Some people really despise social media while others embrace it. For me I actually embrace it as it allows me to peek into certain projects that I would otherwise be unaware of. One of these was a project being done by an independent studio which is a pixel based game where you play as a raccoon. If this sounds intriguing then let me tell you about the new game by EggNut Studio called Backbone. I recently had a chance to catch up with the folks over at EggNut and this is what they had to say:
TR: Please introduce yourself.
AK: My name is Aleksandra Korabelnikova, I’m a co-founder, project manager and marketing specialist in EggNut Studio. My job is to provide the team with tasks and deadlines, provide results of that work to our lovely community, and it’s just all around the best stuff you could do in the game industry without knowing how to code or make art.
TR: Tell us a bit about EggNut Studio.
AK: EggNut Studio is a small independent team of six creators coming from various backgrounds, countries and careers. Nikita Danshin (game designer, developer and composer for Backbone) and I met on the internet in 2016 over our common love for architectural game design in The Witness, and we immediately decided to start making games together. I’d been working as a sales department head for an IT company back then, so we quickly decided that Nikita was going to build the game, and I’m going to take on the role of a producer.
During 2017 we were joined by talented pixel artists: our senior artist Kristina Dashevskaya, who has background in illustration and design; Kirill Simonenko, who is responsible for frame animation which takes immense amount of concentration and work, and Toma Klepinina, environment artist with an eye keen on little details.
Nikita and Maria (Backbone art director) live in Vancouver, Kirill, Kristina and I live in Russia, and Toma travels the world, so from Day 1 we’ve been working as a remote development team. We got on calls after our full-time office jobs and during the weekends, working on the concept of what was going to become Backbone. Suddenly we found ourselves following deadlines, nights spent working on the game became more frequent, and we realized that Backbone is our dream project and game development is not just a hobby, but an industry we see ourselves in in the future. We want to tell engaging stories about the human condition, share our art with people, and games are just the best medium for that.
TR: Tell us more about your newest project Backbone.
AK: In its core, Backbone is a retrofuturistic noir adventure starring a raccoon detective with stealth and action elements. As private investigator Howard Lotor, you are set to solve detective cases, interrogate witnesses, explore the intriguing and dangerous world around you, and sneak your way to safety using smell-based stealth mechanics. Taking place in dystopian Vancouver, Backbone focuses on themes of power, corruption and systemic discrimination.
Stylistically, Backbone is a fusion of film noir with anthropomorphic animals, retrofuturistic technologies, and dystopian fiction. Hi-res pixel art combined with modern 3D engine effects, moody dark jazz original soundtrack, and narrative-driven gameplay create a movie-like experience.
TR: What are some of the elements that make this game unique.
AK: Our goal is to recreate the feeling of real detective investigation in Backbone. We met a private detective from Vancouver on Reddit recently, and he’s been an invaluable source of information on how real investigation is conducted. An important element of the detective work is deduction – so the game will offer little in the way of hints or direction, and it’s purely up to the player to figure out what things mean and where to go next. That’s not to say the world of Backbone will be like open RPGs – it’s still an adventure game, but players will definitely feel some sort of freedom in exploration of dystopian Vancouver and its crimes, inhabitants and social systems.
Another important element is scent-based gameplay mechanics. In the animal world, smell your most powerful sense. Characters can locate Howard by smell, and vice versa, so to sneak past hostile environments and discover the clues you will sometimes need to mask your scent through a quick hop into a garbage bin. Howard is also able to sniff out the evidence and follow the trail left by characters and objects.
Visually, Backbone is a unique blend of pixel art and 3D effects in Unreal Engine like multi-layered backgrounds, parallaxing, dynamic lighting and lens flares adds to the cinematic feeling of the game. Sprawling city, contrasting silhouettes against the setting sun, dust particles, neon signs and steaming sewer hatches enhance the noir atmosphere of the city.
TR: Tell us a bit about the setting and the main character of Backbone.
AK: Backbone is set in Vancouver – one of the most beautiful and noir cities in the world, and we knew right away what streets, landmarks and favorite spots to include in the game. Vancouver finally plays itself!
Backbone’s dystopian Vancouver is populated by anthropomorphic animals – like any sci-fi setting, this too is a reflection upon the human condition. Initially, we chose this setting because stealth mechanics based on smell work really well in the world of animals. But as pre-production went by, we began to drive more parallels between the story we want to tell and the setting.
Different species of anthropomorphic animals have their own characteristics, but the interpretation of these features is the property of the society. Unfortunately, we live in the world that reflects a lot of themes we want to talk about in Backbone: institutionalized discrimination, thick glass ceilings, poverty, huge gaps between classes and the immense amount of power given to the oligarchy. That’s the main reason why we are not making a fun and colorful game about Vancouver and raccoons, we just have to reflect what is going on in the world and spark a conversation, hopefully.
The main character of Backbone, Howard Lotor is a raccoon private investigator. He doesn’t feel like he belongs in the grander system, an empathetic guy who prefers wits to violence in dire situations. His mundane life is interrupted with the appearance of a powerful technology that can blur the lines of conventional order and change society forever. We would like for players to discover Howard’s personality and empathize with him as the game progresses.
TR: Right now you have the project on Kickstarter. What are some the rewards you have for people that pledge?
AK: Backbone’s Kickstarter campaign offers plenty of awesome rewards for any pledge level. For a discounted price of $15 you can grab a copy of the game, and for a slightly higher pledge you can participate in development in a backer-only Discord community, put your name in the game credits, and get some sweet digital rewards. Classic rewards like physical copies of the game ($35), posters ($60), t-shirts ($66), and art books ($70) are available together with unique ones like a dystopian Vancouver newspaper filled with imaginary city news together with a pixel art postcard ($50).
Some higher tiers include a limited Unsolved Case ($200) – a realistic detective case file, hand crafted adventure with photos, reports, testimonies, evidence and paw prints. This one will let you solve a crime from Backbone before even playing the game! Backbone Diorama ($180) is a custom hand crafted picture of a scene from the game, every sprite is cut, colored, and glued on to create a 2.5D effect in real life! Also keep your eye on limited digital rewards like naming an NPC after yourself or getting a custom pixel art portrait.
TR: What happens if you don’t hit that goal?
AK: Right now, at 14 days left and 75% funded, we’re pretty sure the campaign is going to be a success. With the goal of $50k covered, that would be enough to sustain our team for a year of development on minimal wage. Of course, we have a plan B – there are several publishers who want to work with us. Modern indie publishers are great: they leave the IP to the creator, help you in any way they can, and sharing the cut of profit is not a problem at all, because for us it is much more important to release this game at all than to earn 100% profit from it.
If we decide not to go with the publishers, the team will just continue to work at the current tempo and release the game in several years, instead of just one. Even in the worst case scenario, Kickstarter has been an amazing experience and it brought us an awesome community of people who believed in our idea so much that they invested money in it. It’s priceless!
TR: What would be your dream project to work on?
AK: We already have concepts for two upcoming games from EggNut that are going to be developed simultaneously – adventure and RPG united by the same setting. Personally, my dream has been to develop a game about a witch hunt, because the topic is so rich and nuanced and I’d love to explore how that period influenced the history of women and society in general.
And there you have it folks! If you want to check out the Kickstarter you can go here to check it out! So go ahead and support this project because it’s not everyday you can play as a private investigator that’s also a raccoon.
