“Charming and charismatic meets unsettling and grotesque.”
I was so taken with one game atEGX 2023that I returned to play it every day I was there.
Most of them are semi-willing to go back inside but some big ones you will need to fight first.
It sounds simple but I couldn’t stop going back to play it.
Perhaps I was under the influence of a Capturing Ritual myself.
Alex de la Cour is the team leader, artist and one of the programmers.
Jan Huss is also one of the programmers, a producer and audio designer.
They both wear a lot of hats, as they say.
Eurogamer: The horror-Pokemon concept seems to have really captured people’s Imaginations.
Where did it come from?
Alex de la Cour:Book of Abominations is an eldritch horror-themed monster-collecting RPG.
In a nutshell, it’s Pokemon meets Lovecraftian horror with elements of JRPG turn-based combat thrown in.
I came up with the idea quite a while ago.
Everyone commented things like: “You should make that game!”
“Sounds like such a cool game idea!”
Then I was like, you know what?
I should make it.
That was a few years ago.
Was the pixel art style one of the first things you decided on?
Alex de la Cour:Kind of alongside it.
Pixel art is the only artistic medium that I know at all.
I love it far too much.
It was absolutely charming when I played it - the art style was lovely.
I still have the stickers.
Jan Huss:Yes!
Alex de la Cour:Awesome.
Charming is what we’re going for - charming and charismatic meets unsettling and grotesque.
Book of Abominations grew out of the DARE Academy.
Can you explain a bit about what that is?
Jan Huss:We didn’t know what DARE Academy was until two years ago.
You get to apply as an undergrad student with a team of two-to-eight people.
Once you get in, you do a hot-housing month with industry professionals.
You work on the game all summer until you go down to EGX to showcase it.
It’s an incredible opportunity that Abertay provides.
But I’d like to think that we did well.
Alex de la Cour:We won every award on offer so I think we did okay!
Jan Huss:Yeah.
I don’t want to cause any trouble!
How much of that can we dedicate to designing and animating monsters, all their different forms and phases?
Animating monsters is probably the most time consuming part of the artistic process for me.
Its my favourite part.
It’s also something that I need to rein myself in.
As far as how many, it could be fifty, it could be one-hundred.
Eurogamer: Are we going to be able to catch multiples of the same species of monster?
Jan Huss:The idea is that you will only be able to capture a monster once per game.
So it’s a little bit of a different spin.
If you have twenty of them, it loses a little bit of that connection.
I did feel a connection with the slimy green one at EGX.
Jan Huss:That’s my favourite.
[Alex de la Cour’s favourite is the monster with several tentacles and eyes.]
Can you battle the monsters against each other with inter-team fights amongst your own?
Or do they make up a team to battle a specific set enemy?
Alex de la Cour:That’s something we have not considered.
We like giving ourselves extra workload!
Jan Huss:That’s the way to put it!
The audio seems to bring a lot to the atmosphere.
Was this a deliberate focus before you went in, or did it emerge organically?
Jan Huss:We were looking at previous monster-collecting games and there’s always been a digital aspect.
For example, in the older Pokemon games, that’s all they had.
They couldn’t use actual sounds and I wanted to stay with that as well, a little bit.
I felt like, why not go modern with something that could look from an older timeline?
I hope I did the music justice!
Jan Huss:Thank you.
You’ve both mentioned eldritch horror a few times.
Is that an important influence for you - is that your favourite genre?
I play quite a lot of Bloodborne, which is pretty much it.
But we both play Dungeons & Dragons.
We do have certain eldritch themes pop up every now and again.
And the more the merrier.
Or is it completely separate and you weave the monsters into it?
Alex de la Cour:I think it’s quite separate.
We weave the story into that, but it’s very much still a work in progress.
Alex de la Cour:I would imagine it will probably be maybe somewhere in between the two.
You have your central area that branches off into a few other places.
Yeah, I’d say somewhere between the two.
It sounds like a good blend of modern and retro.
Alex de la Cour:For me, there’s a lot of pixel art game influences.
I’m a bit older so I grew up with Super Nintendo and Sega Mega Drive generation of games.
A lot of ideas or inspiration [for me] comes from that game/series.
So, all pixel art relaxed.
Alex de la Cour:You played some of the older Pokemon games right?
How did you land on turn-based combat?
I’m a big Final Fantasy fan, so that felt like a natural jumping off point for me.
How does one of the best turn-based combat games do it?
Where do we go from there?
There were some other games where we looked at how they do it.
And they stand out.'
That’s going to be a very big part of the next stage [of development].
Speaking of development, what has been the most difficult part of the early process for you?
Jan Huss:I think a difficult part might have been fusing the combat system with the capturing system.
That was one of the biggest challenges.
Are you OK if I use that?
[de la Cour agrees]
Originally, you could just capture a monster when you start a battle.
There was no incentive to battle them, which was a huge core mechanic.
We want it to be a strategic experience.
We don’t want to just have this whole experience of just battling or capturing.
That was a real like okay, how do we make that not the case?
How do we make it cohesive and feel like you oughta do a little bit of both?
Jan Huss:We got there!
Alex de la Cour:Yeah, and the game got tremendously improved for it.
Did you find that feedback like that was a massive factor in how it has turned out so far?
Alex de la Cour:Definitely.
It was invaluable for it to be what it is.
What has been your favourite part of making your game so far?
[Audible silence.]
I feel like I’ve thrown a spanner in the works.
[They laugh.]
I could do that all day, every day.
Saying it’s been life changing would be not at all hyperbolic.
It’s been so cool.
Jan Huss:For myself, probably the equivalent of what Alex just said.
It’s really been an amazing experience.
Again, meeting amazing people too.
EGX was fantastic and we got to meet so many good people through the competition itself.
Getting good feedback on the game, too - hearing it from the public.
I need to check it out."
Then they play it, waxing lyrical about how good it is.
It still feels really awesome.
People liked our game?
I came back every day to play it, so you’re definitely on to something.
Jan Huss:Aw, thats really good to hear - thank you!
Alex de la Cour:Thank you.
That was such a crazy thing at EGX.
Seeing people coming back to play this every single day.
I thought they were joking - then they came back the next day!
Jan Huss:There was another person who went ‘game over’.
They were so close to defeating the boss and said, “This was absolutely amazing.
What an amazing experience.”
Then a day later, they came back with their friends and sat down instantaneously.
Their two friends said they had told them they needed to go back and defeat this game.
The dust has settled and reality is finally sinking in.
Alex de la Cour:We’re aiming for three years.
Where do you envision Book of Abominations going and what are you most excited about?
[Audible Silence again.]
There goes another spanner!
[They laugh again.]
Alex de la Cour:We’re trying to stay grounded, right?
Jan Huss:Pretty much what Alex just said, the sky’s the limit right now for us.
Before, wed just started so we want to keep on working on the game.
We’ve just taken a week’s break right now just to catch up with uni work, decompress.
But we really can’t wait to keep on going.
It’s going to be very exciting.
