FANTASTIC FEST 2024: Fantastic Games Highlights Innovation In Indie Genre Gaming!
Fantastic Fest is in its 19th year, and this is one of the first in which gaming has a central role to play in the festivities. While the hot and humid Austin weather was unforgiving, the air-conditioned and dark rooms that hosted Fantastic Games presented by Day of the Devs were a reprieve from the oppressive weather and a portal to entirely different worlds. During our time at the fest this year, we spent some time with some of the developers who were onsite talking about their titles and their respective studios. We didn’t get a chance to try out every game there, but what we saw we were deeply impressed with!
Fear The Spotlight (Blumhouse Games)
Hot off the heels of an exciting announcement at Sony’s State of Play event is “Fear The Spotlight” from Cozy Game Pals and Blumhouse Games is a throwback to the PS1 days of survival horror and mystery games, albeit with a YA twist! Married couple Crista and Bryan both come from the entertainment industry with Crista being an art director at Nickelodeon and Bryan having worked on AAA titles such as Uncharted and The Last of Us, and they’ve poured their combined love and experiences together for “Fear The Spotlight”. During the time we spent with the game, you play as Vivian who wanders through a dark library with her friend, Amy as they try to summon some ghosts with a Ouija board. The art style is very much PS1 pixelated and gives off a similar vibe to the original Resident Evil if it took place at a high school and not an old mansion.
Much of the tension in “Fear The Spotlight” stems from having to hide and sneak around avoiding security cameras, while the occasional ambient shock like a bolt of lightning or thunder will give you a little jolt. When we spoke to representatives from Blumhouse Games onsite, they let us know that “Fear The Spotlight” will be available on most major platforms including Steam (PC, Mac, Linux), Playstation, Xbox, and Switch, and the playtime will run about 5-8 hours, with an additional level planned. The puzzle elements and art style should encourage a younger audience to participate, and we really enjoyed how inclusive the game was for all ages while not skimping on the suspense.
“FearThe Spotlight” will be released on October 22, 2024 for PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 for $19.99.
darkwebSTREAM (We Have Always Lived In The Forest)
Much like Fantastic Fest itself, Fantastic Games had plenty of weird surprises in store, one of which was “darkwebSTREAMER” from developer We Have Always Lived In The Forest. Imagine a game that plays like “DrugWars” but is thematically focused on live streaming weird occult shit on the dark web and you’ve got “darkwebSTREAMER” in a nutshell. The UI has a very analog interface that feels like a sci-fi hybrid of DOS and The Matrix, and the entire point of the game is to become the most popular streamer out there by collecting and buying different occult items and doing streams to unboxing them and the like. You manage funds, clout, and inventory all while trying to build a devilish following which makes for an interesting and casually addictive gameplay loop.
Miles, from WHALITF was onsite to talk about the game a bit, and below are some excerpts from our conversation!
Please note: This interview has been edited for clarity and may include grammatical errors
Macabre Daily: What was the inspiration for “darkwebSTREAMER”?
We Have Always Lived In The Forest - Miles: Dark Web streamer is led by Chantal Ryan, who is based in Australia. She is the studio head for we have always lived in the forest. She's the director of the game, the head writer, the artist for the game, lots and lots of hats. So she came up with the game idea a few years ago with some friends, and began prototyping it and developing it and then just adding people as she went. I think it was very much inspired by her love of RPGs, and also, like a childhood fascination with interfacing with digital people. You know, NPCs, right? This idea that if you talk to someone in a text-based game in RPG, what would it be like to be able to talk with them and have them respond to your thoughts and feelings and to develop like this virtual relationship, so that has driven a lot of your development the game.
MD: How would you describe the tone of “darkwebSTREAMER”?
WHALITF-M: I think horror and comedy have this, like, really kindred relationship to each other, right? In order to build great moments of tension, you sort of need to see the ground with moments of unintention, right? And things that they're most grotesque and fucked up and weird tend to be also funny, you know, true and so, yes, the game is dark kind of thing. It's a horror game, but there are those moments of levity, you know, it's also, it's meant to kind of make it feel like you're carving out your own weird, fucked up home space, like, you know, the NPCs that you meet as you play the game, the relationships that you develop with your viewers.
MD: When is “darkwebSTREAMER” going to be available?
WHALITF-M: No date set, yet. right? For anyone interested in following Development the game, they can find us on Twitter at Dark Web streamer, or follow the director of the game. Her handle is @thoughtrise. We also have, like burgeoning discord community, okay, who can interface with the devs directly give feedback if they are on our Patreon as well. They can participate in playtest sessions as well. They get their hands on the. Interesting. Give feedback. So
One of the standout games that we got a chance to preview was “Karma: The Dark World” from Pollard Studios. This psychological investigative thriller is built on the Unreal 5 engine and the first thing that grabs you is the photorealistic art style that feels futuristically retro in its aesthetic. What we got to experience from our play-through was part tutorial and part investigation as you become familiar with the world and the role you play in it. Taking cues from similarly mind-bending games from Remedy, “Karma” offers little in the way of explanation upfront and instead encourages you to discover as you go what is going on and what your role in it all is. From the time we spent with the game, it is clear that you play as a futuristic detective who can be transported to different times and possibly into different bodies.
One of the first things you notice playing is the controls and movement are intentionally designed to make you feel like you’re in control with your controller. In essence, it recreates the tactile feeling of discovery and exploration through the controls rather than just pointing and clicking on items. This makes the experience far more immersive and at times somewhat challenging to know what to do next. One particular section tripped us up when we had to move a TV, but wasn’t able to find the specific set to move for a bit. It’s all very impressive considering this is from a small Chinese developer that has independently been working on this game for a few years. Neil, from Wired Productions was onsite to talk to us a bit more about the game and what folks can expect!
*** Please note: this interview has been edited for clarity and some grammatical errors may be present ***
Macabre Daily: We were just talking a little bit about the inspiration for the game, could you talk a bit more about that?
Neil-Wired Productions: It's inspired by some of the great games recently like “Control” and “Alan Wake”, but on a more sort of cinematic level, you've also got Twin Peaks and Christopher Nolan influences. It's a very immersive, cinematic game.
MD: What platforms do you all plan on releasing on?
N-WP: You can wish list right now on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox, and there'll be better play this during Steam’s Next Fest in October.
MD: I played with headphones. Is that the recommended approach you all would say for this game?
N-WP: Audio often gets overlooked in games because you're so immersed in what your eyes see. The team has spent a huge amount of time working on audio and working specifically with the team at Dolby, for months on an end, to really bring this, this immersion layer in the same way as you do visual so yes, it sounds great, but also audio will help give you hints as to what you'll need to be or so as to where you need to be going, what's happening around you.
MD: What's the average play-through runtime you're seeing so far?
N-WP: Still in development, but I'm gonna say 8 to 10 hours at the moment.
MD: What are the system specs gonna look like for PC in order to get this really great, very cinematic, very kind of realism-focused look?
N-WP: We haven't got there yet. I think you're going to be surprised in terms of, you're not going to need a super monster rig. To me, that's part of the benefit of Unreal five and the tools that they're now giving developers, but, yeah, we haven't got the specs to share yet. It's not going to need a monster rig to look fantastic, and you'll see on the console versions again, it's going to maintain and look as beautiful as you just experienced.
We really enjoyed our time with “Karma” as it gave us the same kind of vibes that the old Xbox 360 game, “Condemned: Criminal Origins” albeit with a more future-focused sci-fi twist.
One of the games we didn’t get a chance to play, but we were eager to check out was Post Trauma from developer Red Soul Games. While we didn’t get our hands on the demo, we did watch someone else play and we were impressed with the visual style and art direction. What can best be described as a mixture of the Demogorgon from Stranger Things and something out of an H.P. Lovecraft novel, the creatures in “Post Trauma” harken to similar survival horror games like “The Evil Within”, but in this case, you’re not some hard-nosed detective, but a train conductor. Taking cues from other titles in the genre, “Post Trauma” feels similar in part to “Alan Wake” albeit more visceral creature designs and gore.
The controls in the demo we saw looked akin to standard 3rd person games, and the graphics were as impressive in the demo as they are in the screenshots. The team from Red Soul wasn’t onsite so we couldn’t ask more questions, but we left really impressed with what they’ve put together as we’re huge fans of survival horror games. Hell, most of us grew up on the very games we see being used as reference points and influences so anything similar to that is an “instant buy”. The good news is that “Post Trauma” is going to be released on PC and Consoles next month on the 29th. So you don’t have to wait too long to take this post-trauma trip!
Final Thoughts
Fantastic Games was such a delight and a perfect addition to an already great lineup of genre films and festivities. The games we played, and even the ones we didn’t, all seemed to present different art styles and approaches to genre games. Such as “Sam Eng’s Skate Story” which has you playing a demonic skater in a hallucinogenic hellscape with super vibey chill music, or “darkwebSTREAMER” where your goal is to build an online following for your occult streaming channel. The diversity in game styles and focuses gives us a lot of hope that the future for genre gaming is bright, and indie developers are carrying the torches!
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