Stay True To Yourself: Fran Bow Interview

Conducted By – Adam Ames

The wife and husband team from Killmonday, Natalia and Isak, speak on the development tragedy and triumph of their upcoming point-and click horror game, Fran Bow.

 

Please tell us a little bit about yourself and your role with the development of Fran Bow.

There are two of us. Figueroa, who does the game design, the art and she is kind of Fran Bow herself! And then there’s Isak, her husband, that does the programming.

 

How did you get started in developing PC games?

We came from the movie industry, where we tried making our ideas and stories but were always restricted because we never got funding or anything, and our ideas were always too complicated to be made the way we wanted. Then, because Isak has always been a gamer and Natalia wanted to study game design, we thought that we could just start making it ourselves!

 

Where did the idea for Fran Bow come from?

The story is based of Natalias experience from her childhood and teenage years. It has been a sort of therapy for her to write down everything as a sort of fantasy “reality based” story.

 

What are some of the successes and failures you learned from in developing Fran Bow?

That is something we could write a book about! But in the big picture it has taught us a lot about game developing and life itself! And it is a beautiful journey even though things doesn’t go as the way we expected.

 

In its current form, how close is Fran Bow to your initial vision?

The spirit is there, but of course it is more complex now and there are still lots to be done to fully represent the game as we want it to be!

 

Some devs admitted their games were too hard upon release because they became experts as they developed the game.  Talk about setting the difficulty levels for Fran Bow and if you faced a similar challenge.

We are aware that this could happen, so we always have someone testing out the content as we go along to see how fast they can progress. Now when we released the demo, we had even more feedback on that and see that it is something that is really important to always check for! Everybody are different and we think we have achieved a good balance just for the beginning of the game.

Were there any challenges you faced in ensuring Fran Bow would run on the various PC system configurations?

Isak was terrified! But since he works on a really old laptop, it’s good to know that the minimum requirements are met. It would need a huge amount of testing to test everything in the PC world, so that is always something that is worked on dynamically while we get bug reports.

 

Please talk about developing the art style, level design and music for Fran Bow.

Natalia has an amazing clear view of the whole concept, she can describe the most minimal detail of every level because she has the story very clear to herself. Even though Isak is making the music (right now) he has to be approved by Natalia if it fits the spirit of the game.

 

Outside of creating the game itself, what is the toughest aspect of being an indie developer?

To be seen and heard! That is the most difficult part. When being only the two of us with no connections in the game scene or anything, that has been a really tough job being noticed! We still are working really really hard just to be noticed in Sweden, where we come from.

 

How did you go about funding Fran Bow and did you receive financial or emotional support from friends and family?

We wanted to do the game just the two of us in the first place, but when things got harder because we couldn’t work on the game (lack of money, time and other jobs)  we decided to try Indiegogo.

The emotional support from our family has always been there, they understand our dreams but that doesn’t mean they understand what we are doing in front of the computers all day long. And about getting financial help from the family is impossible, because we are normal people with normal jobs. Most of our friends doens’t understand what we are doing either, but those who do have helped in different ways they can.

 

Tell us about the process of submitting Fran Bow to the various digital distribution platforms and if you encountered resistance in doing so.

Since we are working with Gamemaker that part is pretty easy to do, but since we don’t have a lot of platforms to test it on fully we have had to hear what the players have experienced and tried fixing them along the way. The most difficult platform is Android, since there are more than 3000 supported devices that we need to narrow down.

Can you tell us why you chose to release a demo for Fran Bow?

We wanted people to experience it themselves, what we had worked so hard for and put so much love in to. And we wanted the experince in sharing a game and putting it out to different platforms, and hear what people thought of it.

 

How important is it to get instant feedback about Fran Bow from users through online message boards and other social networking sites?

It’s the most important! We want to hear what people think and be able to answer their questions and thoughts.

 

How much value do you place on the opinions of those who review Fran Bow professionally?

Each review are equally valuable to us.

 

How do you feel about the various indie bundle promotions and the “Pay What You Want” pricing methodology? Would you be interested in contributing to a project like that in the future?

We love that methodology and hope we will be able to contribute with Fran Bow in the future!

 

What are your thoughts on how the PC gaming industry as a whole are dealing with the problem of intrusive DRM and piracy?

The industry seems to be on the brink of change right now. Not everyone can afford the games that come out but of course the developers needs to get paid too. So, there must happen something soon that both sides will benefit from.

How do you feel about individuals posting videos of Fran Bow?

That is so fun and wonderful! We love watching people play games, and are deeply grateful of them posting videos of Fran Bow!

 

How do you feel about DLC and its current implementation in the PC gaming industry?

Personally, we think that DLC should already be in the game. It kind of feels like a IAP to continue playing the game. Of course there are DLCs that contribute to the game, but it shouldn’t be abused for the sake of money.

 

How do you feel about the online modding community in general and specifically if mods were created for Fran Bow?

If it would be possible to do that, it would be fun to see what people would do as a mod!

 

What advice would you give up-and-coming indie PC developers who are trying to break into the business?

First of all you need to  If you decide to make something very close and personal to you, be wary that you will be faced with a really hard journey. You can’t give up if you fail, you need to learn how to get back up and learn from everything you do right or wrong. And always listen to people who has more experience, but don’t do it the same way! Just listen, and do it your own way. And one thing we learned is that you need to be social and keep contact with people. Since we haven’t succeeded yet, this might also be totally wrong advice. So, after 31 august we will know! – End

We send thanks to Natalia and Isak for offering us a look into the mind of up-and-coming developers.  You can vote for Fran Bow on Steam Greenlight, visit the official site and help make dreams come true via Inidegogo.