Video Gamers Podcast - REANIMAL & the Art of Fear – Interview w/ David Mervik (Tarsier Studios) - Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: April 9, 2025

Gaming hosts Josh and John sit down with David Mervik, narrative director at Tarsier Studios, to talk about his upcoming psychological horror game REANIMAL. Best known for his haunting work on Little Nightmares, David opens up about his path into video game development, what it takes to create lasting emotional dread, and how REANIMAL pushes his storytelling into even darker, more unsettling territory. It’s a chilling and insightful deep dive into the mind behind some of horror gaming’s most memorable moments. All the video game news, interviews, and eerie vibes you need—every week from the Video Gamers Podcast! Thanks to our MYTHIC Supporters: Redletter, Ol’ Jake, Disratory and Gaius Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/videogamerspod Join our Gaming Community: https://discord.gg/Dsx2rgEEbz Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/videogamerspod/  Follow us on X: https://twitter.com/VideoGamersPod  Subscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@VideoGamersPod?sub_confirmation=1   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

To support sustainable food production, BHP is building one of the world's largest hot-ash mines in Canada. Essential resources responsibly produced. It's happening now at BHP, a future resources company. Hello fellow gamers and welcome to the Video Gamers Podcast. Relaxing games, life sims, cozy games are not what we'll be talking about today. The fact that video games can span all genres and types is incredible, but what about those games that give you anxiety or mess with your mind? The suspense a game can build is second to none, and today we'll be talking about a game that is so creepy looking, it has us going, who the heck came up with this?

But first, some introductions are in order. I am your host Josh, and joining me, he's been our little nightmare about how much he's been talking about this game, and if he gets any more excited about this episode, we may need to put him in a cage. It's John. Oh my gosh guys, I'm so excited. You could have just put me in a room by myself in a little four by four room,

and I would be able to talk about this endlessly. I'm so stoked for this. John did say he could do this episode all by himself. And I would listen to me too. And joining us, because I learned long ago, you never upset someone that can come up with ideas this dark and crazy, it's the amazing, the smart, the talented, the handsome and kind,

totally awesome and nice person, the narrative director for ReAnimal, it's Murph! Well, I thought you were introducing someone else then. Like not me? That was quite formidable defensive posturing there, Josh. Yeah, hey, hey. Please don't invade my brain. Exactly.

Yeah, hey, my mom taught me long ago, you'd be nice to everybody. Especially the nightmare creators, yeah. Right? Merv, how you doing today, man? I'm doing okay, can't sure, haven't slept in the last four nights you doing today man I'm doing okay can't you and haven't slept in the last four nights but yeah I'm gonna try and string some sentences together and he thinks what's keeping you up dude oh that's my delightful young boy Vincent so yeah oh boy yeah they make you work for it these

kids yeah they that they do mine are older now I get they just leave me alone they're like, Dad, you can just play video games. We don't need you for, oh, this broke and can I have some money? That sounds nice. I'm willing to bet that staring at giant man tarantulas and goat headed weird creatures crawling around alleyways probably doesn't help either. I mean, I only show them that stuff every other day, you know, just once the tears stop then we can show it to them again, you know. You've got to just like drip feed the scars, I think.

How does this creepy pig make you feel? And they start crying, you're like, okay, we got it guys! Oh man, well Merv, thanks so much for joining us today. This is gonna be a blast You know, I hinted at it at the start but John You know, he has been shouting reanimal to anybody that will listen You know little nightmares one and two are some of his favorite games that he has played I have played them as well. I have to say Re-Animal is looking absolutely just off the wall bananas to me. You know, there is such a unique

style that you guys have that it's so memorable to gamers. It's like, I knew right away. I mean, if you just showed me a 10-second clip and said, hey, do you recognize this? I'd have been like, oh, yeah, I know that That's very cool. Yeah Yeah, so we're super excited to talk about reanimal and to just get to know a little bit more about you as well So why don't we start there Merv you are the narrative director for Tarsier studios So can you explain a little bit more about what a narrative director does and kind of

how long you've been with those guys? Yeah, I've been with them for, what are we on now? Oh, I feel like recent Terminator. What year? 15 years now. I've been there. Yeah. Long, long time.

That was a great Michael Bean impression, by the way. Yeah. I've only watched it about 200 times. You and me are going to get along fine. Yeah, I grew up in the 80s, so that's just, it's just lodged in there like a fishbone. Yeah. I mean, I came over 2010, yeah, to LittleBigPlanet game on the Vita. And so it's been just kind of with them ever since, you know. And I'd even seen back then, you know, what these people were capable of when I saw the

unmade game City of Metronome. You could kind of like, whoa, I want to be part of that, what they want to do, you know. So, I mean, I joined as a designer, then I became a narrative designer, and then, you know, you kind of, you remain the only one and then you stay there for so long, like I actually want to be a director. Can you explain what the difference is between a designer and a narrative designer? Well, design, I mean, I was, I used to work in the LEGO games

when I lived in England, so I'm like a level designer. And so for the first seven months, I was making stuff for the LittleBigPlanet game. But I wasn't as good as the people that they got out of the community, let's face it. But they knew, even from my interview days that I really really wanted to be a writer and I'd done some of that stuff already for like Lego Rock Band had done some stuff for them you know all of the writing on that and so they knew

I was really jones into kind of moving to that area and they gave me a shot on Little Big Planet Vita you know so I ended up doing all of the script and the character stuff for that. And it's just been that way ever since really, just trying to get better at what I do. And I think that as far as what a director does, it's kind of the same as what I've always done. It's anything wordy, except now I've got no one else to kind of go, yeah, but you told me to do it. It's like my fault now.

You know, if anything's rubbish, it it's like my fault now you know if everything's uh anything's rubbish then it's on me you know so i've got i've got that extra bit of kind of mandate to decide how we do things narratively and um how how we tell a story how we end all that sort of stuff um so it's really mainly just about more responsibility and making those final calls, which particularly when you meet people like you, John, who is kind of like super excited about it, I'm just feeling that the my heart's not that excited.

Oh, I'm not that excited. Now like, oh God, what if it's rubbish? That's so effective. I'm just the panic setting, like yeah, it's on me, it's on me. So yeah, that's just what you get the extra sleepless nights. Well, no pressure, but yeah, again,

my anticipation levels at 11 right now. So I am really curious. You said you started work with Tarsier Studios on Little Big Planet. How does working on a game like that ultimately evolve into working on something like Little Nightmares? Did that come out of…?

Yeah, but you know what? Did you just look at Sackboy and you're like, man, this guy is too happy. We've got to put this guy through hell. But I mean, we'd always wanted to do our own stuff and you know they were about nine people back in the day when metronome was a thing and it just couldn't get done it the ambition was too big the scope was too large so they couldn't do it but what they did do is they got noticed by Sony and so they started doing stuff on LittleBigPlanet and they were doing costumes and all

that business you you know. When I joined, they actually, they weren't allowed to tell me until I signed my contract, but then they said, hey listen, by the way, we're making the new LittleBigPlanet game. And I'm like you with LittleNightmares, I was a huge LittleBigPlanet fan at the time and all that.

You know. I love those games too. But even then, I went through several iterations of the story for Little Big Planet and it wasn't right until it started to get a little bit darker, a little bit sadder. You know there's like an element of tragedy in that which doesn't belong in a Little Big Planet game. And then you look at some of the character designs for the curators in that game you could see like that was Jonas Berling who did those as I remember and he's still with us now and you can see his style already then

and it was you could you could feel a studio almost kind of wriggling around trying to push themselves out there not in a way that kind of was disrespectful to that to the idiom of Little Big Planet, but still it was like they've got something in them that needs to come out in a more concentrated form, something. When we ended up moving away from Little Big Planet, we didn't even think how much we should have been panicking

at that time Just channeled all that panic into I mean I've been doing this since 2001 So I should have been a little bit more battle scarred, but I was like that be fine. We'll make our own IP Come on. Let's just do it. How hard can it be? You know and so we weren't worrying about like what people would think or anything. We just kept applying for money and then we started getting it and it was like, oh, we're gonna have to make a game now, you know. We got some money from Creative Europe, we got some money from Nordic Game,

and they were like, well what we need for you to get this money is like a design document and we're like well we just got an idea at the moment it's about a kid and in a bad place you know and now we had to figure out what that meant and so we were just brain poor everything was coming out of us, you know, like, oh, what are these? These sketches are cool. This camera's cool. And I'm like, whoa, what can it be about?

You know, and all this. And then suddenly things started to coalesce. And so it was always there even in those days. But the thing that was cool that we got from Little Big Planet was that physicality. That really had a profound influence on the way Little Nightmares played, is that the interactivity,

tactility, tactile was the watchword throughout the germination of that first game, and how everything felt very physical, it was really important. It does, now that you're mentioning it, even the textures of what you're walking and grabbing on to and those sorts of things you you see a lot of that in Little big planet and I think that comes through. I mean that certainly seems like some of the experience carried over. Mm-hmm Let's keep going.

We'll do this for another 40 minutes. Right? We'll see how people go. How did you do? We're having a dance. More after this break. You go, you go. I was just gonna say,

something you said that's fascinating is you guys had this idea, but you didn't know the end result of this idea. And it's funny because as gamers, I think a lot of times we look at a studio or a game and go they knew exactly what they wanted to make you know and then they just they got the right people in and they made this thing and and and that seems to be like it is very much not the case no no no I mean once we've done the design documents we did two we did one that needed it

was about we did like a one-pager to get them interested and then a ten-pager to get some money and then this other foundation needed like a 35 page design document. So when you're forced to do that, you're forced to kind of solidify your ideas. But yeah, in the very beginning it was kind of like I was still desperate to make metronome you know I was just in love with what metronome was in my head and I think for each person in Tasha who was around then their idea of what metronome is is probably a bit different. It's very personal it's you know what is metronome is is probably a bit different. It's very personal, it's you know what is metronome, it's very much in your head. But like I've been already toying around with that in my free time, like you know what could it be

if we turn it into something now, you know all these years later. So I had some ideas already and that's where the name Six had come in because I had created these characters and was like oh I love this, that's a the name Six had come in because I had created these characters and was like oh I love this, that's a nice name you know because it was so androgynous, it was so mysterious and all of this and so that just I think it was a boy in the beginning and then it was like then it became a girl and then it became kind of irrelevant whether it was a boy or a girl because it was more interesting that she was Raincoat and who is this person you know so it was all the way back then so when these

things need to be done I'm like this stuff that I've been working on that could be quite nice but then but where can it take place I will got this sketch of something which looks like a big kind of maggot that walks the the seat what do you think about that all right yeah you know and it is literally that and so we didn't have a big plan but what we always have is ideas and it might be an idea that we've had ages ago hang on that might be nice here you know we just bring it in and it's just I like working that way it's nice not having a it's

stressful yeah it's it sounds it sounds really organic we were just talking to another another studio very recently called Milky Tea Studios, and they were talking about their evolutionary process of how their current game, Grit and Valor, 1949, came about. And it was originally supposed to be just kind of a small-scale real-time strategy type game that was World War II based.

And they were like, you know This just isn't working for whatever reason and through Chats and just natural evolution of discussion. They added mechs to it and boom now they've got this diesel punk game That's really cool that nice of it and so it sounds like you you guys had a similar evolutionary process where you had this like core draw and or evolutionary process where you had this like core draw and experience and you probably just added elements to it until you had this more crystalline sort of concept of little nightmares come out of it. Yeah, like Dennis, the guy I work with, he put the word on it perfectly. We're just quite

chaotic in that way, you know, and it's like, you just have to embrace it in the end and just go yeah that's the way we make stuff we kind of feel it out you know you play a segment and then you go it's missing something what do we need you know and it's like that you kind of taste in the soup all the time instead of going no this is it which is how we used to work on the Lego games it was all pre-approved and we would make it to spec. So you know, you have to really kind of beg to kind of change things when they've been pre-approved. Whereas here it's like, you just keep tasting it. Sometimes it's too much and sometimes it's not enough and you just have to wait until you get the right balance.

So I want to talk about that a bit. And apologies for the people in our Discord community because I talk about your games all the time. Little Nightmares 1 and 2, and especially 2, are some of my favorite games of all time. Little Nightmares 2 is in my top 3. It's a game that I can play over and over and over again. And the reason that I think that is for me is because you guys are teetering on that balance between horror and whimsy. And there's just something, something just so beautiful and elegant about that. Horror is a really crowded, a really crowded space in

video games these days. What do you think you guys did in your approach that allowed you to have sort of a unique voice in this space where you're kind of balancing fear with wonder? Hmm, that's a good question. Did you guys have any specific inspiration? Not what we're doing now. I think Buck. Ooh, I can't wait to hear a lot about that. Big influence on those games was like the Ghibli,

the Ghibli style in very specifically Spirited Away. It's the best one. And you kind of see that balance there as well, you know, between this kind of horrifying imagery and this very kind of charming, hopeful, yeah whimsical, let you say aspect you know and it's that balance that kids bring when put in these very very alien places and it was just something that worked for that world we were creating and it's not something we slavishly stick to it's always the needs of the game dictate

and the way we felt with Little Nightmares was, I think one of our pillars was it's a child's perspective. Always think about it in terms of a child's perspective and very much in terms of like, rememberings if you like. I remember I used to, the best way I could describe it was like if a kid wakes up from a dream or a nightmare and you say what was it about? Everything's writ large, everything's more exaggerated or even if you know they've been to the doctors in real life and you come back It's like yeah, but you had like really big hands because that's how they felt

We felt like these hands were so big and so that felt really kind of pivotal to us as to like let's reflect that in the world pivotal towards is to like let's reflect that in the world that this is how kids feel in a world that wasn't made for them you know and think that's where that balance comes from in those games. That is incredible insight into the games because one of the things that always stands out to anybody that has played you know Little Nightmares is the size and the scale of the, even the rooms that they're running through, you know? I mean, everything is so larger than life for them, including, you know, the really terrible, you know,

creatures that are stalking them or something like that. But that's- Especially them. It's really neat because I never thought about that insight. Like, so it's really awesome to kind of have you point that out, maybe I'm just dumb, but it's like, you know, you're getting that childlike perspective where everything is larger than life, you know? And so something that may seem normal to us as adults to a child is very much larger than

life at that point. Yeah, it was it was it was a really useful way of looking at the game all over really, with the way the puzzles were designed. We always come back to this when we talk about the core of how we design puzzles for those games. It's the door, the simplest thing that you do in that game is quite early on where you can't get through a door, you can't get to a handle, so that becomes a little challenging in itself and I see that with my kids now, they can't do

the most basic stuff so they have to build this assault course to get up to do the most work. I'm just like that, I take no joy in getting my toothbrush down from the cupboard, whereas they've been like, you know, Indiana Jones trying to get theirs down from the shelf. So it's a whole different way of looking at the world when you think about it in that way and I think that's something that made it not easy, I wouldn't at all say it was easy to design levels for those games but it always gave you something to fall back on like how do we approach this you know

what's the core of it is things things out of your reach at all times? Or what's a ladder? It's not a ladder, it's a bookcase. You know, it's those kind of things that made it very playful. So it's, I imagine as the narrative director on these games that you had a lot of kind of personal stake as far as how the whole game was shaped. Is that a fair assumption? I wasn't actually narrative director on those games. I only became narrative director for Reanimal.

But I did, I was one of the creators of the IP in the beginning. It just came about as part of like, something we were talking about and I was the only story guy still on yes and so it was that but you know it wasn't I just don't want to take credit for I would say at a minimum it's a fair assumption that you were a part of this team that created a beloved IP I mean an IP that people celebrate and talk about still to this day with quite a bit of love. I have to ask this maybe you know maybe a little

touchy but you'll have to you'll have to inform us on this. Tarsier Studios is not producing Little Nightmares 3. No. What was it like handing that off? I mean we didn't really. I mean it was just a thing that it felt in the water anyway. We were kind of, as much as you love making something, we were always driven by creating new stuff. Creating new worlds, figuring new things out. It's one of those, a bit like it was back in the day with LittleBigPlanet, you know, do we step away from LittleBigPlanet, which is just lovely, we know what it is, we know how to make those games, or do we do what we love doing, which is creating

new stuff. And we made that decision to do new stuff and we were thinking similarly again and nothing solid at all we had a great relationship with Bandai and you know and all this and so it was a great a great setup just like it was with Sony but then we were acquired by Embracer and then that decision was kind of out of our hands. It was just like, you know, Bandai owned the IP and Embracer didn't. So it wasn't really a thing that we could do anymore. Simple as that. So, and again, it was kind of like it took the pressure off that decision because you

would have agonized over it for a lot longer. Like, oh, we really, yeah, we want to do something new, but oh, and all this. And so it's like, no, we have to do something new. And they wanted that for us. It sounds freeing in a way. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. In a way, in a way, yeah. So we probably would have procrastinated for a lot longer.

Well, so okay, I have to ask, I think this is the natural question that a lot of people are probably curious about is that now you have a team that is working on a brand new IP and you have this old IP that you had, you know, that you had formed and that is celebrated and you guys are kind of operating still within a very specific niche in design style. What is it like sort of competing against yourself? You have a game that's coming out this year that is competing directly against a product that is, you know, a result of something that you had a hand in creating. Does that, do you have any feelings on that?

I don't really see it as competing, I would say, is my main feeling because there's not enough representation. Well, let's say it's competing. Okay, you can say it's competing. If that makes you happy. It does, yeah, it does. No, but I mean, it's not out there enough. You know, I am a massive 3D platformer, fiend, and I want as many of them out there as possible.

And for those people that were back in the day, like when Rez Evil came out, and then you got Silent Hill comes out, you're like, you know, it's all, you're getting what you need. And that's for me, it's like, I think it's great that there's a Little Nightmares coming and that there's a Reanimal coming. And I hope that that just leads to more of those kinds of games coming out. As long as we're always the best one, I don't mind.

Nobody ever minds having a whole bunch of great games to play. That's, that's for sure. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha just like this and then this and then this and then this, you know, and it's just, I think, I may- Merv, you raise a really good point there though. So we were actually just talking about this in one of our weekly sort of gaming updates. We have a This Week in Gaming episode that we do try to do every week. And we were talking about the depth of really interesting looking new games that are coming out.

And I would say that it kind of creates a fear of missing out component where even if a game is really good, you have this thing in your head where you're like, well, I have a finite amount of time to play all these games and if any point I lose interest in this, it might be an opportunity for me to jump into something even if that game maybe isn't as good or whatever. I'm running into that currently with television content. There's so many good shows out there that I want to watch. That's basically the second I lose interest for a moment, I go, okay, well, let's try something else out. And then I never come back to the first one. Do you guys have any worries about that as a studio?

I mean, there's a lot coming out in the horror space. And again, you've got an IP that you had a hand in forming that is coming out and in a lot of ways competing with your game. I mean, how do you guys plan to handle that? Well, I wasn't worried about it until you made such a good case. Oh, I love it. No, I mean, one of the things that we do is we try to, well, we don't try, we do.

We always focus on quality over quantity. I almost said it wrong then. That's just a product of sleep deprivation. There's like, is quality over quantity at all times? That would have been an absolute, yeah, Tasha is quantity over quality. That's professional. That's me on the unemployment pile. No, it's like making these kind of really shorter, more focused experiences because

you don't want things to feel like filler. You don't want people to start losing and just go, yeah, all right then. And they're like some of my favorite experiences as well. Like, oh, I played this for a few days. I loved it for those few days and it did what it did and it's done. But when I look at a game and it's sort of like, ah, between 80 and 100 hours, I'm like, oh, really? Yes.

It's like when you look at even one, and one new TV show, the first season, it's 24 episodes, I don't know if you've got that good a story that you've got 24 episodes worth. That is something that we think, I mean, especially as older gamers, gaming dads, people with families and stuff like that, as much as I love an epic 60 hour game, you're 100% right. If I look at a game and I go, I, this is an 80 hour game and it might be great, but I just don't have the time to put into that. That can actually be off putting to people now, you know? And so it is for me.

Yeah. So these finer crafted experiences where a game is, you know, you know, 10 to 15 hours, we've actually started saying that's kind of the sweet spot. And I think that we're seeing that in the industry where even large, these AAA studios and things like that are kind of pulling back a little bit and saying like, hey, people don't want to have to commit 60 hours to this game.

No, no. It's like, you know what? I love a 90 minute movie. That's like putting my slippers on. When I watch a 90 minute movie. That's like putting my slippers on. When I watch a 90 minute movie, I'm like, go on. You read my mind. I was literally just going to say that. I was like, give me a 90 minute movie over a three hour movie. Give me a three hour movie over a mini series. Give me a mini series over a big long series. I feel like the longer these things go most of the time the the further off the rails they go and and produce a

disappointing disappointing results. Yeah Game of Thrones looking at you. So Marv you You touched on something that I cannot wait to talk about which is that reanimal You'd kind of tease, is leaning more into the horror aspect and kind of branching out. And I want to talk about that a little bit more, but we have to take a short break and we'll be right back.

All right, we are back. Murph, you tease this so well. So let's dig into ReAnimal a little bit more, because you guys have, you have the experience, you have the history, you have crafted these games with Little Nightmares 1 and 2 that have sort of, you know, given you the training and the expertise. You're like a ninja that's just been honing their skills,

you know, their entire lives, where it's like, we're ready, we're ready for this, you know, this is going to be our masterpiece kind of thing. And, you know, we kind of mentioned that, you know, hey, it's kind of freeing to not be within the bounds of a prior series. Like, you know, once you kind of do a game and a sequel, you're kind of in this lane, so to speak. And when you start a new IP like Re-Animal, you kind of go, we can do whatever the heck we want. So is it, is the thinking like, let's just see where we can go with this thing, man. Like let's make this dark, you know, let's make this way more into the horror aspect or let's go even creepier because I'll be honest in these trailers creepy I mean

it feels way creepier than Little Nightmares ever did and that's saying something man so is that like the angle is this something you guys are kind of pushing the boundaries on? Yeah in this case yes it's not like we'll just keep that way, you know, it's always, you're always at the will of the game. And that sounds quite hippie, but you know, like, it was once we'd Little bit. Yeah, sorry. I don't feel good having said that, but you know, you're like, once you've settled on

like a world that you want to, you're interested in, a theme that you're interested in, the kind of story you want to tell, then you start getting a feeling for what feels right and what feels wrong. The stuff that started to feel right was that this is a bit grittier, it should be a little bit more hard edged. I probably said the word violence more than anyone healthy ever should, you know, but that's been from the very beginning, even when I'm like kind of looking at, yeah, even the way things were illustrated, like I think if there's a bit, felt a bit more violent, you know, I think it

would feel a bit more fitting. And so it, that, that follows with the, the atmosphere of the game as well is like, hope really has to earn its place I think here or it would feel weird it would feel like oh I don't know if Ghibli belongs here as much you know maybe it's a bit more great with the fireflies but even that is kind of if there's a lot of beauty there that isn't here but you know I mean there's just there's other influences at play there it's still made by us it's still know, we've still got a lot of people from the early days here, but yeah, it just, we just kind of had a feeling that this game needs,

if we did it one way, that wouldn't be how to execute the story to the best of its ability. Almost like an evolution versus like a pullback in a sense. Like let's evolve this into this direction versus like pulling back and maybe trying to make it a little bit more timid, so to speak. Yeah, I mean, you know, we were probably guilty of the other way that we were worrying that like, oh, this is feeling like we're treading all ground here, you know. And it was kind of making us lose sight of how to judge things correctly. We should have been judging it like what belongs in the game because we illustrate things a certain way.

That's the way it is. But the way, like the stuff that we bring to the way we illustrate still needs to evolve to suit the game that we bring to the way we illustrate still needs to evolve to suit the game that you're making. But we were still kind of like, oh does it feel a bit too much like this? And then we had to check ourselves a little bit saying like forget about that, forget judging it against our past games, we need to judge it against does it belong in this game?

And not worry about whether we're emulating ourselves, which is a very strange thing to accuse ourselves of, if you know what I mean. Well, I don't think so at all. I think that being honest about what your talents and your passion are is an integral part of creating any piece of art. And honestly, it's an integral part of creating any sort of successful business. Not to belabor the audience a bit too much, but there's an author out there named Jim Collins who describes something called the hedgehog concept, which is like the basic formula to making a successful business. It has to be something that you can be the best in the world at that drives your economic engine and that you're passionate about. And in the middle of those intersecting circles is what you should be doing. And so for you guys, it sounds like you, you know, you kind of realize that. It, we don't need to be different for the sake of being different.

We are really good and really passionate about something. And we've proven that we can be successful at it. Let's figure out a way to preserve that core and stimulate progress and create a new wonderful IP out of it. I think you phrased it. So I can read a lot of business books, Merv. So for, for the audience here, pitch reanimal to us. What's the elevator pitch for this?

Pitch reanimal to us. What's the elevator pitch for this? I am reanimal is about a group of five friends Orphans, I and you place two of them. I am on they used to live in a nicer world At least it looked nicer. I am I and then something happens But changes how this world is changes the world around them and really what you're doing as the two players is finding your friends in the remnants of the place that you grew up and

and trying as much as possible to get a sense of what it is that has happened and where you might be headed. And that's the coy elevator pitch because I'm really, really worried at this point of kind of saying too much. Well, and I don't want you to say too much. I think that an integral ingredient for any really good horror movie is that less is more. I think that the less that you know going into anything horror related is probably for the best for your experience. And it's something that the storytelling in your previous games did exceptionally well, where you are kind of like, if nothing is like, completely shoved down your throat, there's no heavy exposition, you're learning through little nuances what the story is at

any given point in time. So I love and appreciate what you've done to set the stage here. There are two things that really stood out to me from the content that we've seen so far is number one, the size that the the scale that that you've been able to create and emphasize with shadows and darkness and contrast that really stands out to me. And it was something that you did well with little nightmares one and two but it feels Like an altogether different animal in this game. Nice. What did you guys? What did you guys do to to to achieve that oh I

Mean we do I I'm not an artist. If you saw anything I did, you wouldn't need to be told that. But as a lay person and as a gamer myself, I think we have one of the best art teams in the world from what I've seen. Oh, absolutely. Or very few teams doing it like they can do it.

And that's not, I'm not kind of taking that credit at all. But like I am just in all. Sounds like you are. Well, I am a little bit. Yeah, you know, it's all down to me. I taught them how to do drawing. Right. I just think they're phenomenal.

We do record this, Merde. Just pretend I swear and just come in. Just leak it out, yeah. No, they're great. Again, it's what drew so many of us, what drew so many of us to the company. Oh, fire and back. It's like, again, this imaginative world, but you see even back in the day with It's like, it's like again this imaginative world that you see even back in the day with Metronome like who's doing that? Who comes up with that kind of idea for a character

or a monster you know? And so they just keep getting better, the people who were here for so long but then we you get obviously you want to keep getting new blood in and like people are drawn to this company Because they want to express. I know that's three times Just maybe just put it up as a subtitle Also what a narrative director does all right So like when you do kind of Establish your own house style, people look at that and kind of go, oh, do you know what?

I want to be part of that. I think I belong there, you know. And one of our most recent concept artists, Constantine, is a perfect example of that, you know, is he came to us because of what he's seen and it was, you know, like showed it to Pella, the art director. I was like, yeah, yeah, get, talk to him, talk to him, you know, and it's super amazing that that you kind of, it's so how do you find people? You know, you, it's just an absolute ocean out there, isn't it?

Well, yeah, but I mean, if you create, if you you create something amazing the people will find you. Yeah and that's what I think that's where we find ourselves now is that we've got a bit of a bigger megaphone at least. We're nowhere in the grand scheme of things you know there's so many bigger companies still but when you can like you know stand up and like be at all, I think then people can hear you a bit. Yeah, I personally think that scale does not necessarily reflect quality. I am and will always be a big Marvel fan for the rest of my life, but that's it. That's a shining example there the last several movies despite this big Monolithic company that supports them have been not so great so

So one other thing that I wanted to point out that I think everybody is really excited for is The co-op elements to this game. So we talked about this recently in another episode where I used to really enjoy playing the old fixed-camera Resident Evil games with like a group of people so you're kind of experiencing the shock and the surprises together. It's almost like a long-form movie. It was like kind of a group experience. And experiencing something like this through co-op just seems like such a great decision for you guys.

But I feel like there's a lot of challenges because the direction of this type of game, especially when I'm thinking about, you know, Little Nightmares 1 and 2, the general sort of presentation of it feels like a very personal experience. How did you guys go about working the mechanics, the co-op mechanics into a into a game like this? Well, there's a lot to unpicking that.

Probably forget a lot of what you said. One minute. It was something we wrestled with but it's interesting you say that about Rez Evil because I was the same that's how I experienced that those games mainly out of necessity because I was just too scared to play them alone. But there's something about that that really resonated with us when we were thinking about whether to go co-op this time, you know, because we knew people were wanting it from our stuff or, you know, people were doing it anyway. They were just sitting there playing it together and communicating, oh, no, no, don't do it,

you know, and there's something really kind of this kind of shared enjoyment through what we've done and we started thinking about like you know how would that affect the kind of worlds we like to create and let you say yourself these personal experiences would it kind of the people who like to just mess about you know would they spoil and offend there's so much that you kind of, there's a risk to the atmosphere in that way, but then at the same time, maybe that's a challenge in itself where you kind of, you need to create experiences where people aren't thinking about doing that really. You're more concerned

with like just getting through it and like, you know, soaking up the atmosphere. It just felt like the way to go. We thought of it very much in terms of movies, like watching horror movies together, particularly at the cinema. That kind of cathartic experience when a scare comes and everyone, first of all, they jump and then you hear the laughter when everyone's just trying they jump in and you hear the laughter when everyone's just trying to calm down and get their ego back in check you know all that stuff and that felt a nice balance because we knew we weren't going to be we were going to be losing a lot of the whimsy from the past where but we

still like that balance and I think this kind of addressed that balance then where it was you were sharing the horror you were sharing this experience a bit more. So it became about, it informed the story about being scared together and like going through something together as a group of friends. But then also in terms of the players experience as well, being scared together and you know how do those two jive? It's a different isn't it when you play as playing together as these characters who are obviously having a worse time Yes, and but all of it just felt really interesting to us in terms of the camera though that was the the final piece of the puzzle for

presenting this in the way that we read because One of the one of the things I notice is that this never goes split screen at all. You're sharing a screen at any given point in time. No, we talked about that very, very early on and we kicked it to death very early on as well. We like, I think we maybe even did a test. We tried it and it was just sort of like,

oh no, that's not the point. We're not going through this together anymore even though it it presented more opportunities probably for fun gameplay you know I'll go this way and you go that way you soon the minute you split apart it's not the same experience anymore so we felt like we needed to nail that camera and and so we we had someone do a test for this shared directed camera which would, you know, it could pull out when we needed to, pull in when we needed to, it could go wherever we wanted it to, to serve the scene that we were

creating while always keeping the players on screen at all times. When we got that test back, we were like, we've got it. That's it now. That's the game. And so that was like a real, real pivotal moment. The gameplay itself, you know, you've got to be really careful in terms of like co-op gameplay when you're creating horror. It's not because we played in the early days, we, it takes two came out you know and we all played that you know with big fans of Joseph Farrar's stuff in Sweden and then it was great but it was also it would have been almost the antithesis of what we're doing because that's so much fun

doesn't belong in this kind of yeah exactly it, it would pull you out of the experience. These games rely on being intimate, almost speechless experiences where you're absorbing all of it and taking it all in. Yeah, so it becomes about just, you know, going through this together. There are obviously things that you have to do, you know, to progress forwards, you forwards you know co-op stuff but it's not this kind of novelty you know I've got a bow you've got an arrow you know I've got this you've got that because again it becomes very gamey and I love those kind of games but for this it it was more about like right we're in a boat and I'll steer it you look at what's coming you know look out for the danger with the lights it's kind of more about that kind of cooperating to just stay alive really so that was kind of where we focused in on

right, and I think this sort of Segways nicely into what I wanted to talk to you about next is that these games are very atmospheric in in nature the the priority of making sure that the atmosphere is maintained takes priority over like having just a bunch of different game mechanics in them. It takes two and split fiction, for instance, are almost like party games in a way in that they have so many game mechanics packed into them that it de-emphasizes the actual, the story and the narrative experience of it. One thing that I was surprised to hear when we talked to Tobias Lilja recently

was how late the sound design, I guess, comes into, or at least from his experience, came into the gaming process. And for me, that seems like, especially in what we would consider to be indie games, although I'm not sure if this necessarily qualifies anymore, but the sound design seems like an inseparable part of the experience. Like I couldn't even imagine trying to design a game

like this without the audio component. So now that you have a couple of these sort of like horror games under your belt, did the audio, did the sound design come into the overall design process earlier now, or is it more or less the same where you've got kind of the visual aspect first and, and then the sound design comes in later? Yeah. I mean, it, all the, audio always has to trail. It puts a lot of pressure on them. I mean, we don't get nothing.

They're always, you know, because there's some stuff that you know, like how footsteps are gonna sound and your effort sounds are gonna sound and all that sort of stuff. So you get the basics, like, oh, when the door opens, it's gonna sound like this. So you start, you get a feeling for where you are.

But it's because we change so much and tweak that experience that even if you they do something late on which they always have to the thing has to exist first and then they do sound design on it and compose music for it. They will do that but it's it it's probably an insufferable part of a composer and a sound designer's job where you're like, hey, we made these changes, by the way, because the game wasn't playing well enough, people weren't scared enough. Here you go. So now you got to change everything.

And I laugh about it. I don't take it that lightly. But you know, it is like that. And from my point of view as well you know you look at what you've got and you're like but this can be better and we have to be that way until they drag it out the door so it you know yeah Tobias is right audio does trail by necessity not completely you know if there's something that you have to prove and it's very much wound up with audio then you would probably just get

something tempish to get it in to get that feeling but the actual final audio past the whole thing has to exist first, you know, and it's painful but we have to we have to make this the best it can be before it gets taken off us and given to you. Well Dave, we're running a little short on time and I just want to say, man, I am so excited for this. Everything I've seen, everything I've heard, everything I've played in the past, I have just such high hopes for this with a certainty that you'll deliver. I know there's probably a lot of pre-release

anxiety for you guys. Well, yeah, but I mean, pressure is good. You know, diamonds are created under pressure and I think you've got a diamond getting ready to release here. But before we go, since we've kind of been in this spooky, spooky mode of thinking for a bit, I want to, we want to just ask a couple of rapid-fire questions to kind of lighten the mood before we take off here. So, what is your favorite horror movie of all time? Firewalk with me. Twin Peaks Firewalk with me. Oh, okay. Yeah.

All right, interesting. Nothing leaves me more shaken. I mean, it's probably another five I could list, but that one, 100%, so good. Did you ever see a movie called Hereditary, by any chance? I did, yeah. But the thing I liked most about that was the soundtrack. Yeah.

I had high hopes for that film and it just didn't do it for me enough. Oh my wow, I'm surprised you heard that. I'm with you on that movie. I'm with you. It was an okay movie but I had higher hopes than what it turned out. I know. Yeah, yeah. Midsummer, I think, are breaking my heart right now. The opening 20 minutes of Midsummer was was fantastic. Oh yes. And even that, I thought, ah, alright. Yeah, I would agree with that of Midsummer was was fantastic. Oh Yeah, I would agree with that Midsummer didn't quite Hereditary I really love Midsummer didn't quite deliver But so I think we can all agree on that if you were in a zombie apocalypse, what would be your weapon of choice, sir? Reese's shotgun

On the brain so much when I was a kid just going on I'm sure Josh same question to you actually what would be your choice? Cuz I want you out in the trunk didn't you know Katana to me is one of the coolest weapons man You know and I don't have to worry about running out of ammo because that's the thing you get a zombie horde coming after you got A shotgun what are you gonna? Do when you run out of you know shotgun slugs? Shotgun all right And if not, he can make plastique out of simple household items. That's true. That's true. You can make plastique out of a liquor store basically. Mothball, corn syrup. We talked very

briefly about the old Resident Evil games and fixed-camera games and stuff like that What would you say is the scariest game you've ever played? Resident Evil Silent Hill 2 was a very close second, but that first Resident Evil game I Me and my friend studsy we used to play that every night and it was just Phenomenal when that came out it was like nothing ever played fun on the first PlayStation Yeah, I agree that that felt like that was my first taste of a true evolution in gaming generations When we went from sort of cartridges to Resident Evil, I was like, whoa, what what is this? I was probably too young to experience it if I'm being honest

Whoa, what what is this? I was probably too young to experience it if I'm being honest Last last couple of questions here. What is one horror trope that you love and one horror trope that you hate This is gonna be a knee-jerk reaction. All right Right love This is going to sound so scandalous, right? You know when someone's looking in the mirror and then they close that mirror and you know someone's going to be stood there. American Werewolf in London is like the best closing the mirror and there's someone stood there looking at you. Hi David.. Yeah. Get it every time.

Cause you know they're going to be there. Yeah. Merve had to look behind himself before he answered this question. That's how effective it is though. You've seen it a gazillion times and you're still. It doesn't help that my wife like makes me jump every night. She's just somewhere where I'm not expecting

her to be. So like when I close the mirror, she's generally there anyway, still gets me What about what about the one you hate? I? Talk about my mind and mine is mine is people who go upstairs in a horror movie like just don't ever go upstairs Yeah, man, go always in the track in Blair, which that went really really well. Yeah Man, I what a great movie. Yeah came out. Yeah, but now I would say the one I hate most I complain about the most is if you watch things like

human centipede, which you shouldn't and When people are faced with clearly this is a psychopath and they invite you in and they just go in like what are you doing man? Yeah, that guy who opens the door to the girls at the start of human centipede is like that. Yes I was just doing some something's evil come in Why are you doing? I mean, this is like the most okay Yeah, the most stereotypical evil guy in the world. I mean no no no, you know Typical evil guy in the world. I mean no no no, you know You know, that's actually something that really bothered me about the walking dead, too Did you did you watch that series at all? I?

Did I? Stopped in the end. I just yeah So it became this thing where like basically any time they ran into somebody who was a survivor that was outside of the group They would go. Oh, please help me. We're stuck out here And we just need help like you know with certainty that person is going to try and kill you at some point like just walk away walk away, but they kept helping him out and So much about that show and ended up annoying me like you know What was it where they would be stopped at this lovely place and started picking strawberries.

I'm like that, it's a zombie apocalypse, man. We don't need this melodrama. Oh, and Loan Bowls, someone important got bitten and now they're dead. Like, stupid. Yeah, that was me too. I really loved the first like two seasons of that. And then it just fell off after that.

Yeah. Well, Merv, listen, we're out of time on this. We want to respect your time. We know you've got a lot going on. And we are just so thankful for you to hop on and chat with us, man. Number one, you're a blast to talk to, man. Love the personality.

Can tell we grew up at the same time and all that, too. So it's nice to talk to some fellow OG gamers that understand the greatness that was the 80s. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was really, really fun to talk to both of you. Thanks very much. If you haven't picked this up, we're very excited for Reanimal. Honestly, you guys are making something that looks incredible. Gamers are very opinionated. We're not afraid to say what we think on something. We know that's difficult for, for, you know, people that are making games sometimes too, but there is a lot, a lot of excitement from our community and our listeners and people that we have seen, you know, about ReAnimal. So we know it's a lot

of pressure for you, but things seem to be going very much in the right direction if that allows you to sleep at all. I need to sleep, that puts it off. We'll do our best to give you what you crave. We know you are, and there's a comfort there, there's an excitement there as well for us. Thank you so much for joining us, Merv. We cannot wait to see what you guys create for us and how you can just creep us out and the evolution that you guys are doing with ReAnimal as a

studio too. So we're very, very excited for this. Thank you so much, Murph, for joining us on this episode. That is it for this one, everybody. Make sure you check out Reanimal when it releases. You know, it's the long wait, man. It's the long wait for a game that everybody's hyped for, but we know you guys will do it right. So- Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, before we sign out, Dave, where can people-

Merv. Merv, sorry, Dave. I'm really sorry. Nightmare man, where can people follow Reanimal? On the usual spots, Twitter. I think we even do Instagram, if I remember rightly. Andreas is terrible at TikTok, so probably don't expect too much from that.

You can join our Discord, where we've got a very active Discord server, actually, so it's always nice to see new people on there. Me and Andreas do tend to hide in the shadows there and jump in and chat to people now and again, even though it's very scary for a kid born in the 70s like me. Awesome, well thank you everybody for joining us, that's gonna do it for this one. Until next time, happy gaming! Toodle-loo!