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Hi, please introduce yourself and tell us about your background in the games industry:
My name Thomas Grip and I am co-owner of Frictional Games together with Jens Nilsson. I have no real solid industry experience prior to starting Frictional Games other than some freelance coding. However, I have been creating amateur games for over 10 years and have learnt alot from that.
When was Frictional Games formed, and what previous titles have you released?
Frictional Games was formed in the spring/early summer of 2006. After having worked on the Penumbra Tech Demo we started toying with the idea to do another game, a more simple game that could be developed during a quarter or so. Since we didn’t have much money we wanted to use the little time we thought we had to create a game, get some funding from that and then move on to increasingly more complex games.
But less than a month into the project the Penumbra Tech Demo turned into a phenomen and spread like crazy on the Internet and in many magazines all around the world as well. As this happened we quickly started to re-think our strategy and came up with what became Penumbra: Overture. To be able to finance this we used some saved cash, shorter jobs and other means.
The lack of proper funding was also one of the reasons for splitting the game into 3 episodes. It was the only way of being able to do our game without taking a gigantic loan or selling our souls to a publisher.
As for previous projects, we have not really done anything else as Frictional Games, but we have worked together on several projects before. This includes the now dead Unbirth (www.unbirthgame.com) to which Penumbra is sort of a spirtual successor. We have also worked on Energetic, an educational platformer, together.
What inspired Penumbra: Overture, and why did you decide to make it?
We wanted to do a survival horror game for PC and with a first person view instead of the more traditional third person view. I suppose an influence was our previous project Unbirth, a first personal horror game that never got released. Both games have a lot in common in terms of look and feel.
However, our main inspiration for Penumbra has been making a horror game where violence was not the main gameplay element. In other games like Silent Hill and Resident Evil the main fun factor comes from killing various beasts. What we have tried to do with Penumbra is to change that, and follow in the footsteps of other non-violent horror games such as Clock Tower and the lesser known Dark Messiah (aka Hell Night). This goal made us think in new directions and forced us to make the game more unique.
How long did it take to develop this 3D horror game? Any big problems you encountered during development?
It took about 8 months and went pretty smooth. We managed to stay on track according to our internal plans more or less. I also want to add that alot of the core technolgy was done during the making of the tech demo (which took around 9 months) and that is one of the reasons why it went so fast and smooth.
That said, we did encounter problems during development. For example we spent more time on our four legged character than we had planned, having four leggs and walking on all of them creates complications we had not taken into account. You can count on the next episode not having any four legged creatures...
Another big problem was how to add some sort of combat element to the game without turning the game into a hack n’ slash. As so many games in first person view are based on shooting or fighting it's really hard to make the player not want to beat the crap out of everything that moves. Yet at the same time we wanted to add the option, as it seemed logical that when there are no other options left, fighting for your life is a must. This we planned would take a lot of time to implement and tweak and it turned out it did. Not sure we managed to get the result we wanted either, it almost seems impossible to add combat to a game and not make it about killing everything that moves.
We noticed the game has amazing physics but besides that, what other features make Penumbra: Overture so special that everyone should try it out?
We have put alot of work into the atmosphere. The game as an unnerving soundtrack, is filled various ambient sound effects and features a lot of creepy events. Gameplay itself is also scary as you never know when an enemy might pop up and have to constantly be on your toes and listen for strange sounds and movements in the shadows.
It also has a deep story line that is connected to the gameplay. The enviorments you explore are all part of the story and you will find clues on what is going on by simply examingen the surroundings. We have tried to put alot of detail into the world so that it feels alive and is fun to explore.
It is one of the few horror games that is not just a normal shooter with some scary effects added as extras. The horror is embedded into the gameplay and just not a simple gimmick.
Name three things most game players don't know about Frictional Games?
- It's a 3 man team, with no office, all working from home and some awesome additional people from around the world working with us providing excellent specialized skills.
- We have made the game without any external funding.
- The graphics engine is made by us from scratch. We only use external libs for scripting, physics and XML loading.
So what’s next for the future? Any other great titles we can expect from Frictional Games soon?
Two more episodes of Penumbra: Overture and after that we will see!
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Interview with Thomas Grip
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