Bringing an expansive world full of scary enemies to take down with a deep story makes games enthralling and grasp our attention as we go further through the game. Oh did I say world? I meant space, because that’s where the upcoming Cradle Games feature called Hellpoint will be set in!
This game is going to put you on a space ship and face various scary looking aliens and humanoid creatures! It looks like a sci-fi version to the popular dark RPG series Dark Souls.
Story
Hellpoint is an occult and mind-bending adventure taking place on a giant space station which is orbiting around a mysterious black hole. The story happens in the aftermath of a quantum catastrophe called the Merge. At the beginning of the game, your character is 3D printed by a mysterious force called the Authority and you are forced to take part in a strange experiment.
A good deal of the experience is to explore and unravel the epic mysteries that lead to the Merge and the opportunities that now lies in front of you. That’s whenever you achieve to survive the violent mobs and cosmic entities that are roaming on board the station.
Interview with Matt Boudreau
What inspired you to make this game?
“The universe of the game is surely inspired by my passion for metal music and the soundscape that it created in my mind. Bands like Tool, Meshuggah, old school In Flames, Augury, Nine inch nails. So, it stuck with me this vision of unfathomable horrors occurring behind space and this “great fear of the unknown” that Lovecraft nailed so well. We’re also taking inspirations from a few classic ’90 horror flicks like Event Horizon, Dark City, Spawn and Hellraiser. We’re bringing frights and horrors that does not rely on gratuitous gore, we want to go deeper than that. For the gameplay, as a kid we had many hopes for what video games would become but eventually it took that Hollywood interactive movie tangent, for like a decade, and that didn’t connect with me at all. We want to bring back elements of “abstract” level design like the old Doom games, and really create a living world that exists, evolves and is not centered solely around the player like in the Truman show.”
What genre would you say it fits best?
“Hellpoint is definitely a “souls-like” game. This defines an action RPG with intricate level design, deep lore, tough enemies and boss fights, and tactical combat that involves stamina management. It presents itself as a horror sci fi adventure.”
Will there be multiplayer options?
“The game currently supports split screen local coop and PvP. This is already included in the demo of the game so you can try it right now. It’s a good old “press start to join” thing, both players receives the loot and if one player dies, a creepy ghost spawns and wander the location so you have to defeat him to regain your XP. In the final game, you’ll be able to save player two on its own profile and play the game from beginning to end with a friend.
We’re looking into including online multiplayer but we can’t confirm anything on that regard for the moment.”
Who is your target audience?
“We’re focusing on the gamer crowd. It took From Software to prove to the industry that this is a viable market so it really makes things easier for us in that regard. We pretty much won the seal of approval from the Dark Souls community, they saw and played what we can achieve and are looking forward to what we’ll come up with next. Sci fi fans, horror fans, metal heads, couch buddies and gamer couples will also find their fill with the split screen multiplayer features. We’ve received lots of feedback that Hellpoint was a nice point of entry for the souls-like genre, so if you couldn’t get into Dark Souls despite your best efforts, you might find Hellpoint slightly more accessible.
Overall I think we’re doing a pretty good job at connecting with our audience, people can always find us on Discord at pretty much any time. We’re proposing our vision, then factoring in their reactions and ideas. It’s a fascinating and very fun process!”
What kind of weapons and tools will players be able to use?
“We’ve got quite a varied arsenal and the sci fi setting is great to go a little crazy. We got hi tech mechanized melee weapons that changes shape depending on the attack you perform, we got plasma weapons, you can even fight with the eyeball of one of the game’s boss. The more you fight with a weapon, the more you develop skills with it and eventually you unlock weapon abilities, like an axe throw, a huge staff explosion, temporary plasma weapon extensions, and many more. We have a variety of range weapons as well that can greatly affect the way you fight. We also came up with a “power editor” which allows you to tweak and customize your “magic powers” like for example with a simple projectile spell you can tweak its speed, size and range and add modifiers like explosions or rebounds, etc.”
How long has it been in development?
“We’ve been working on the game full time for a little over a year and a half.”
What's been your favorite part of the game development process so far?
“Honestly, just working with an awesome team composed of some of the greatest talents in town (ex-Ubisoft, Activision). It’s just amazing what we’re able to produce with seven people. We see that our pipeline really works great which makes us very excited for all that we can do in the future.
I like the experience that results from the choices of game rules that we made. It is very unpredictable so it keeps you well awake (I tend to get sleepy easily while playing most games) and makes your brain tick about all the possibilities, the puzzling elements of the world and how the station works in relation to its orbit around the black hole. Reading fans theories have proven to be a fascinating experience and overall we sure intend to continue deeper in that direction.”
Check out the Trailer:
Hellpoint is expected to launch March 2018 for PC, Linux, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4. You can follow and find out more information on the game on Facebook, Twitter, Discord, and Reddit. If you want to try the game out now, check out the Steam Demo!
They are currently on Kickstarter as well for those that want to help them out.
