Wailing Heights Interview
We sat down with Stephen Downey, the director of Wailing Heights, to find out some more about the game.
First of all, could you tell us a little bit about the game and why our readers will be excited for it?
Wailing Heights is a body-hopping, musical adventure game! It introduces players to a town of supernatural homeowners; hipster vampires, vegan werewolves, soulful zombies and other horrific taxpayers. The game incorporates a soundtrack of original songs, classic adventure-style gameplay, and a great comicbook art style. It also features a fantastically crazy story from Kevin Beimers of Italic Pig.
If you’ve played Hector: Badge of Carnage and Schrödinger's Cat and The Raiders of the Lost Quark, you’ll know exactly the kind of humour and imagination Kevin brings to a story.
You describe the game as “Part point & click adventure, part sardonic crime thriller”, can you tell us a little more about the mechanics of the game?
Although you do control the characters directly via controller or keyboard, the game is very influenced mechanically by Point & Click adventures. As the game opens, Frances Finklestein, one-time manager and songwriter for the greatest pop-rock band in Brit-Pop history, The Deadbeats, is trapped in a Wailing Heights prison cell, for the sole crime of ‘Being Alive’. You meet a mysterious stranger who teaches you how to ‘Body-hop’ using a Musical Possession Wheel. Completing song lyrics, by finding an item they Love, Hate, and their Real Name, will allow you to possess other bodies (dead or undead). Each type of creature has their special ability (Hipster vampires can turn into Hipster bats, Werewolves can track down smells…). This is where the ‘Point & Click adventure’ aspect comes in as you talk to characters in town, listen to songs and solve puzzles to build your inventory of items and lyrics that allows you to finish your possession song and get out of Wailing Heights!
The game has a very striking hand-drawn design, was that something that you always planned for or has it arrived organically through the design process?
I’m a big fan of 2D artwork in games, especially visuals that show up crisp and bright on a screen. The hand drawn art style was planned from very early in development as my own background is as a comic book artist, and we wanted to play to our strengths. Our lead artist John McFarlane is also a fantastic up-and-coming comic book artist (though we’ve been able to distract him with games for now), and with the subject matter in hand, especially references to old EC (Entertaining Comics) comics and pulp horror tropes, it seemed like a great fit.
With the mix of horror and Rock n Roll, there’s been a few comparisons to The Rocky Horror Show. Was that a conscious influence on you? Where do you find inspiration for your story?
I’ve heard the comparison, and it’s a natural one, but I can’t say it was too much of an inspiration. I’ve never even seen more than a few clips of the movie personally. The concept of the game comes from a lot of odd influences, I guess. I remember early in the concept notes stage, I had scribbled down a comparison to ‘Gilmore Girls’ Stars Hollow’ but populated by modern monsters’. When co-producer, Scott Grandison, and I were chatting over early mechanics and when he brought up ‘Ghost Trick,’ we thought it might be interesting to possess other creatures, rather than objects, which presents lots of scope for interesting character puzzles and stories.
A lot of the fun came from sitting down with Kevin Beimers and thinking of interesting ways to twist the old horror tropes, such as Leg End, the hipster vampire singer-songwriter who is addicted to garlic powder because of the thrill of death it brings.
The main narrative of the game really came from Kevin’s twisted genius and no one quite knows where he pulls his material from. I’m not sure I’d want to know.
We’ve seen a huge resurgence in point-and-click games in the last few years, what do you think has drawn people back into the genre?
I think narrative tales are making a comeback in general.
Adventure games are the perfect media for story-led games, as often, the gameplay and puzzles are based on getting to know the characters and scenarios in the game, with the purpose of progressing the story.
There were always narrative games, of course, but it seems for a long time the focus was on cool mechanics and ‘versus’ gameplay and players are now craving a good story.
You’ve worked with a lot of big name comic book artists on this project, can we expect to see some spin off series to come alongside the game?
We’ve definitely brought on some comic industry big-hitters, with designs from artist illumni such as Glenn Fabry (Preacher) and John McCrea (Hitman, Batman).
Comic books are actually quite integrated within the game, with a lot of our cutscenes drawn as comic stories. The characters you possess early in the game also have comic book ‘origins’ from creators such as Maura McHugh (Jennifer Wilde, Hellboy’s The Witchfinder), Cy Dethan (Starship Troopers, Cancertown), Tara O’Connor (Roots) that you can read after you possess them. I think we’ve only hinted at the weird and wonderful town of Wailing Heights and I would really love to flesh the world out as a comic book series.
What’s been your proudest moment in the design process so far?
I think having the town centre finished and the players walking around in the scene. We made the choice to feature 2D assets on a 3D plane while experimenting with the town centre, and I think it makes a really nice visual, that really shines when you see the characters in action.
I think also seeing John’s artwork in that town scene was pretty spectacular and satisfying. When the game artwork turns out a whole level better than you are imagining, you’re proud you have formed the right team for the project.
Technical, budgetary and development limitations aside for a moment, what feature would you add to the game?
One idea we had while we were working out the mechanics at the start is that everyone in the town was possessable. Practically, this didn’t make for a concise story, not to mention the sheer volume of assets, animations and dialogue needed (we already have over 4000 lines of recorded dialogue!) and ultimately it would have made for a messier game, with less narrative cohesion, but it’s an interesting feature to consider.
Rodney McConnel, our programer, is a machine, but I think if I tried to add even one more feature he’d have a nervous breakdown.
Are there any plans for more content for Wailing Heights, or are you looking to start a new story?
There are quite a few pages of concept art that didn’t make it into the game, so there is more material to a call upon, and there are definitely half-joking ideas floating around the studio for a sequel or stand-alone DLC. At the minute though, I’m trying to bury all those ideas so we can concentrate on making the game really awesome as it is. They’re all burst to the surface on release day, I’m sure.
What games are being played in the Outsider Studios offices, when you’re not playing Wailing Heights?
There is a complete ban on video games in the Outsider Games studio until we add the final polish to Wailing Heights. Joking aside, there hasn’t been much time to play recently for me personally. I dip into Halo 5 for short murderous breaks, but Fallout 4 and Witcher 3 are sealed in the box until Wailing Heights launch day.
We do get the chance for a session of Euro Train Simulator in the studio every now and again. It’s all the travel a game dev needs...
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