Fourattic, an indie developer that started up in Spain a few years ago, are nearing a successful finish to their Kickstarter for Crossing Souls: An Adventure Between Life and Death.
Crossing Souls is an old-school adventure RPG that has elements of various games. It has the gameplay of the old top-down The Legend of Zelda games while implementing a story as immersive as a Final Fantasy game.
We caught up with Fourattic on the heels of their Kickstarter campaign that ends in five days. As of this post, they are just a couple thousand dollars away from reaching their goal. Let’s learn more about the inspiration, music, and the team behind Crossing Souls.
GS: What was the inspiration behind the idea of Crossing Souls?
FA: We wanted to make what we really liked — games. So we sat down and thought what plot fascinated us more. We missed those kind of movies you used to love when you were a child. Stories where everything was possible and where any kid could become a hero living an unique adventure.
We love old games too, so we just had to mix those ingredients and Crossing Souls came out. With it, the team wants to revive those childhood feelings. We want to develop a funny and profound game, with a great plot that can make the player remember those times with a bit of nostalgia.
We all are guys who grew up in small towns. We had a beautiful childhood and we love when we remember it. We used a towel as a cape, a broomstick as a sword, or have had a hidden cabin in the outskirts of town. That’s the kind of feeling we want to “refloat” with this game. That kind of friendship you used to see in the movies cited above…
“We love old games too, so we just had to mix those ingredients and Crossing Souls came out.”
GS: How long has the game been in development?
FA: Well, the game is now live on Kickstarter! There is only a few days left to finish our campaign. We have been working hard to set up the Kickstarter (about 6 months) and now is time to create a community around the game that help us along the development. So we started to share all our works basically since we started with the idea and have our first material that doesn’t make your eyes bleed (haha)!
We can say the game has been in our heads for more or less 10 months, but we only have worked on it in five or six of them. We had to pay the rent and a couple of extra jobs had to be done before we were able to focus on Crossing Souls. Once we finished them, we were “free” and started working on the game and the campaign 24/7!
GS: How much has been completed?
FA: Combat mechanics, character swapping and movement, interaction with NPCs or the dead zone switcher… We have plenty of things implemented but in a very rough way. Once the Kickstarter ends, we have to sit down and start polishing all that code. We still have to design some new locations, NPCs, and a few more enemies.
The codebase of the game is made, so we will use this year of development to polish it up, add lots of content, and make the best game possible!
GS: The 80’s-style cartoon cut scenes are a great idea, especially with the theme of Crossing Souls. Who is behind the artwork and production of it?
FA: Juanga is the guy who is in charge of them! He’s very good at animation and you should expect an improvement in the quality of the cutscenes in the final game as these ones were created for this trailer and we needed to get them done ASAP!
GS: Are items like the T-shirt and art book only available through Kickstarter add-ons or will they be available to purchase at a later date?
FA: They are exclusive Kickstarter items for now. We would like to put them on sale once the game is finished but we don’t really know if we’ll get the enough funds to print them again to be honest… We’ll try our best though!
“Since the game is very influenced by 80s movies, cartoons, and music, we were very interested in looking for that style of music typical of those years.”
GS: One thing that’s been an emphasis in Crossing Souls is the soundtrack and it’s quite impressive. How did you discover the music producers for the game?
FA: We believe that music is an important part of a video game and so it is in Crossing Souls. Since the game is very influenced by 80s movies, cartoons, and music, we were very interested in looking for that style of music typical of those years.
We really love synthpop music and we listen to a lot of Soundcloud playlists while we’re working. One day, “Childhood Memories”, a track composed by Timecop1983, came up and we fell in love with it.
Instantly, we sent an email asking him to collaborate with us as we need some tracks in our Kickstarter video. He agreed and made “Mercury” which is one of the awesome tracks we use in our video. We knew people would love his music and a lot of the melancholic feel that Crossing Souls has is because of his music.
We’re really lucky for having him with us. The game wouldn’t be the same without his wonderful music!
GS: What consoles were you planning to port the game to if there were enough resources to do so? What about iOS or Android?
FA: Well, we are talking a lot about this topic recently. Our priority at first is develop the game to PC, Mac, and Linux. Then, when everything runs perfectly, we’ll seek for new horizons.
We’ve just launched an update talking about our second priority (after finishing the developing for computers): Sony. We really would love to see our game on PS4 or Vita! Nothing is official yet because we are in a very early stage of development — we have not even finished our Kickstarter yet (haha)! But if it seems like everything is going to be OK, then we could make the console port.
About IOS and Android ports: We thought that Crossing Souls is a very extensive game for these platforms, and the gameplay experience would not be the best. But we haven’t stopped thinking about it.
GS: Are there any other ideas for future releases from Fourattic?
FA: We are constantly creating new plots and worlds in our notebooks and we do have a couple of great ideas for games that we will like to develop in the future. But, it is too soon to take them under consideration right now. We are totally focused on Crossing Souls and can’t think of anything else. So we’ll talk about them after finishing this game (and if everything goes well!).
We are constantly creating new plots and worlds in our notebooks and we do have a couple of great ideas for games that we will like to develop in the future.
GS: How long has Fourattic been assembled?
FA: This started up about two years ago. We were four friends who wanted to make something different. There weren’t too many jobs in Spain due to the “crisis” so we talked about creating our own company. Since then, we have made all kind of jobs like websites, mobile apps and mobile casual games. But a year ago, we decided we just wanted to make games only. So…here we are!
Again, for those that want to help fund Crossing Souls, check out their Kickstarter page here. We thank the crew at Fourattic for taking the time to answer our questions, and we wish them the best of luck that the game reaches their goal.
First image credit: Fourattic
Second/third image credit: The Verge
