An indie game with a very focused mission statement and a heartwarming design
Here at Sidequesting we find a sense of joy at highlighting small, independent developers and their games, bringing them out from the shadows of the AAA titans, and into the light. Back in May we brought attention to Lady Dracula, a throwback to Castlevanias of old. But today we want to showcase a game whose genre owes itself to Castlevania just as much as Lady Dracula did, but not in the way one might think.
The game is Embroideryvania, an embroidery-based co-op Metroidvania by No Sequels Cooperative. I chatted with Joanna Nastos, the CEO and co-founder of the Greece and US-based studio about their game and how their history with games influenced production. But we first discussed what it’s like to develop games as a remote team in the US and Greece.
“Our team covers both continents and we work with creatives from all over. I’m originally from Greece and there aren’t that many of us in the game dev world. Greece is a country of roughly 10m and has close to no gaming studios. New Zealand has half the population and has over 3 dozen known studios. I don’t think any of the ones in Greece have a female CEO.
Greece has a lot of talent, even after the brain drain of the past 15 years. Our culture is not just the ancient stuff that is perpetually regurgitated in all forms of entertainment, including gaming. I think there’s a modern era that is yet to be tapped into, and we aim to do that with some of our upcoming games, so stay tuned!”
Next we talked about their personal history with video games and how it led them to want to create a casual gaming experience that people just being introduced to gaming and its complicated controllers can enjoy.
“I used to play games as a kid on the SNES (Bubsy in my heart forever) and kind of fell off in my early teens. I met Fox, the game director, at a nature walk meetup and we started talking about games since that was a passion of his. He re-introduced me to gaming and I discovered I had a very hard time learning how to use the post-90s controllers as an adult and to navigate in a 3D environment. There were tears. I finally got over it with a lot of patience and frustration from everyone involved. We realized then that there aren’t any games to introduce someone who’s never held a controller to gaming. There are a lot of people who might be interested (like I was) but there wasn’t really an entry level game to be shared between a gamer and a non-gamer. So now we make them.”
In an industry with decades of inspiration to draw from, I wanted to know what Embroideryvania’s specific influences were.
“In terms of inspiration, there’s definitely some Earthworm Jim/Worms vibes in there for the character animations and of course the real world around us for the art style and environments. As for the gameplay, we knew we didn’t want a long, high-stakes, high-investment gaming experience. There aren’t any games where you can grab the controller, have easy-to-pick-up gameplay with minor inputs and know that the whole thing will be done in two hours. So we were inspired by all the games out there but in the opposite direction. All our games are designed as couch co-op stand alone experiences. There will always be a single player mode but we believe gaming is much more fun when you BYO non-gamer!”
Naturally, we talked about our mutual love of Metroidvania games and how their upcoming game aims to be different from the rest through nonviolent and cooperative gameplay, and with the aesthetics of embroidery and botany in design, amongst other influences.
“Me too! They are my favorite genre! This one is really different – Embroidery+Metroidvania = Embroideryvania. It is a split-screen metroidvania with no combat. You explore this hand-drawn botanical world as a snail with a companion. There are no dangers and no narrative. Just getting lost in a cozy world, collecting shellpacks, power ups, and figuring out the lay of the land. Fox Walker, our game director, researched both embroidery and botany extensively in order to come up with the art style and to design the environment. We also have educational content in the game on how to identify plants IRL but it’s more of an added bonus than a must for the experience.”
Embroideryvania is scheduled to release today, but you can also check out their investigative interactive fiction game Circus Saboteur, available on Steam.
More info: No Sequels Cooperative
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