Post Trauma is a brand new horror recreation that takes its cues in terms of ambiance and recreation design from classics of the style like Silent Hill. Nevertheless, the sport manages to usher in the identical sense of surreal spookiness whereas trying fairly sharp due to its use of a contemporary engine. Developer Pink Soul Video games was form sufficient to reply a number of of our burning questions in regards to the title, together with its exploration, fight, and puzzle design.
Observe: This interview was carried out earlier than the sport’s launch date.
“Put up Trauma is extra of a puzzle horror recreation than a pure survival horror.”
Put up Trauma takes inspiration from survival horror classics like Silent Hill and Resident Evil, which is an attractive elevator pitch for any fan of the style, however given the large growth in reputation that horror video games have loved in recent times, what about Put up Trauma is it that you simply’re hoping will catch the attention of the audiences?
The ambiance, the world, the superb rating that Myuu composed, and our characters. We took inspiration from these video games, however we tried to make one thing our personal that hopefully gamers see has its personal persona, and so they’ll vibe with it.
The survival horror style tends to put heavy emphasis on exploration, with interconnected and looping degree design that encourages (and sometimes even necessitates) backtracking. Is that one thing that we will anticipate to see in Put up Trauma as effectively?
Put up Trauma is extra of a puzzle horror recreation than a pure survival horror.
It’s important to method every location as a giant escape room, so that you’ll need to discover every location, discover clues and unlock shortcuts. There may be some backtracking, however not over lengthy distances.
After you full a degree, the story will transfer you ahead to the subsequent location. While you revisit beforehand recognized areas, there will probably be new challenges for you that don’t require data from earlier ranges.
What are you able to inform us in regards to the selection in areas that gamers will probably be visiting all through the size of the sport?
In trailers, most of what now we have proven is the subway station, however now we have quite a lot of the same old locations you anticipate in a horror recreation, like a college, a hospital or a police station, however we even have some bizarre ranges…
“It’s important to method every location as a giant escape room”
Talking of selection, what number of completely different sorts of enemies and monstrosities will gamers come throughout in Put up Trauma? And transferring past common enemies, what’s the recreation’s method to boss fights?
Excluding bosses, now we have not less than seven completely different enemy varieties within the recreation and I’m planning on including extra and possibly rising the variety of encounters.
There are three boss fights within the recreation, two of them are precise fights, and the opposite one is extra like an environmental puzzle.
I do need to make it clear that Put up Trauma just isn’t a combat-heavy recreation. There are enemies, they’ll kill you, and you’ll lose progress in the event that they do. However the focus of the sport is on the ambiance and the puzzles.
Replayability tends to be an important a part of survival horror video games. What ought to gamers anticipate from Put up Trauma on that entrance, particularly with issues reminiscent of collectibles, unlockables, modes, issue ranges, and the like?
I’ve arrange the sport to assist these in future free updates and I’ve a number of in thoughts. However as of proper now, there aren’t any replayability options.
However you possibly can play the sport from the beginning on onerous mode, if you wish to.
How will Put up Trauma sort out fight? Is that this a combat-focused expertise, or does the sport afford gamers the liberty to method conditions how they need? And talking of fight, what number of completely different sorts of weapons can we anticipate?
This isn’t a combat-focused expertise. In spite of everything, more often than not you might be taking part in as an previous man who by no means needed to combat for his life.
Exterior of bosses and the enemy on the tutorial part, you aren’t compelled to kill every other enemies within the recreation. However, after all, if an enemy is in a hallway it’s important to cross a number of instances, you’ll have to cope with the danger and potential of dying if it assaults you.
We’ve a mixture of ranged and melee weapons within the recreation. Ranged weapons are highly effective, however the ammo, I need to say, is kind of scarce.
“More often than not you might be taking part in as an previous man who by no means needed to combat for his life.”
Puzzle design is one other core part of any survival horror expertise, however video games don’t all the time nail this half, with many discovering it tough to correctly stability not holding the gamers’ palms towards not being overly obscure. What has been your method to puzzles over the course of the sport’s growth?
We tried to not handhold gamers an excessive amount of. You’ll have to take note of your environment and take notes, or pictures, of the completely different clues you discover round you.
The thought with the puzzles was that, even in the event you get caught on one among them, as quickly as somebody explains the answer, your response needs to be “oh, I used to be overthinking it! That is smart”.
If you wish to make the puzzles really feel rewarding, it’s merely not doable to make a puzzle recreation through which completely nobody will get caught. We tried our greatest to discover a good candy spot, however I choose it if the participant solves 9 puzzles and will get caught on one for a bit bit, quite than beating 10 with out considering in any respect.
Put up Trauma has impressed many from a visible perspective, however what was the choice to go together with its extra fashionable aesthetic as in comparison with one thing like pre-rendered backgrounds, particularly given the sport’s nature as a throwback survival horror expertise?
I’m the kind of participant who, in the event you give me photograph mode in a recreation, I’ll spend extra time taking screenshots than really taking part in the sport. Doing a recreation with fastened cameras was onerous, however I additionally had quite a lot of enjoyable with it.
Put up Trauma began as a solo dev journey, and that dictated quite a lot of the decision-making. Opposite to what lots of people consider, doing a recreation with pre-rendered backgrounds is tougher than doing it this manner, and with pre-rendered backgrounds we couldn’t do quite a lot of the digicam photographs we did. In quite a lot of locations, the digicam strikes with you and the participant can affect the digicam view a bit bit.
Roughly how lengthy will a median playthrough of Put up Trauma be?
It’ll rely quite a bit in your playstyle. I’ve seen gamers beat the sport as quick as 5 hours and I’ve seen others beat it in additional than 10, however most gamers, I consider, will take round six or seven hours.
