Hi Everyone,
I hope that you have had the chance to try the demo for Bahnsen Knights. If you haven’t, what are you waiting for? If you have, you’ll be pleased to hear we will have an updated demo soon with new content. This will be part of the upcoming Steam Next Fest that we are incredibly excited to be taking part in!
In the meantime, I thought you would be interested to get an insight into why we make the games we do and what we think of the genre too. You may have seen some of this touched on in the lovely recent Eurogamer article about visual novels (see here), but we thought you might be interested to find out more!
Why create the ‘Pixel Pulps’ interactive fiction games?
Fernando Martínez Ruppel and I, Nico Saraintaris, come from a background of twenty years of storytelling (we are both 39 years old and will turn 40 this year… ancient!). We have experience writing novels, short stories, illustrated stories, comics, storyboards, and scripts. But we've also made lots of games in the past! In recent years we have created many games under another label, games in which exploring innovative mechanics was a key part of the designing process. Just to give you an example, we've made Moveless Chess, a variant of chess in which the player cannot move the pieces. So LCB's games are a combination of these two aspects, our passion for storytelling and our love of designing mechanics that generate new and interesting gameplay systems.
What do you think players enjoy about this genre of game?
I believe that what makes visual novel games so popular is their ability to ignite players' imagination by leaving things unseen. With their static images, transitions, and scene jumps, visual novels seem to create something similar to what a comic does, almost like a movie that skips frames and allows the audience to fill in the gaps. In this type of fiction, the player's imagination is enhanced as they fill in the blanks while being carried away by a narrative with a defined thread (beyond concepts such as branching or multi-threading). Additionally, there is no urgency in a visual novel. Like a book, each player can take as much time as they want to enjoy it.
Where do you think visual novels will go in the future?
I think that visual novels (and I would refer to them as interactive fiction) are more of a meta-genre than a genre, a framework that encompasses multiple gameplay systems. Just as there are infinite numbers between 1 and 2 (the principle of discrete infinity), there are infinite possibilities within the bounds of interactive fiction. In this sense, interactive fiction is pure potential, capable of incorporating elements of resource management, strategy, board gaming, RPG, roguelikes, etc. I believe that these elements (cleverly used within the context of each game's fictional universe) open up possibilities for a future - or rather, a present - full of exploration.
What do you like about this genre of games?
Visual novels (and interactive fiction, once again) have the potential to work as a trap. You are aware that you will be reading extensively, have control over your time, and can submerge yourself in a new world. The familiarity that it offers can be deceptive, as interactive fiction has the ability to surprise you from within, being both familiar in concept and surprising in execution.
I hope you have enjoyed finding out a little bit more about where we came from and why we have really enjoyed creating the Pixel Pulps adventures. Don’t forget to play the demo for Bahnsen Knights and wishlist the game!
Cheers and thanks for reading!
Nico, LCB Game Studio