They Are Here: Alien Abduction Horror · published
Hello everyone! We’ve been wanting to write a detailed article about the development of our game: They Are Here. We’ve had our heads down working on our game and realised I’ve never properly shared the process, the challenges we faced and the milestones we’ve reached. So here it is, a comprehensive update that starts from the release of our first playable demo covering where we are now, what’s left and a rough estimate of when you can expect the full game.
Inspiration and Initial Vision
They Are Here started as a small indie project aimed to deliver about 40 minutes of gameplay, inspired by some of our favourite alien horror television shows and films like The X-Files, Signs, Dark Skies, and The Fourth Kind. These movies heavily influenced the atmosphere and story we wanted to create.
After releasing the demo, we saw there was genuine interest. Many players loved these films as much as we did and wanted to experience something similar in a game. We also spoke with several publishers who showed interest in the demo. They advised us to expand the game to about 2–3 hours to better convey the experience and increase the game’s success. We agreed it would be challenging but doable; however, we didn’t anticipate how much time it would take.
Why Does Development Take So Long?
We want every minute of the story to be meaningful and the game world needed to be rich with details. The narrative needs to be logical and engaging to keep players interested as the story unfolds.. Creating compelling content for each moment takes a lot of time. We want the game to feel like a well-directed movie, and we spend hours crafting every minute of it.
This is our first attempt at a story-driven game of this scale and while the mechanics aren’t complex, creating engaging content for every moment is very time-consuming. A lot of time is spent working on interactive elements, debugging AI scenes, journalist tools, phone calls, and voice-overs.
The game is being made by just two people, which takes a massive amount of focus and effort. During production we had to take a break to work on other projects to earn money, which cost us about a year of development time.
Finding the right publisher was another challenge for us however, we found the right team recently and partnered with PQube, who are helping with voice acting, localisation, console porting, marketing, and quality control.
What Have We Done So Far?
We have most of the locations ready but, there’s still a lot of work to do for instance: programming game events, sound design, voice acting, testing and optimization. It’s an extremely long process for just two people.
We both work on the game full-time, five days a week and often work on weekends too. Weekends also involve handling business tasks like banking, taxes and marketing.
Release Timeline
We know the game has become a long-term project but, we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. According to our plan with PQube, the game is shaping up to release by the end of next year. We understand some fans may be disappointed by the wait, but this is a realistic and clear timeline for a two person studio working flat out to give players the best experience. We hope to finish They Are Here earlier but, I expect us to hit this target.
Final Thoughts
They Are Here is a small indie horror game made by two passionate developers. We want to create the best alien horror experience possible. Thanks for following our journey — I’ll try to share more updates regularly and not disappear for too long. - Deklazon 🛸 Wishlist the game, play the demo and follow for more updates! 👁️ Sign up to Learn More:
https://pqube.co.uk/games/theyarehere/