Alisa devs talk expansion plans and more

We recently had the pleasure of talking with Alisa masterminds Casper Croes and Arisa Y. about the success of their indie survival horror hit and what’s next for them. In our review, we called Alisa a “great homage to the PS1-era survival horror subgenre through its campy story, low-polygon presentation, exceptionally eerie original score, and accurately outdated gameplay.” Here’s what they had to say:

Can you please tell us a bit about your background and your roles for Alisa? How many members did the dev team include?

Casper: I didn’t have any professional experience in the game industry yet, but game-development and modding was a life time hobby. Alisa was the first project where I started to learn programming. Before that, I only focused on graphics. The game was designed by both of us, but all the technical things were done by me. It’s hard to say who did what, we just talk a lot and out of conversations ideas grow. My brother, Siegfried Croes, helped me out a couple of times with some advanced programming bits/scripts, for I was just a beginner at the time.

Arisa: It was the first time being part of the game development world, although I’ve been playing games and like games. I play piano since I was three years old and along the way I learned about making/composing music. And so with Alisa the opportunity came to try and create some music.

As I understand this is your first developed game. How did you feel on launch day? How surprised were you at the great critical reception Alisa has received?

Casper: We did a Kickstarter because the demo was quite successful. The Kickstarter budget was a bit tight so we had to race against time to get it finished. The launch was actually very bad, the game was so buggy it was barely playable. But I kept sending out updates and patches every day for months until it became a (somewhat) solid game. It still has some hick-ups and rough edges but that lies in the core of the game. I’m sure our future games will be more solid because we have some experience now.

Developing a game with just a few members is already difficult enough! What were some of the main challenges that you had to face during development? How did you overcome these?

Arisa: As everyone might know, Casper did all game making work and I couldn’t help with that part so I gave a lot of mental support and suggestions how to reduce workload, otherwise he would try to make it as perfect as possible and it would never be finished. (laughs)

Casper: I like challenges, Arisa says that I like suffering and taking the hardest path. My way of overcoming these challenges is not to give up and just keep pushing. Perseverance is key. After the initial release, I had to fix many issues with the game like I mentioned before. One of the Kickstarter rewards was a physical edition, so the version of the disc had to be perfect because there are no updates for a disc. So while I was fixing the game, Arisa managed all the other Kickstarter rewards while we were also planning and packing to move to Japan. That was the most chaotic moment of our life. But it all worked out.

Why did you decide on making Alisa a survival horror game as opposed to any other genre? What were the inspirations behind it?

Casper: It came to me naturally. The projects I worked on before were all sci-fi, sometimes horror, but all FPS. There was a time when I was obsessed with PS1 Resident Evil and met Arisa. We talked so much, and out of those conversations this Alisa game concept grew. Alisa became a side project and eventually developed into a serious project.

We loved the combination of dread and campiness in Alisa. As the game director, how did you strike the balance between these two, but also cleverly avoiding pushing Alisa into becoming a parody?

Casper: I learned a lot from my favourite game series (Bungie’s) Halo. The games are quite serious in their story but it also has some funny parts. And I love comedy. Creating a balance is all about feeling I think.

Arisa: I don’t like comedy. I don’t have much humor. So this is the combination of us two. In my opinion, one specific genre is not interesting, but an unexpected combination is always more fun.

The decision to go back to retro times with Alisa is a brave one when most of the industry can’t have enough of remakes. Were you worried that this choice may negatively impact the game’s appreciation by the audience?

Casper: I’ve always been into low-poly, that’s probably one of the reasons why I couldn’t get a job in the game industry. When I started Alisa back in 2017, I focused on PS1 style graphics because it was super original. But it seems that this idea came to many devs during those years. By the time I was able to put a demo together, the genre of PS1 horror visuals was already booming so I was late to the party. But not all too late it seems. Alisa was a game created for nostalgic people who miss the days of good games that didn’t focus on maximum monetization. I personally don’t like remakes in this current era.

Alisa looks like it belongs in 1996. Casper, how did you get this aesthetic so right? What wizardry did you conjure to make it happen? 

Casper: Lots of research, months of looking at those old game renders and finding what makes them so 90s and trying to replicate it with modern tech. And for the other visuals, I set very strict limitations to what I can and cannot do just like as if I was making it for a real old gaming machine. Because of that, Alisa runs very smooth on outdated or budget PCs.

Arisa, you did an amazing job with the original score. I thought it elevated the whole experience. I found myself humming many of these tunes unknowingly. How did you approach scoring the game? What inspirations did you draw upon? Do you have any specific favorite piece from the game that you are most proud of composing?

Arisa: Thank you! I never really composed music before especially never on PC, but Casper just gave me the Midi-Editor and had to figure it out while making music. I mostly like minor chord music so it fits well with a game like Alisa. In my childhood I played a lot of Banjo-Kazooie/Banjo-Tooie and that music might have gotten stuck as what game music is. It’s not necessarily my favorite piece but since many people like it, it would be The House of Fun theme. Personally, I like the more ambient tracks like: “Neighbourhood,” “Iron Garden,” and “Confusion.”

Casper: I only gave a couple of examples in the beginning, what kind of music I wanted to have, having it with the standard Midi instruments was a certain limitation to make it fit with the old-school visuals. But I gave complete freedom and because of that, some songs that were created helped me imagine what the environment could look like. That said, many tracks weren’t made to fit the areas but the other way around.

You told me you moved to Japan. How do you think this new journey will impact your future plans? Should we look forward to a Casper Croes and Arisa crossover with Japanese developers?

Casper: We now live here for a year, but we will probably never work with Japanese developers or any. Though, I’m creating some monster models for another game that should release in the near future, the game is called Rogue Mansion. Definitely keep an eye out for it! I didn’t do any of the designs, I just followed the concepts and turned them into 3D models.With living in Japan, there aren’t a lot of differences but the living costs feels lower than in Belgium, so I have to worry less about living like poor people. (laughs)

What is next for you and Arisa? Another IP, an Alisa sequel, something extra for Alisa? What can you tell us about your future plans?

Casper: I created a free game for a old Japanese 80s PC called MSX2. The game is called Phenix Corrupta, you can even play it in a browser emulator.

(Arisa: Again! He just throw this complicated music application to create music for this game)

All of our games will be in the same universe, but not necessarily the same characters, place or time. We already have so many games planned for this universe. I think more than 10 even. Next we will probably work on an Alisa expansion.

Arisa: Our future games will not only be this style, they will all have their own unique taste. It’s not always going to be PS1 style or survival horror. In a good way, you should not have any expectations.

Casper: Phenix Corrupta is a good example, it’s a (true) 8-bit metroidvania type of game. The only thing that will keep all our games feel the same is our sense of writing.

Are there any funny development secrets you can share with us? Are there any funny secrets that Alisa has that we may have missed?

Casper: Maybe there are some interesting bits. Alisa doesn’t contain any blood. It helps with the doll theme because dolls don’t bleed, right? But the true reason is because I have/had a bit of a blood-phobia, and I’m not a huge fan of useless visual gore. There are many of these hidden facts and I talk a lot about them on our Alisa Discord aerver. Anyone is welcome to join if they want to know more about the behind the scenes facts. I’m very active there.

For those who may be interested in pursuing a career in this industry, how did you get started and what advice do you have for us?

Casper: If you have your own game ideas and you can both do programming and graphics, then you can create a project and see where it goes. If you’re lacking one skill, just try to obtain another skill while creating a first project. If you can do everything but come up with a game idea, then maybe you can join another starting developer. Don’t be the idea guy, at least learn graphics or programming to back it up. Don’t start too many projects, it’s very tempting but you won’t finish anything all too fast. Find one project and focus on that. Create a demo version that captures all important mechanics and visuals, release it online and learn from the feedback. And don’t forget to have at least one social media platform to regularly share development progress to build up a following and audience.

What question do you wish we should’ve asked that we didn’t? What would you answer to that question?

Casper: About the voice acting! I had this funny theory that anyone can do voice acting. For this game, if the VA is good, it’s good. If the VA is “bad”, it’s still good! After the demo, many people wanted to offer free voice acting and I chose people at random. We like having strong accents in English it gives more personality. All voice actors did such an amazing job! And I want to work with them again in the future!

Arisa: I hated voicing Alisa! (laughs) About the Kickstarter, thank you to all backers for trusting and believing in Alisa game. We wouldn’t have gotten here without your support!

Finally, what thoughts would you like to share with our audience?

Casper: Alisa is our first game, my first programming work, it is rough around the edges, but give it a try, you might like it. And thank you for the interview!

Arisa: Alisa has a lot of good and bad criticism but “love and hate are two sides of the same coin.” Thank you for involving me in the interview!