‘Death in Candlewood’ Interview with Rosebud Games Producer Toni Sanchez


Death in Candlewood is an open world survival horror game coming from indie developers, Rosebud Games. The Unity developed game is in the final days of their Kickstarter push which is seeking $60k to bring the 1940’s open world psychological thriller to life on PC. The game draws inspiration from the old Universal monster serials of the same era as well as the mood of Edgar Allen Poe and promises to be a give the player freedom in a genre not known for player freedom. The Death in Candlewood producer Toni Sanchez was kind enough to sit down and answer some questions about the upcoming title including the project’s inspiration, how the game will approach a genre that is not known for an open world setting and some of the challenges of working with the Unity engine.

You can read our original story on Death in Candlewood here.

Why choose a survival horror game for your studio’s first original project?

Well, I grew up reading Poe and Lovecraft, my sister writes horror stories too, so I guess this is something in my genes. As a self-funded development, we have to keep our motivation during the hard times, and horror makes it easier for me. Also, Andor Kollar, our Lead Artist, has been working for several years on horror games such as the Silent Hill and FEAR series, so it is something familiar for us. And for a first title, we wanted to go for something we had confidence in. I imagine the next game will be totally different!

Horror Games have traditionally been a mostly linear experience with the last few years become more action driven. Games like Silent Hill and Resident Evil allowed for backtracking to solve puzzles but it never really opened up on the scale that Death in Candlewood is proposing. How will Death in Candlewood handle delivering the narrative in an open world setting, keep the tension from start to finish, and what is the greatest challenge you have faced with this?

Yes that’s right, it is not very common, but I think games like Alan Wake showed a way to expand a bit the linear experience while keeping the tension at the same time. Candlewood is a living world itself, and every corner has its own dark story that can be unveiled by the player. To create things that might not be needed to complete the game but will enhance the player experience in a psychological way – that’s one of our major challenges. We want to build a world where everything, when put together, makes sense as a living world.

Does Death in Candlewood offer multiple paths to objectives? For example, stealth, noise sensors, and tranquilizer guns are mentioned in the KickStarter page. Will it be possible to sneak your way through the game or will it require a balanced approach for different situations?

Yes that’s right – not always, but we try to offer multiple paths to most of the objectives. All the stealth elements are necessary to survive, since Candlewood is crowded with lethal creatures and Dune can’t beat them all by brute force, so the player will need to think twice. And yes, I think that for different situations a balanced approach will be more suitable.

If someone wanted to read Edgar Allen Poe or watch a classic horror film to gain insight into the game, which stories/movies would you recommend?

I would say it worth reading “The Fall of the House of Usher “, “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” and “Ligeia”, and for movies I’m very fond of the little known movie “Night of the Demon” by Jacques Tourneur. Besides that I also recommend “Spellbound” by Alfred Hitchcock or “The Unholy Three” by Tod Browning.

This may be touched on in a previous question, but can you explain what makes the game “psychological’?

I think it’s the case on many fronts. For us as developers, for the characters in the game, and for the player’s mind. We have spent a lot of energy developing the psychology of each character, no matter if is a monster, a villain or a friend, including the main character Ray Dune, a decent citizen once but now morality is putting him on the edge. All this together will help to build a story in player’s mind. Really it’s about ensuring that the game, story and characters are deep enough, well thought out, and convincing enough in the way they think about things, to really get into the player’s mind too!

Caravan’s main goal as stated in the video is the reanimation of his dead wife which the player’s character, Ray, was unable to save for some unexplained as of yet reason. I am making a guess here as many of the enemies seen in the trailer show signs of the old Universal Frankenstein movies with the incision marks and scars. Can you shed any light as to why there are so many “undead” looking monsters and why Rizzo looks undead himself but without any of the incision marks or is this under wraps until release?

Good point! Yes, you are right, old Universal and RKO movies have been an inspiration for us, as we grew up watching them. All “undead” monsters, as you said, are made of pieces from the dead, all of them are failed experiments and all are lethal but in different ways. Rizzo is not one of them. He probably doesn’t meet the common standards of ‘cuteness’, but from our point of view he is a very lovely kid! Dune adopted him from a traveling circus this story is explained in the game. Rizzo may surprise you if we meet our secret stretch goals…

If the situation was ever right, would you consider porting the game for next-gen consoles?

We would love that! Obviously there’s a process to that, negotations etc… From our side, if we get enough funding, we will try hard for it. We’d need more help, more people working on the game.

What technical challenges have you overcome when working with the Unity engine?

That’s a good question! Unity is a great engine for a team like ours working on a game like DIC, but being a small team, setting up all the physics system to work the way we wanted took much more work than expected, especially for the vehicle system. We are proud that all the vehicles in the game can be driven, damaged and even broken into pieces in a realistic way. Another important one is the open world. It is really a big space to work on for us. We have managed to integrate the AI, LOD, Lightmapping and Occlusion culling, but we are still polishing them for each setting.

When Death in Candlewood is finished, what kind of rum do you plan to have in your Mojito?

Aha! The team has voted already for the rum handmade by Raul Mora, our game designer. We’ll probably need to take the next day off!

Image Source | Rosebud Games

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