Q&A with: Joel Staaf Hästö, creator of Kathy Rain

The Swedish indie-developer is making new point & click adventures in the style of the LucasArts classics.

Joel Staaf Hästö is a seasoned game developer with a rich background, having worked at several renowned studios, including Paradox Interactive. In 2016, he ventured into the world of indie game development by founding his own company, through which he released the critically acclaimed retro-inspired adventure game Kathy Rain. We asked Joel to share his experiences of starting an indie studio and to give us a glimpse of what to expect from the much-anticipated Kathy Rain 2.

What can we expect from Kathy Rain 2?

Compared to the original game, Kathy Rain 2 is better using almost any metric. We have taken great care to create a sequel that tries to retain what made Kathy Rain special, whilst still innovating on the formula in new and exciting ways.

First of all, this is a bigger game, larger in scope, and with a more well-polished narrative than before. We have taken the leap from a small-town mystery to an urban thriller set in a gritty city, with greater stakes and more exciting twists and turns.

We have also made a number of graphics upgrades, with a crisper and more detailed pixel art style, including a higher resolution and larger character sprites. These are made even more pretty by the introduction of modern technical features like dynamic lighting and reflections. Lastly, unlike our previous games, Kathy Rain 2 features what we refer to as cinematics — pixel art cutscenes with larger characters and cinematic camera angles, similar to what you might see in an animated show.

On the audio side, original composer Daniel Kobylarz returns better than ever, taking the style of Kathy Rain in a more electronic direction. Of course, a Clifftop title also wouldn’t be the same without our signature world class voice overs, with Arielle Siegel returning in the lead role and likely more to follow in the supporting cast!

Why do you think we never seem to tire of point-and-click adventure games?

I think that’s because point-and-click adventure games tap into some timeless qualities; In my view, these games are first and foremost about telling a story, and as we all know storytelling is an ancient form of human expression, perhaps even older than language itself.The puzzle elements come secondary to me, and while some level of challenge is part of the formula, I think their main purpose is to act as an interactive bridge to have the player engage with the story.

Which engine do you use for this game, and what are its advantages and disadvantages?

We use Unity. Some of the advantages are robustness, portability, a good selection of plugins and assets and an active dev community. Some of the disadvantages are expensive license fees and the loss of trust for the engine following the highly publicized license fee debacle last year.

What are your main sources of inspiration, both from games and other forms of media?
For Kathy Rain 1, I would say that some of the main inspirations were Twin Peaks, Veronica Mars, Silent Hill, Buffy, and Gabriel Knight.
Kathy Rain 2, being a direct sequel, obviously shares some of these influences, but we’ve made a notable transition from a small-town mystery to a hard-boiled noir thriller set in a big city. A noteworthy new influence for the sequel would be the 1995 David Fincher movie, S7ven.

Whispers of a Machine was inspired mainly by Deus Ex and Nordic-Noir crime dramas, particularly the Bridge.

You left a big studio to start your own. How confident were you that you were going to make it?

My game was signed by a publisher before I left that studio, so I was certainly confident that I would be able to release the game with the help of their funding. I wasn’t very confident that it would become the success that it is today though!

And what do you think are the biggest differences between creating games in Sweden versus Norway?

I would say that the size of the game industry overall is the biggest difference: The Swedish game industry is fairly substantial in size and well-renowned internationally with several large AAA studios and countless indies spread across the country. As far as I understand, that is not the case to the same degree in Norway, even though there are a number of successful and prominent studios there too. So, this would probably limit the amount of funding and networking opportunities available to Norwegian developers compared to Swedish ones.

I also believe the same pattern applies to education, where game development education programs in Sweden have made greater strides over the years than their equivalents in Norway, opening a few more doors for aspiring developers here.

Thank you so much, Joel, for taking the time to answer our questions.

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