An independent game developer has launched their new horror title ‘Harvest Hunt’ today which was developed by a team of just four people.

Indie game developers, Villainous Studios focuses on creating immersive horror experiences. The studio’s director, Mark Drew discussed the importance of companies like theirs:

“Indie game devs can take bigger risks in game design and in creativity that a bigger studio would say ‘no that won’t sell to the majority’ too. Indie games have to sell to 200,000 people whilst Triple-A has to sell to 50 million people. Those numbers are made up but you get the picture, there’s just more risk.

“Targeting a nicher audience is great because you can create really interesting games. For example, Papers Please. If you pitched that to a Triple-A studio, they’re going to go ‘you just stamp passports? Get outta here.’  But, you can do those kinds of things with indie. That’s what I think gamers want.”

Mark also spoke about the difference between the focuses of Indie titles versus the focus of Triple-A games.

“As an older gamer myself, you also can’t spend 60, 80 or 120 hours in one game, you don’t have that sort of time to spare. That’s why having shorter indie games is important because they are still satisfying like a lovely little desert you can have in the evening. 

“Whereas, the mechanics of bigger games are built so they need your attention all the time cause they have to charge you 100 quid for the game. 

“I think that’s why indie is going to be here forever, it’s an entirely different industry.”

Villainous have released their newest game on steam today which is ‘Harvest Hunt’. The game is a singleplayer, rogue-like where the player has to go out late at night to harvest Ambrosia for their village, all the while being Hunted by a fearsome creature – the Devourer.

Every-night is different from the last and the player can unlock different cards and abilities which will dictate how the night will turn out. Mark told us about their hopes for the player experience.

‘I mean, you’re there for the spooks right so there is a lot of lore we’ve put in there to achieve that; we want you to come out feeling unsettled.’

Their newest release’s unique card mechanic went through a lot of testing to get to where it is now. 

“At the studio we prototype a lot of the stuff.” says Mark, “we prototyped the card system with in hand cards, trying to figure out the mechanics and how that would work every night. It’s a way of doing abilities and exposition in a slightly different way which worked in the physical prototype as well as its different iterations.”

However, developing a game like this one with a smaller team doesn’t come without its challenges.

“Saying no is a challenge.” Says Mark. “We are very strict with ourselves, we have a process we follow, we measure everything we do and we try not to overpromise or underdeliver. We try to stay as close to the core pillars of the game as much as we can to help make those decisions.”

Another big issue Villainous aims to avoid is burnout within their small team. 

“We try to pre-empt Burnout as much as possible by doing simple things like being a four day a week employer with set hours along with being remote workers too. This means people do their work but also get to enjoy their life which is important as well.”

Whilst working in a small team poses some developmental challenges, the team also has a unique perspective on their game through seeing every stage of the process. Mark talked about their love for Harvest Hunt:

“We’ve seen the game in very ugly states so of course we love it like that’s why we’re doing this. In indie you have to love your projects for a long time, you have to have that passion which is great but you also have to have an ability to see the distance.

“I’m sure there’s lots of indie games which never saw the light of day but we want our games to see that.”

The development process is lengthy but once you have a finished product which people can actually play, it’s a unique experience. Mark told us how that is for him:

“My favourite part has been actually seeing it in peoples hands and them playing it for the first time. When you’re playing your game for the 10,000th time, you can’t comprehend the fiction that you’re creating in the players minds so when you see people come away being frightened and enjoying that adrenaline hit from playing it. That’s really special.”

Harvest Hunt is Villainous’ second game having also released Horror Stories: PLEASE COMPLY. The company described the game as a great learning process where they honed their skills before embarking on their bigger projects like Harvest Hunt.

Whilst they do have another project in pre-production called ‘Horror Stories: Welcome Home’ they’re focus is still on Harvest Hunt after launch.

“‘We have a whole bunch of things that I don’t want to spoil yet in the roadmap for Harvest Hunt which we want to get done which were a little bit too big for before launch. I think the rest of the year will be Harvest Hunt, there will be updates and bug fixes.”

Overheat got to play Harvest Hunt when they were at WASD, here are our thoughts.

Our content editor, Ewan said: “The game was so much fun, it was also super creepy which was great. Even in a loud convention hall I was completely immersed and terrified at the right moments. The mechanics are also really unique and I loved the premise behind the card system. I will definitely be checking it out now it has launched.”

Harvest Hunt is out now on Steam – check out the page here