Written by T. Blake Braddy, @blakebraddy

Team Junkfish’s Monstrum is an eerie first-person survival horror game set on a ship where very, very bad things seem to have happened. Things that, well, you as the player will discover by being subjected to them, too. With a sound design tweaked to make players ruin perfectly fine underwear, it is equal parts ship exploration and run-screaming-from-a-monster-and-hope-you-can-find-a-hiding-place. You know. That kind of game.

The overall point is to find items to repair a life raft in order to escape, but achieving the objective is way less important than avoiding the beast that roams the claustrophobic corridors, just lying in wait to strip you of your dignity (and your life). Since death is permanent, the stakes are insanely high for this satisfyingly simple gaming experience. Monstrum is guaranteed to wrench at least a single, panicked shriek out of you, and if you’re the kind of sadist who enjoys watching others suffer, you can find plenty of Let’s Plays highlighting this very same event. (In fact, our very own editor Adam put himself through Hell for your enjoyment right here.)

Grant Campbell, Gameplay Programmer and Designer on Monstrum, answered some questions about how they achieved tone in the game, where they gathered inspiration, and how they feel about boats. Also, there is talk of sausage fingers somewhere below. Monstrum is in Alpha and will be released early in 2015. It can be found on Steam.

BD: Sound design is one of the most appealing / frightening parts of Monstrum. How do you know you’ve landed upon the most terrifying sound possible? Is there a lot of discussion about how loud and unsettling to make, say, the sound of a door creaking?

Oh yeah, definitely. Sound is one of the most important parts of horror, in general. Most of the actual discussion we have on making the sounds scary is based around the ones the monsters make (e.g. roars, footsteps, general bodily functions). With environmental audio, like doors and creaking pipes, we let Jaime [Cross] (our resident soundsmith) know the kind of feeling we want to inspire, usually with some examples from other media, and get him to create a bunch of concepts based on these. Then we just pick the ones we like best and iterate until we’re satisfied with the result.

Sound design is made even more important in Monstrum because we use it as a mechanic. When the player does things that make noise, they are giving away their position and it’s important we make sure the player is aware of this. Our rule of thumb is “If the monster will notice it, so should the player,” so sounds that you might not normally be fully conscious of sometimes have to be made louder so that the player makes that connection. This goes for the player’s footsteps when running, opening and closing doors, basically anything that will attract attention.

BD: How will the “power system” you recently blogged about affect or change how players approach the game?

The power system gives the player more ways to approach the game, adding some variety to the overall experience. There are several systems on the ship that require power, such as lights, escape routes, and access to secret areas. Each of these has a corresponding fuse box that supplies power, but the number of fuses available to the player each run will be limited.

This creates a sort of resource management mechanic. Say, for instance, a player is having trouble with a particular section of the ship. It might be worth spending a fuse to power that section, turning on the lights and making it easier to navigate/notice items. However, this comes at the cost of high visibility, which is not great when you’re trying to stay unnoticed, and you have one less fuse. In addition to working lights, once powered, each section will provide a bonus of some kind. For example, powering the area containing the security room will afford a level of control over the ship’s ubiquitous security cameras.

Initially, most of the ship will be unpowered, but there will be some degree of low level lighting spread about, as running around in large sections of total darkness gets frustrating pretty quickly. There are also systems in place to make sure that, even if the player squanders all their fuses, there will always be at least one escape route always available.

BD: Where do the designs for the ship derive? Is there an inherent love for ships and the ocean on the team, or are you ever, like, “Jesus. Not another engine room?”

The decision to set the game on a ship comes from my love for – and, more importantly, intense fear of – the ocean. While I enjoy the calm and isolated nature of being on a boat, the sheer openness of the sea and the idea of being stranded terrifies me. This choice also avoids the inevitable thoughts of ‘Just smash a fucking window and run away’ that occur when playing horror games set in landlocked areas.

The choice of a cargo ship instead of something like a cruise ship is due to the desire for the environment to have a maze-like feel. While larger passenger ships are generally designed to be easy for the public to navigate, older and more industrial ships seem to have a very ‘functionality first, usability second’ logic to their layout. This fits more with the more confusing and oppressive atmosphere that we’re trying to create.

BD: Does the team have to create a whole ship build for each procedurally-generated level, or is the environment composed of interlocking, repeatable parts?

We currently only have one layout for the ship, which is broken down into several sections. These sections define what rooms can spawn there and the rules for their placement. So while the crew quarters section will always be in the same area of the ship – at the back and above the engineering section – its actual layout and the contents of its rooms will be randomised each time. The rooms for each section are selected from a large pool, each room having variant layouts and some randomised placement rules for decoration and items etc. They are then connected up using a pathfinding algorithm which places corridor pieces and junctions. By keeping the ship broken up like this, we make sure that each room spawns in an appropriate area, and that navigation becomes easier the more the game is played. While there were initially plans for some different ship layouts, those are on the backburner just now while we get the rest of the features in.

BD: How do you approach the creation of mood and tone within the game? Is there a piece of pop culture that you point to when trying to codify the experience into a single feeling?

I would say the best existing works that represent the central theme of the game are the original Alien, and the myth of the Labyrinth. You’re stuck in a claustrophobic and unfamiliar location and stalked by a monster but you are not Theseus, you are not Ripley, you are just a mere mortal in terrible danger trying to get away. This factors heavily into how we approach content creation for the game, as we try to make sure each asset and mechanic contributes to this theme as much as possible.

While on this topic, the way we were originally pitching the game was ‘Alien, on a boat’, and when we found out that Alien was pitched originally as ‘Jaws, in space’ it became ‘Jaws in space, but on a boat’. Though shortly after beginning development, a certain similar – and, more importantly, licensed – game was announced and we dialed back on that.

BD: How did the main monster’s design evolve into its current form, or was this the original vision for it? How will the other two pursuers differ from the first, or can you reveal anything about that yet?

Because there is only one enemy in the game at any one time, it’s important to make encounters with them as intense as possible, so I wanted to make the threat of the first monster immediately obvious. It had to be clear as soon as you saw it that this thing could end you in seconds, and for most players meeting it for the first time that is exactly what would happen. I admit that death is a pretty harsh introduction, but it does immediately teach the capabilities of your opponent and the importance of playing cautiously.

We refer to this monster in-house as ‘The Brute’, and the pitch I gave to the team was along the lines of ‘Big, strong and fast. Basically we should be able to replace him at any point in development with a bear and have the game feel the same.’ The original concept was a kind of a gorilla shaped and sea-themed creature, but it became quickly apparent that this thing would have serious trouble moving quickly around a cramped ship. The the new shape is more humanoid, freakishly swollen and muscular, and its fiery, scarred appearance came from a concept by one of our artists that we loved.

I can’t reveal too much about the other monsters just yet, but I can give you an idea of how they differ from the current one:

The Brute is meant to invoke a very primal ‘survival instinct’ response and so his behaviour is that of an enraged wild animal, smashing shit up and barreling after you single-mindedly upon seeing you.

The Hunter is the monster we’re currently working on, represents more of a slimy, creepy-crawly type of fear usually inspired by things like bugs and reptiles. It is the counterpoint to the Brute, choosing stealthier means of moving around the ship and hunting the player.

I can’t say much about the Fiend, as it is still in the early stages and is still subject to change but I will say that it plays on more malevolent tropes like serial killers and the supernatural, and its behaviour and personality will reflect this.

BD: Games like Monstrum feel almost like adventure games with loud noises. You yourself mention Dark Fall as inspirational. Why do you think first-person exploration (a la Myst) makes for such a great backdrop for horror games today?

I think it’s probably because exploration comes from unfamiliarity. Exploration is delving into the unknown to satisfy your curiosity, and because of the strong connection between the unknown and fear it makes a natural fit for the horror genre. From there a first-person viewpoint, is a sensible choice because it increases immersion by bringing the player closer to the environments they’re investigating.

BD: This game looks like it would be killer on Oculus. What has the response been like for VR players?

The response has been pretty positive so far! From what we’ve seen at shows people get really into it to the point of forgetting where they are, and it’s a good laugh seeing them freak out and swear in a crowded area. The Oculus adds quite a bit to the game experience. When you’ve got the headset on you really get a perspective of how small the ship’s corridors actually are and everything feels a lot more cramped and claustrophobic. There is also something quite intimidating in having to look up to make eye contact with the monster.

BD: Do you have anything else you’d like to announce?

The player’s hands are no longer made out of PlayDoh sausages. He’s even got fingernails and everything.

BD: Will all versions be ready for the game’s proposed Q3 release date?

We have recently revised our release date for Monstrum to end of January 2015. This is to give us some extra breathing room to make the game as good as we know it can be. Developing any game in a year (we began development September 9, 2013) was always going to be hard and with the response we’ve had from public we really don’t want to release as a messy early access title and ruin what goodwill we’ve achieved. This may mean staggering the release of Mac / Linux versions, as we’ve always said any release on Xbox / Playstation will be dependant on the response to Monstrum on PC.

BD: Final question: Would you rather be trapped on a ghost ship or forced to watch the movie Ghost Ship?

I’ll take the ship, because at least then I can jump into the sea if I need a way out.