With the Steam early access release fast approaching for Have a Nice Death from Magic Design Studios and Gearbox Publishing, they invited me to come have a quick interview with the team. After taking them up on this offer, I ended up having a nice chat with Lead Game Designer Simon Dutertre and Narrative Design and Marketing Coordinator Mérédith Alfroy from the Magic Design team. While it was nice to meet the creatives behind the upcoming title, which recently shared a proper orientation video to go over some lore and show off some gameplay.

With all that said, let’s get into the actual interview!

What inspired the cutesy art style of a dark theme?

Alfroy: “It’s because the creative director is fascinated with everything that is macabre and gothic. Also, he is talented with any matter with an obsession Cachan. So, this mixed with Cachan could be good for him, and so we go with the cutey part of the death.”

Is there going to be a lot of comedy in it or will there also be drama in the overall emotion of the game?

Alfroy: “No, the tone of the game is very cartoonistic with sarcastic humor. For example, I am a big fan of The Office, the American TV show. So, we have to implement some humor sometimes, but sometimes we will have, even if kind of comically, we want to talk about dark themes like death, work, and mortality. But it will be done colorfully and in a light way to approach a dark subject.”

How long do you plan to have it in Early Access before its final release?

Dutertre: “Well, there are several plans. First plan is since we are still so early into development. We want to support the game for at least a year, but we do not know yet if we want to go further or not. It will depend on how we feel about the game; if we want to keep adding more stuff or if we feel like the game is done.”

Alfroy: “We know how to finish the game and what content we want to add, but, of course, it will depend on feedback. So, we do not know yet.”

Will we see any of your personal passions spill over into the game, such as cooking or sports events or mini-games?

Alfroy: “We are focused on combat and action, along with everything with the mechanics.”

Dutertre: “No there will not be mini-games. Although, I would like to do this, we do not want to dilute the experience of roguelike and combat.”

Are there plans set for after Have a Nice Death or are you hopeful the reception will be well enough for a second entry for the series?

Dutertre: “Honestly, it is a bit too early to say that. Right now we are really focused on the release and are not thinking 5-10 years ahead. We are not worried, but excited about the release, so we are not thinking about the long term.”

With such strong backgrounds that include AAA development, why did you choose to step into an indie game studio?

Dutertre: “Well, there were several factors. First one was that there is a bit more freedom on how we can approach the game because we know that we are going to touch some dark subjects. I’m perfectly aware that in some big companies these can be dangerous to talk about. For example, we have one department that is about physical disease and so you fight a big monster that we present a very bad disease in the world. I am pretty sure we would not be able to do that in every company.

The second thing is to maybe try to narrow a bit the frame of the game. While I like open-world games, they are more intensive production-wise. For example, in Have a Nice Death, even if it is early in development, we already have a product we like playing. We don’t need to add 50 square kilometers with thousands of quests with lots of music, story, and cinematics. These games are ones I personally love to game; indie games, roguelike, and smaller kind of games.”

Is this your dream title to create?

Dutertre: “Oh, I have a lot of dream titles! But, this is the beginning of the dream titles for me.”

Anything you would like to tell your anticipating players, perhaps an easter egg you’d like to hint at?

Alfroy: “There will definitely be some Easter Egg, but we won’t share anything on that now. But we are looking forward to the feedback from the community, of course, because we need that because we hope to build a great game. We can’t wait for the release of the game.”

Dutertre: “As Meredith said, we are very excited to be able to share the game with the public now. The reception has been very satisfying and people have been sending us some fan art that is sometimes really funny. For example, Have a Nice Death abbreviated to H.A.N.D. and so people have been drawing our character, Death, as a giant hand and it is very funny!”

This conversation definitely has me even more excited for the release of Have a Nice Death and I look forward to sharing some feedback with them after trying it out myself! What did you think of our interview with the developers? Will you be diving into the death-themed desk job this week?