchy gameplay.
GC: Excellent.
Tex: I’ve been playing 100,000 demos from Steam NextFest and the Summer Games Festival. There was so many demos from all of our cool, smart friends.
GC: Boy, ain’t that the truth.
Tex: And they’re very good.
GC: Yeah, very cool. Yeah, I know. Anytime the Steam NextFest comes up, I try to spend a little bit of time and do like try to do some demo recording as well and try to like play a whole bunch of demos and throw it out onto YouTube and tell people like, “Hey, go play these games. They look really good.” Key Fairy is no exception.
Niosis: That’s really nice to hear. Yeah, cuz there’s so much beautiful stuff out there, isn’t there?
Tex: There is.
GC: So much, and not nearly enough time to play and highlight them all. Well, perfect. Anything else either of you two would like to share with our lovely audience before I let you both go?
Niosis: Well, yes, there is actually. So there is this beautiful game that has been receiving absolutely no attention because Tex never mentions it, but Tex just released a game called Pogo Pogo and it’s very cute. And like…
Tex: I cold released a game right after we did the summer games festival with Key Fairy.
Niosis: If you’re looking for a second black and white game to play.
Tex: A much smaller worse game, that’s an option. Also, I’m going to shout out a game so it’s not all on me. I think people should play the demo for Building Relationships because I think it’s amazing. The game where you’re a house going on a date.
GC: Oh, I remember that one. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
Tex: It’s really good.
GC: Well, perfect. So again, Niosis, Tex, thank you both so much for taking some time and talking about your game here. I am very look very much looking forward to full release. I’ve been kind of chomping at the bit waiting for some more. I’ve been hanging out in the Discord kind of waiting to see all the news or anything like that from it. So, I’m excited for a possible release date here coming up soon.
Tex: Ooh. Keep your eyes peeled and your ears peeled.
GC: Will do. And for everyone else as well, I will also go ahead and link some of the I’ll link the two blog post that I had mentioned before that Tex had wrote up as far as the accessibility journey and kind of going into more of a deep dive for that as well. A lot of good stuff on there. And again being so open about it like I think it is refreshing kind of seeing that seeing that openness through it as far as like what did that look like going from start to finish ’cause that’s not something that everyone takes the time to do. I think he even mentioned that in the blog post as well. It’s like some people only do it as far as like hey is it worth doing right as far as like a monetary standpoint but it’s not always the point. All righty. Well, we’ll go ahead and call it there. Thank you all so much for joining us here and definitely keep an eye out for any more future interviews, game trailers, and any more game reviews that we’ll have here on GameCritics.com. Tex, Niosis, again, thank you so much for joining me.
Niosis: Thank you so much for having us.
GC: All righty.
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