Crow Country from SFB Games, the developer of Snipperclips and Tangle Tower, launches on PC, PS5 and Xbox Seris X/S at the end of this week, and we recently got the chance to sit down and interview Adam Vian, Creative Director at SFB Games, and ask some questions about the upcoming retro-inspired survival horror game. We talked inspirations, amusement parks and what it means to design for horror games.
- It’s obvious that this game is a love letter to PS1-era survival horror, but what would you argue are the biggest direct inspirations for Crow Country?
Resident Evil (particularly the first three games) was a big inspiration for the general gameplay of Crow Country. I was also inspired by the environment design of Resident Evil 1 and 2 – the mansion and the RPD building are really good examples of meaningful, memorable locations that you’re happy to spend a lot of time in. Crow Country works similarly to these two in the way you explore back and forth, slowly unlocking all the doors and accessing all the rooms.
Silent Hill was an inspiration for the heavier atmosphere, gloomy visuals and some darker story themes. Silent Hill also often has you exploring dirty, abandoned locations – which is what you’re doing in Crow Country.
And finally, Final Fantasy VII. The chunky character models in Crow Country were indirectly inspired by the look of the characters in Final Fantasy VII – particularly the models you use on the field screen. I just think they’re really charming. Additionally, the interior environments in FFVII are presented in an isometric kind of view, and floating in a black space – which I took for Crow Country.
- Abandoned amusement parks are not a strange setting for the horror genre, but in my experience, they’ve always been relatively niche. Which came first, the idea to make a PS1-style survival horror title, or the idea for the amusement park setting?
I knew I wanted to make a survival horror game inspired by PS1-era games… but deciding on a location was pretty much the first thing I did.
I went with an abandoned theme park setting for a few reasons;
Firstly, theme parks allow for a great variety in terms of environments – you’ve got themed areas (fairytale, halloween, etc), you’ve got rides, attractions, restaurants, and even back rooms, staff corridors and offices. It just seemed like the perfect fit.
Secondly, this is a personal reason – I’ve always wanted to explore behind the scenes in a theme park, but I’ve never gotten the chance. There’s something magical about those forbidden spaces the guests aren’t supposed to see.
- A survival horror game is fairly different from the other titles made by SFB Games. Were there any specific challenges you faced related to that genre when designing this game?
This is the first time we’ve made a game in 3D, and pretty much the first time we’ve made any kind of real ‘action’ game where you fight enemies, collect ammo, heal yourself, etc. So, it was a little daunting at first. There was a lot to learn, but I mostly just taught myself as I went along.
As with everything on this project, if there was something I didn’t know how to do, I’d just take a swing at it, test it, tweak it, and keep iterating until it ‘felt’ right. That’s pretty much how the whole game was made. So, I was able to apply my game development experience in that process, even if it was the first time I’d tackled this genre.
A real challenge was balancing the difficulty – of both the combat and the puzzles. I’m still not quite sure if I’ve managed it, I’ll get back to you on that one.
- There are lots of different takes on the survival horror genre. Series like Resident Evil and Dead Space tend to put a big emphasis on the survival part of the name, whereas Silent Hill and Amnesia are definitely more focused on the Horror part of the title. Where would you say Crow Country lies on this spectrum?
I wanted Crow Country to float somewhere in-between Resident Evil and Silent Hill. I like how scary and dark and unpleasant Silent Hill is, but I like how tangible and fun and video-gamey Resident Evil is. So, I figured the perfect spot where be somewhere in the middle. Who knows if I achieved that, but it was a good thing to keep in mind during development.
If I had to pick something… I’d say Crow Country’s biggest focus is actually its puzzles. It’s a puzzle game, at its core.
- One of the big joys of the survival horror genre is the emphasis on rewards for exploration. Without giving away too much, would you say you’ve hidden away any fun secrets or rewards that players might not find on their first playthrough?
Oh, yeah. There are a couple in the demo, so it’s not a secret (!), but there are 15 hidden secrets in the game. I’d say it’s very unlikely you’re going to find them all in your first playthrough, unless you’re really trying.
Beyond that, you get a rank for completing the game, which may lead to further secrets…
I’d say Crow Country provides a good incentive to play through twice, at least.
- Potentially related to the previous question, in the demo it was possible to complete without actually solving every puzzle, which I found rather surprising. Was that just a thing for the demo? If not, how did the team approach puzzles in the game in order to encourage the player to complete all of them, even if it’s not required for progress?
Yes, some of the puzzles in the demo are intended to be solved later in the game – so as far as the demo goes, they’re just kind of a tease.
The vast majority of puzzles are part of the necessary path through to the end of the game, so you’ll get around to them eventually.
However, there are a good handful of puzzles that are optional – and many of these lead to the secrets I mentioned before. These puzzles tend to be a little harder, too. The map helpfully differentiates between puzzles you need to solve and optional secrets.
There also might be ways to skip certain puzzles if you’re feeling clever!
- On the topic of exploration, Crow Country comes with an ‘Exploration Mode’ that allows you to just play though the game without being attacked. It’s an interesting feature that allows players who don’t usually enjoy horror games to experience this one. How did the idea for this come up during development?
Years ago I saw a tweet where someone was asking if there was a mod for Silent Hill that removes all the monsters. Their argument was that they loved being in that world, but didn’t want to have to worry about fighting monsters and being killed. I really came around on the idea, I think it’s very valid.
There are lots of people who might like the vibe of Crow Country, but wouldn’t choose to play because they have decided they can’t/won’t/don’t play survival horror games. I wanted to make sure these people could enjoy the game too!
As mentioned before, Crow Country has a focus on exploration, puzzles and story, so there’s plenty to enjoy outside of the combat aspects.
- Related, but what gameplay design challenges arose after removing all the enemies for exploration mode and how did the team address these?
One of the issues was that the enemies are part of the story, and the characters occasionally mention them in dialogue. So, we put some enemies on the ground that have already died, so Exploration Mode players could see them and get an idea of what they’re like. My head-canon is that Exploration Mode is set in an alternate reality where Mara shows up to Crow Country one hour later, and all the enemies have died of natural causes.
Another issue was that, in survival horror mode, occasionally enemies will burst out of walls/boxes/ vaults, etc. I couldn’t remove these events entirely from exploration mode, so sometimes… a wall might smash open and nothing will be behind it. I know that’s a little weird. Sorry.
- Where exactly did the focus on crow’s come from? Was it just because of their use in other horror media?
I’m not sure. There’s a model crow on my desk, but I can’t remember if I added him since working on Crow Country… if not, maybe he was the inspiration. Crows are fairly common in horror media though, like you say.
- I’m dying to know, at what point in development did you decide to give Mara that swanky walk animation? It’s incredible.
Hahaha, you think it’s swanky? Maybe it is. I just wanted it to be appealing and characterful. All the animation is done by just fiddling around until I land on something I like.
I had a comment early on mentioning how Mara should probably walk more tentatively, with both hands on her gun… I guess I ignored that.
- One of the things I was quite surprised about with Crow Country was that it was not coming to Nintendo Switch, given its obvious retro appeal. Is this purely an issue of horsepower or was there another reason the game couldn’t make it onto the system?
Good question!
- We ask this of everyone we interview for Source Gaming, but if you could have one playable character added to Super Smash Bros. in the future, who would it be (and you can’t say a character you made so no Snip & Clip, ha-ha)?
Snip and Cli- oh. Okay. (They did get a Spirit, at least)
Honestly, my answer is Ashley – the little witch girl from WarioWare. I want more girl characters, more cartoony characters, more cute characters… Ashley is all three. Plus, she has plenty of skills to make a moveset out of. Why didn’t they ever do this??
Crow Country launches on the 9th May 2024 for Steam, PS5, PS4 and Xbox Series X/S
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