To Build With Stories: An Interview With Appnormals Team Founder Iñaki Diaz

In my second playthrough of Frank and Drake, I tried a different approach: to choose the things I was averse to doing the first time around. This is a game reliant on relationships; there's a meter that continually measures how things sit between Frank and Drake and their roommate, and depending on how you go about your priorities or allocate your sympathies, that relationship shifts.

I've always been a fan of point-and-click games, from my days with Putt-Putt and the gang to my evenings playing Nancy Drew. The genre has enjoyed a relatively quiet popularity, and I find the limitations of the game design actually beneficial for the stories they tell. These games lend themselves to a certain patience, often in puzzle-solving and dialogue exchanges, and thus make for more contemplative experiences.

I received a code to play Frank and Drake and write a review about it, and then I was offered the amazing opportunity to connect with the founder of Appnormals, and co-creator of Frank and Drake, Iñaki Diaz. We discussed some of what makes game development worthwhile and what makes it difficult as well. Indie development is never easy, but working tenaciously under conditions that seem antagonistic while still providing an honest story product is proof that real heart can prevail above all else.

SUPERJUMP

So, I'll get started right away, and it's mostly just to thank you for the interview and ask a little bit about your journey as a game developer! How did you come to form Appnormals, and what was your journey like?

Iñaki Diaz

I come from a different background. I studied advertising and digital design. I was working on digital agencies, doing websites, interactive stuff for museums… many different things. In one of these jobs I met the former co-founder of Appnormals. 

We'd always loved video games, of course, and that's why we started thinking – "Maybe we can do something in our spare time." We created our first app and then our first small mobile game. It was something we did for fun at the time, until we found a videogames incubator here in Barcelona called Game BCN. 

Eventually, we applied, and we were fortunate enough to be one of the winners and received some acceleration funds and mentorship to develop a full game. It was back in 2015, and mobile games were quite successful for us in terms of downloads, but they weren't profitable enough to sustain a company. But when we won this award, we had the resources to develop a fully professional game. And that’s how we made STAY, our very first real video game for PC and consoles. And since the STAY release went quite well, considering the low budget and low expectations, we were able to grow both the team and the ambition for the following projects.

SUPERJUMP

Wow! That's a pretty significant jump, or was it kind of easy to go from doing mobile to something more traditional? 

Iñaki Diaz

It was a big jump! When we were developing mobile games, my partner was programming, and I was handling art and design: that was it. Our first little game was a quiz about comic books, with pixel art characters, very simple yet fun to play. Compared to that, STAY had a sophisticated narrative. It was a more serious game, darker, with a lot more meaning and purpose personally. And overall, it took a lot longer to develop.

It was all new for us. So, that was a steep learning curve. The game wasn't super complicated compared to others like 3D games. We tried to maximize our strengths. But it wasn’t just the two of us, we did have a lot of help. Starting with the writer, Ana, but also another good programmer and other talented artists as well. It was the first time we were developing a game with other professionals. It was an adjustment for us, and it took a lot longer than expected. The full development of STAY was nearly three years, from the initial idea to the released product. 

Aside from the development challenges, we tried to show the game as much as possible. We traveled a lot and attended many gaming events. We were in Tokyo and the US twice before launching, among many other places. I think that helped us find publishers and deals but above everything, it created awareness of the title. Now the industry is a lot more complicated, a lot more saturated… but back then, if you did your homework, and the game was good, you could get decent exposure. I feel that nowadays you can do everything right but still need a good deal of luck to have traffic, and that makes things a lot more difficult.

What we do is find an appealing narrative premise, and then pivot around it, trying to find the best general presentation in terms of gameplay and visuals...

SUPERJUMP

Mobile games are so big right now too.

Iñaki Diaz

Well, we were doing mostly premium mobile games. Some were free to download, but we didn’t really know how to monetize them. And we realized that it was impossible without sophisticated economic systems in place. The games had decent traction and downloads, but we weren't earning anything. And the premium ones didn't have enough sales. That's why PC and consoles became a better option for small indie studios, on these platforms the average user is usually a bit more open to buy games, particularly indie games. Personally, I prefer to play games on PC or console, but even though I'm not a big mobile gamer, I always keep an eye on what’s new in that space. It’s surely a more restrictive space for creativity and innovation compared to PC, and free-to-play will remain the norm, but I also believe that great mobile premium games will always have a good chance too, especially thanks to subscription models like Apple Arcade.

SUPERJUMP

I looked at your games – I didn't get a chance to play STAY or Terracotta – but I noticed the different styles that you used for those games. I know Frank and Drake was rotoscoped, and I know that must have taken a lot of artistic understanding for how that would work and translate to a game. How do you decide on an art direction for a specific game?

Iñaki Diaz

That’s a great question! When we started on mobile, we only worked with pixel art, because that was something we knew well. I’ve been illustrating pixel art for a long time, just for fun. I think I was the first ‘pixel art’ teacher in Barcelona, a few years ago. For us it wasn’t even considered to do any other style: "We have the skill, so let's do it in pixel art." But once we got a bigger team onboard, things shifted for the better, opening to different visual directions. And this change didn’t affect only our artistic approach. For example, we started having a full-time writer, which is uncommon in most small studios. That meant the narrative weight was going to be more relevant moving forward, affecting our creative process from the beginning. 

What we do is find an appealing narrative premise, and then pivot around it, trying to find the best general presentation in terms of gameplay and visuals, plus the available team and resources, obviously. In Terracotta, we kept the pixel art choice because we wanted the top-down perspective, plus we had a really good pixel art animator. But in Frank and Drake, for instance, it didn't make sense because it didn’t require that retro vibe. Instead, the surreal notion of extraordinary characters trying to blend into an ordinary world was really important for the storytelling. So rotoscoping was a better fit, in that case.

Speaking of rotoscoping, it wasn't always in our minds. While the plot was being written, I remembered this animation technique from my digital studies back in the day. We are also fans of Richard Linklater's work, and over the years we watched other movies and series done in that style, like Undone or Loving Vincent. We didn’t have any 3D artists or 3D animators on the team, but we did have a couple of really good and versatile concept artists, very proficient in 2D art. And from there, the question was: what if we try this? After a few successful tests, the roadmap ahead was clear. It's very rare to choose rotoscoping because it's very time-consuming and puts unnecessary hurdles and challenges in the development, but at the same time, it was what made the game special, at least from a visual standpoint. 

Maybe our next game will be something totally different, like 3D. Who knows? Whatever visual style fits the core idea and emotions that we want to convey with the gameplay experience.

SUPERJUMP

That's awesome. The art was wonderful. The movements felt really natural, and I even liked the slow movements, where you had to take a moment to step physically forward. 

Iñaki Diaz

At the beginning, we wanted to make it fully interactive. I mean with total control of the character: walking, stopping, and moving characters with responsive controls. Defining segments and connecting them together, so as flexible as any other game but done with rotoscoped frames. But we realized that with our limitations, it wasn’t feasible, and it was impossible to achieve. At the end of the day, we were a very small team after all, with a limited budget. We needed to pick our battles, highlighting relevant moments for the story and scattering these special scenes throughout the game. It was out of scope for us to do something more complete in terms of the amount of rotoscoping, even though we drew over 8,000 frames! 

That’s the case more often than not, unfortunately, you feel that with more resources you could have done more. Is this the best possible game we could have ever done? Surely not, because we worked with constraints. Is this the best we could do with our resources and team? Probably so, and that’s the goal, try to excel within your context. But I never felt confident to say, "Check this out, it’s our flawless masterpiece" like we've been working on this forever and every single detail is perfect and we’re 100% happy with it. It's not exactly what we envisioned originally, but it's how the project evolved. I believed we delivered a solid, compelling experience. In hindsight, of course, we would have loved adding more animations and refining many things. But at least we were able to tell the story the way we wanted to tell it. So all in all, we're really proud of the game. 

SUPERJUMP

I love those kinds of games. I grew up with the Nancy Drew games, and those were very point-and-click, an intimate but fun kind of mystery-solving. So, I really clicked with how that worked in Frank and Drake because I was like, "oh, this is right up my alley!"

Iñaki Diaz

Glad to know that! It's not for everybody, and that’s perfectly fine to me. But when it clicks with you for any reason, whether it is the mood or the characters that are interesting to you, then it can be really intense. I think you can tell that it has a lot of soul and effort to make it deep! By the way, another important decision we made was to have different story paths and routes, and reward the user with different backstories, interactions, puzzles, or locations based on your choices, so it has high replayability value. I have to admit, it always worries me a little bit that maybe many users will do just one route and will miss a lot of stuff. But that's how interactive adventures with multiple choices are. Or how they should be, in my opinion, making choices meaningful and not just cosmetic. 

SUPERJUMP

Yeah, I have a later question, actually, that focuses on that. But speaking of the puzzles too, there are a lot of different puzzles in there, and I did only play my first route! And when there's a bond meter with characters I tend to try to make it very close, because I like it when characters are close. But I was just playing it today a little bit and I was trying to make them strangers. Just like – "Okay, what's the inverse of what I typically want to play it as?" And that led to a whole bunch of different puzzles I had never seen before. How did you craft all those different puzzles? Is there a favorite type of puzzle that you try to use? How does that work? 

Iñaki Diaz

In our first game, STAY, we made an important mistake which was making the puzzles too complicated, often very dark and cryptic, and eventually, we realized they became a stopper to the narrative for many users. If you check the reviews on Steam, the negative ones are often like: 'oh, I found the maze unplayable, that puzzle is frustrating – I'm dropping the game.’ Or ‘I was so engaged until this point, but now I’m angry. It's too complicated and badly designed." 

I hope we learned the lesson from that game, at least we didn't want that same feeling with Frank and Drake. Puzzles can be a bit intricate sometimes, but they were designed to entertain and ultimately be solvable. We needed these moments to avoid a passive experience, and offer always something different, almost surprising the user. You can’t explore the universe with free movement, so we needed to give the user as many unexpected interactions as possible. 

We tried to make the puzzles very mundane, with real-life objects usually, and down-to-earth actions, like fixing objects, literally. This aligned well with the idea of the monster of Frankenstein, and what we do at the beginning of the game: picking stuff from the junkyard in the alley and bringing objects back to life, almost giving them a second opportunity. 

It's difficult to brainstorm and design different puzzles that are not very complicated, but interesting enough to play. You spend a lot of time designing, programming, making specific graphics assets for that moment, and if it lasts 10 seconds, it's just a waste of effort by everybody involved, and probably not even appreciated by the user either. It needs to be a little bit more intricate, either because you enjoy the interaction or because it takes you a couple of rounds to figure it out. The goal was to create intriguing but enjoyable experiences that could last at least a few minutes, more or less, based on the user’s deductive skills, extending gameplay time and feeling rewarding once completed. 

Once again, each choice generates a different route with respective locations and interactions. Since we wanted to make that very clear, we had to display the decision tree. You've picked up this at the fork, so now you're aware that you’re moving forward but you’ll be missing some stuff as well. That is important and affects how the narrative of Frank and Drake unfolds. With one playthrough you don't fully understand everything, but you have some fragmented information… then you play another route, and you start crossing references and understanding a bit more about the characters and the universe around them. 

In summary, I think we improved puzzles a lot compared to our first narrative game. We understood they need to be simple. Some users loved STAY, and some users hated it. The fans of the game embraced the story and tolerated the frustrating puzzles, but that was an unnecessary risk. Having mixed reviews, or so to speak a yellow label, isn’t a good thing and damages your chances a lot. In retrospective, if we had done puzzles much lighter and straight forward, I think we would be comfortably in the 80%+ range on Steam, and therefore we would have had more success. 

SUPERJUMP

I did the word search today in the game, which I found very cathartic! It's not really a puzzle, it's very simple. I remember – Drake had nightly ventures where he'd see those hobo symbols. And I know those were historically used for people who were on the road. I like the detail because it informs a character's story, and it also informs the player of an actual historical fact. 

Like you were saying – the mundane kind of puzzles were based on real things. How much research goes into the more either historical or the more detailed puzzles when you're crafting a character's backstory? How do you decide to incorporate those?

Iñaki Diaz

Well, like you said, there's a lot of research behind every detail. I will go back again to Ana, our narrative mastermind, because aside from writing the script and deciding how the game evolves narratively speaking, she does all the research. Often, new gameplay ideas emerge directly from this process. For example, the hobo symbols. I didn't know about this code, and it made me have a better understanding of the word ‘hobo’ itself, which has a lot more meaning than the typical negative connotation. They were nomads, and they had this asynchronous language to communicate with each other, leaving symbols to indicate ‘this is a safe house’ or 'stay away from this place'. Once Ana discovered that it needed to be part of Drake’s journey, and how that community helped him and his mother. In the game, the learning of this symbolic language through abstract magical puzzles helps Drake to figure things out. 

Another interesting result from research was setting the story in Baltimore, a city in the US that has been often diminished, but at the same time, a place where diversity is accepted and where everyone helps their neighbor. And that's what happens to both Frank and Drake: they don’t know each other, they become unexpected housemates, and they have to develop this connection and empathy towards each other. And speaking of neighbors, they are really important as well in the narrative. They don't usually appear directly, but you get to know them through their empty apartments. The overall sense of community is very important for the plot.

Bottom line, research is very important in Frank and Drake. Starting of course with references to the classic novels, but in other aspects like the references to Baltimore. I remember Ana, and Romina, our background artist, navigated the city with Google Maps to discover interesting real locations of the city. In the game we never mention it and instead, we call it Oriole City, using this bird as a symbol of love and acceptance.

SUPERJUMP

I just put that together! My friend lived in Baltimore for a long time. 

Iñaki Diaz

Really? A Nintendo Switch reviewer also discovered that and mentioned it in his article, "Oh, okay, it's Baltimore!" If you know the city, you can definitely identify some locations. It's a fictional city but it's heavily inspired by Baltimore. 

Related to research, I want to emphasize something, to explain why we focus so much on this, maybe compared to other studios. We are not engineers, and for us it would be impossible to start developing a game with white boxes and gameplay mechanics directly and eventually figure out a story to dress it up. In our case, it's the other way around. We start with the story and the research around that premise, and then we try to build gameplay around that. It’s not ideal and has many challenges. Not saying that this is better than any other way, but it’s just how we work. 

SUPERJUMP

Yeah, I mean – I live in a city. I'm from the East Coast, so I've been to Baltimore plenty of times. Oriole felt like a very lived-in place, and the connections the characters had to each other felt like it was very lovingly depicting the messy parts of city life. And it was very nice to see that. Did you pull the team together for their experiences in a city to kind of get a better picture for how to build a city from the ground up, even though it is Baltimore?

Iñaki Diaz

We live in Barcelona, so I guess it might be similar in some aspects, but overall, completely different. More than anything, I think it was the will of our writer to set an interesting location for the story. The more she knew about it, the more inspired she was as well, and we thought it was important to use some well-known locations for important moments of this story. The challenge was to make it cohesive visually, but since the game isn’t in 3D and the controls are limited, it was a matter of connecting backgrounds properly. In fact, we had to create two cities with different relevant spots: the daytime version for Frank, and the nighttime version for Drake. Two voices and two perspectives of the universe around the characters. 

Another important aspect was to provide, when possible, some environmental choices. Going under or over the bridge, for example. Offer some agency to the user, but within some limits we could control, and try to be as efficient as possible with our resources. 

Sometimes, not even AAA games tie everything very strictly... with more choices, it is harder to control all possible outcomes and make them equally solid for every possibility. 

SUPERJUMP

Yeah, it's not a straightforward story in the sense that there are so many branching potentials, which is different than writing a story with one way through it. Moving those pieces together must have been a very different process than simply writing a story where everything's on the table at first. 

Iñaki Diaz

This was very difficult. We had some experience with branching and setting meaningful choices and dilemmas, but the new element in Frank and Drake was also adding sticky notes dynamics. Different things that both characters could write, and then different ways to react to that, while keeping everything connected to the main plot. Controlling the outcomes from day one forward, so there weren’t any broken links by day four or five, was really challenging.

Sometimes, not even AAA games tie everything very strictly. I remember playing highly polished games where you have a new quest with something extremely urgent… then you can walk around in an endless open world, doing whatever you like! With more choices, it is harder to control all possible outcomes and make them equally solid for every possibility.  

An interesting narrative aspect of the sticky notes was the physical restriction, because you wouldn't explain your life in a small piece of paper. It needed to be very specific, to the point. So, how do you develop that relationship? They don't know each other… so we had to be very concise and express a lot with just a few words. The subtle difference between saying "Okay, I prepared the room for you", or "I didn't have time to prepare your room, sorry." You are completely separating the approach and attitude towards your new housemate by the nuances of this single message. I guess that happens in real life, too. Sometimes a conversation changes drastically, whether you smile or not. Details change the perception, sometimes entirely.

SUPERJUMP

That makes a lot of sense for how you have to organize a game based around that dynamic. I mean, characters are going to act differently based on what decisions you make.

Iñaki Diaz

The story needed to move forward all the time and fast; it’s a thriller. So aside from solving what's happening and progress, we had to control all the different ways to get to that point. 

For instance, you can experience a special moment when Drake can meet Frank to help him. And for that, we needed to control the trajectories of both characters until that moment, on the fifth night. Even from the player's standpoint, that’s hard to control, because you're playing both roles without knowing exactly what you're saying to each other and the consequences of your choices. The unexpected factor plays a role.

SUPERJUMP 

I like that. When I was playing it recently, I chose decisions that I thought weren't going to really go over as well, and it's interesting to see the immediate change from the character when the bond goes down. It's like, well – we're strangers now. Versus, the first time, they were so close. There's a lot of selflessness, a lot of trying to get to know each other, versus now, as I play, they're a little more distant. 

Iñaki Diaz

I’m happy these subtle differences are noticeable! It’s always weird to see people playing the game; you always have surprises, both good and bad. But I think overall we succeeded in making it interesting and deep through multiple playthroughs. Each run gives the user a better understanding of these characters, their identities, and the universe around them. And once again, we needed this story to go from zero to 100 in just a few days of narrative, with a big sense of urgency, so some shortcuts were needed. We needed to get to the climax fairly soon, because Frank and Drake is not a ‘slice of life’ simulation game. Every day, something relevant needed to happen to move forward. Starting with the inciting incident right on day one with Drake’s arrival and move the story quickly to uncharted territories.

SUPERJUMP

I'm a night owl, so speaking of Drake, I was always like, "oh, Drake's coming up!" He's an interesting character. And, of course, Frank has all these scars. The character designs informed a lot of my curiosity about them. 

Iñaki Diaz

It was our first time doing rotoscoping, so we had some interesting stories. And as I said earlier, limited resources. We couldn’t afford to hire a makeup artist or costume designer. So our artists had to adapt and draw some things that didn’t exist in the footage. For instance, Frank's actor has a lot of hair. We put a bald cap on his head, which is far from perfect when you have to draw exactly what you see frame by frame. But it was even harder with Drake: she is an actress! We did our first shooting before Covid. Then Covid hit, so we couldn't meet for like 12 months or so. When ‘Frank’ came back, he had been working out a lot, and he was a lot stronger than before, and ‘Drake’ had longer hair. We had to draw it differently so it could fit the existing material from the first shooting. I remember thinking..."in production with a bigger budget, would it have happened this way?" Surely not. Sometimes I dream of making the same game with top-notch professional equipment and crew. It was difficult to make it blend, but hopefully it is unnoticeable for the most part. We did our best!

SUPERJUMP

I can imagine that's difficult! I didn't get a chance to play STAY or Terracotta, but STAY has a real time clock. The premise is of this man who's been kidnapped, and when you're not at the computer, you can't talk to him. How did you guys come up with that kind of concept? 

Iñaki Diaz

I can't explain a lot because I don’t want to spoil the story for you! But one of the references, gameplay-wise, was the Tamagotchi: a little creature that will die if left alone for a few days. Our premise was "let's make a game where your absence is as relevant as your presence," where we can’t control what happens when we're away, but we can control how the character reacts when we're back based on the absent time. Whether it has been for just one minute or several hours and days, it's a different reaction. 

We didn’t want to create all the content while the user was away, only the suggestion that something happened in that window to give you more anxiety. The character is alone in a strange place, unknown to him, and in desperate need of help from the outside. Meaning the player should be naturally reluctant to run away and leave him. Many users said things like "I've been playing for four hours with my partner" or "I've been here all night with Quinn, and I can’t quit the game because it feels so wrong to leave!" It's a bit stressful indeed. 

It is important to mention that we put into our games a lot of our own feelings, and we usually connect better with more mature audiences. It can be challenging; we see users coming to the games because they love the premise or the art style, but maybe they are not the target audience of the story itself. And at the end, it can be hard for them to be engaged in that narrative. 

But back to STAY, I think we’re good at creating compelling premises. In this case, one character, a dark room with a computer. It creates a lot of mystery and curiosity right from the get-go. It was partially inspired by a game called Emily's Away, where you're just chatting with someone, but that game didn't have a webcam. We wanted to express more by adding the webcam. When you leave the game, you still see the character moving around. You are spying, a little bit, on him. What's he doing? But then eventually the game takes you out. Because if you don’t want to stay active, then you're away, and you shouldn’t see what’s happening. That's why we have two clocks and the stay/away metrics. We received a few screenshots from users beating the game with 00:00:00 absent time. Not leaving Quinn alone for a second! 

SUPERJUMP

Oh, wow. So I guess it's kind of beneficial to give the game time to be away, because then they'll get to see those interactions that wouldn't have been there if you were constantly staring at the screen. 

Iñaki Diaz

Yeah. Some deaths are a bit dark. Leave Quinn for days, and you’ll experience his most vicious reactions.

He basically needs someone supporting him from the other side to overcome the fear and tackle all the mysteries, one at a time. He lost his personal courage and will. And there was a reason why this story was built this way. It's very personal. It's inspired by personal experiences and, again, those feelings are not for everybody. Our core team is literally a family. The writer is my girlfriend, and one of my best friends is the programmer. Our rollercoasters of emotions in life are somehow represented in the games we craft.

And sometimes we realize that unconsciously. Other team members and professionals who worked on Frank and Drake told us exactly this: "I think I know you better now as a person." But not because we worked together on the game, but because of how the game was. From character's voices to the emotions portrayed… we put our own feelings and thoughts into the mix, completely unintentionally. 

SUPERJUMP

Yeah, when you're crafting something, you can't help but put yourself in it. So, it's really neat when you do play games that are made with a lot of story focus, you do get glimpses of the creators. And I mean – I think that's a wonderful thing about being able to play games. It's all these different lives you're seeing and all these different experiences. 

Iñaki Diaz

I agree, to me it makes it more interesting. And sure, sometimes you just want to play for fun and to chill, but it's cool when you play heavier games too, experiences that move you for some reason. Where you connect on a deeper level, and sync somehow with a group of people who poured their heart and soul into the making of a creative piece of work.  

In previous developments, we committed to an idea too early, and then we were in a race against the clock. That's good in some ways, but at the same time, it is very stressful.

SUPERJUMP

And I think that elevates the work in a way, because it is, in my mind, it was very, very focused. This was very dedicated, this was a very loved thing. So, it just feels a little more important, a little more precious. It's good to be able to have that.

Iñaki Diaz

Exactly! I'm glad you feel this way. 

SUPERJUMP

I'm trying to think because I'm now going off my script, so Frank and Drake was your most recent release. I guess I have two questions, but I'll start with this one: You said how you do story first, and you kind of fill in the space with the game mechanics and everything. Is that something you'll probably continue to look at doing, have a narrative focus? 

Iñaki Diaz

I think we can only do things this way. So far, we have done very personal projects, things that meant something to us. We didn't really look at the market to check the latest trends or what the publishers were looking for. We did what we wanted to do. And then we realized that this approach is extremely challenging. As a small developer, eventually you’ll need external funding more often than not. We have to make it interesting for potential partners, and ensure that is going to compel others and not only us.  The game has to click with so many others, on many different levels.

Right now we want to make a more conscious effort of trying things, and not be afraid of discarding them if they don’t work. Give ourselves more time to explore before deciding what the next step is for the studio. In previous developments, we committed to an idea too early, and then we were in a race against the clock. That's good in some ways, but at the same time, it is very stressful. Every development generates critical decisions to make almost on a daily basis, and it is very easy to make a bad call.

It's not easy to convince a publisher to invest money in a project. There’s a lot of competition and great games out there. So, answering your question – yes. We are not going to make a first-person shooter for the sake of just finding a deal or making a game. We want to make games that are interesting for us and that we would love to play. We love a good story and narrative will remain our focus but, having said that, we will keep a closer look at the preferences of players.

We’re extremely proud of Frank and Drake, but it's also heartbreaking to see games like this go under the radar. I guess what I’m trying to say is that ideally, we can keep the essence of the story, but make enough tweaks so it's more accessible and can reach a broader audience. 

SUPERJUMP

I think that's a very difficult balance to strike. The want to do something that you creatively enjoy, and obviously there's consumer needs, because it's – I mean, in every medium, games to movies to books, art always has to satisfy certain needs for the masses, even if they're creative indulgences, but I like those indulgences because they're very raw. They're very real.

Iñaki Diaz

That’s very true. Making games is expensive, though, so finding the balance between creative integrity and profitability is not easy by any means.

SUPERJUMP

I know there are physical copies of the games that you guys are able to do. Does that happen often that you're able to sell these games physically? Because that might be more money in your pocket, in a way, when you can actually have people physically buy them. 

Iñaki Diaz

It is more a symbolic thing than real money, for indie titles, it's usually a limited edition. There's a lot of partners in-between. Digital sales are a lot more profitable for small studios, but physical copies mean a lot to us gamers. It becomes tangible, and you feel you’ve accomplished something. It’s a nice recollection, a nice memory to have, but the only real money that games can make with physical is when you do prints that are heavy in number. We were lucky enough to have physical versions of STAY and TERRACOTTA. I can’t disclose anything else right now, but hopefully Frank and Drake won’t be the exception. 

Our real battle is on digital platforms, there are so many games out there, so many launches every day, that it's very difficult to get traction. That's why reviews are so important. We always ask: "Please do a review of the game!" Because it helps us a little bit to move higher and help the algorithm. Usually, when you make a good launch on Steam, it spreads out on other platforms too, it creates a chain reaction. It's very rare to fail miserably on Steam and then do super good on Switch. It can happen, but it's uncommon. Usually, it's something more consistent throughout platforms. So it's a good indicator to have good Steam metrics, and reviews are very relevant, obviously. 

SUPERJUMP

Yeah, it's different than selling books or making a script for a movie and selling it. I think all media has to work with within the constraints of what they're trying to profit off of, but also just, what kind of budget you have for anything. You're doing indie publishing versus, you know, indie films. 

Iñaki Diaz

And indie games have changed a lot, too. Nowaday,s we say indie games, and it doesn’t mean a $10,000 budget; we have ‘indie’ games with budgets of 1 or 2 million. A lot of skilled professionals, for several years. Of course, it's far from AAA games, but still, it's difficult to just finish and launch a game. To the average user, you are completely unknown. Indie games are more recognized now, but we're still very far from the big names in the industry. At least financially speaking, it's a completely different universe. 

SUPERJUMP

That's a hard threshold to make it through. Because there are so many big hitters out there that just kind of take over the conversation. I'm a huge Final Fantasy fan, so once a new Final Fantasy game comes out, I forget everything else. 

Iñaki Diaz

Every week, there are at least 2-3 highly anticipated games, and everyone's going to play those. As much as you try to find a good window to launch, it's literally impossible to find a good one; there's no room for anything unless it's a very specific genre for a very specific audience that is waiting for your game. 

SUPERJUMP

It's like looking at the box office numbers too. I know movies tend to shift around based on who's releasing what film when. But even then, you're not going to find a big gap. It's different because games take up more time. So, I mean, if you're releasing Elden Ring – people spent hours on that. Trying to release something even two weeks after, it's like, well, someone's still playing Elden Ring. 

Iñaki Diaz

Exactly. In other media like movies, the competition has some limits. The box office for example, you can’t have 1,000 movies being premiered the very same week. But in games, you are competing with technically endless competition. Plus, maybe the game that launched one year ago or 10 years ago is on sale now, and it's 75% off, making the decision to buy your recently launched game even tougher for the user. Everyone knows that any game will already be on sale 8 weeks after launch. You have 10 bucks, and you can pick an unknown new game or a hyper-validated title with overwhelmingly positive reviews. It becomes a no-brainer. And it makes it super difficult to make the leap of faith and buy your little strange game. We are asking too much of the user. 

SUPERJUMP

I'm sure there are niches that people want for point-and-click adventure still, or for things that are more simplistic in their style. I mean, there's so many cozy games that have launched recently where they're much more focused. Not the big shooters, not even the Final Fantasies. It's just much more of a quiet story.

Iñaki Diaz

You’re right, but following a trend requires to develop really fast, otherwise by the time you finish your game, there will be 1,000 cozy games and it will be equally difficult. That’s the difficult choice to make, whether to go with your gut feeling and passion, ignoring the market, or doing your research and analysis first. You want to mitigate the risk, but I still haven’t found the exact recipe. Luck and being in the right spot at the right time is part of it, too. But you want to put the game in the best possible situation to succeed. We understand it's a lottery, but we need to buy as many tickets as possible.

SUPERJUMP

That makes sense. Honestly, this was a game I got the code for a while ago, and then I got some time to play recently, and I was like – alright, sitting down, writing the review – I didn't even know you guys would see it, but I was excited when you did! I was like, "Oh, awesome!"

Iñaki Diaz

It has been my pleasure! It was very encouraging to see your review. Super happy that you connected with the game and you enjoyed it, and having the chance to talk to you has been awesome. Thanks to you for covering the game. I know it's a different game, and not for everybody, and you wrote a really nice piece. Just objectively speaking, it was really well written. 

SUPERJUMP

Thank you! All right, I do have one last question – can you talk about anything you're currently working on? Are there any things that you and the team are thinking about doing, or any future games, possibly? 

Iñaki Diaz

After Frank and Drake, we have been working with different concepts, exploring and discarding many ideas. We wanted to keep the narrative drive, obviously, but maybe do something a little darker, and try the horror genre. So, we recently announced a small, creepy experience called MANDATORY. A health and safety protocol for all employees, although you’re alone in the office. Your participation is not optional, and you have to comply and pass all modules before midnight. Imagine Stanley Parable meets Indigo Park, with a touch of our very own STAY. I hope it sounds interesting! The Steam page is up already, and we’ll release some news soon. 

I think you will love it!