Dansk
Svenska
Norsk
Suomi
Deutsch
Italiano
Español
Português
Français
Nederlands
中文
Indonesia
Polski
日本語
한국어
Čeština
Ελληνικά
Türkçe
Tiếng Việt
عربي
Follow us
HQ
Videos
The Bearer & The Last Flame
Dark Reaper Studio gives us the lowdown on its dark fantasy action-adventure The Bearer & The Last Flame at IndieDevDay
We spoke with solo developer and creator Javier Castilla during the Spanish conference to learn about how this Dark Souls-like project came to fruition.
Audio transcription
"Alright, I'm in Barcelona for the IndieDevDay 2024 and I'm here standing next to Javier and I'm taking a look at The Bearer & The Last Flame, which is a Souls game.
We could say it's a solo Souls game because you alone, you yourself are so crazy that you have developed pretty much the full game because this is the full game that you're showing here."
"Yeah, that's it. I bring a new version which is finally 100% completely in-game play so anyone can visit the event during this weekend, can play and go to any of the levels of the game, even bosses, dragons and things like that. It has been three years and a half of development and we are in the end of the process doing voices, music, translations, trophies, activities and so on for PlayStation 5 and also for PC."
"It's the final stage, I mean the game is pretty much done, but what sort of feedback are you getting from players that are here like playing and suffering?
Very good, very good. Players are very happy. The game has the achievement that they usually look for a Souls-like game so I'm really happy. There are people playing during all day so the chair is occupied."
"It's warm.
Yeah, yeah, it's warm so we are really happy and very good feedback so I'm happy.
The game is estimated to release in March 25 so we still have time to pass QA for PlayStation 5, for Steam so we are on the way, we are with enough time."
"You're getting there, slowly but you're getting there.
Yeah, we are happy, we are happy.
Alright, tell me a bit more about the lore, the main character, what are we going to do here?
Well, our player is involved in a very dark situation as usual in these fantasy games."
"A bit different like Souls game FromSoftware, another one.
I want the story to be more comprehensible so at the end of each level there is an NPC which explains what are you done in the level you have finished.
So he explains the lore and he explains the story and why you are there and so on."
"So you will go through the story of the game and you will have a feedback, a very easy feedback to know why you are doing this.
Okay, and what about the things that you can do?
So what about the Souls-like systems, what about the magic powers, what about the attacks?
Is there a parry system in place?
Yeah, you can play usually as melee."
"You have axes, big axes, swords, big swords, spears, alabards.
You have 250 weapons in the game.
You can use staffs, scepters, you can use magics, you can use faith and you also have the checkpoints where are really, really challenging because they are far from the others."
"So you have to be alive to reach the end of the level and I think it's enough challenge for the players usually to play Souls-like games.
How did you develop the game yourself technically?
Is it based on Unity? Is it Unreal Engine?
It's based in Unity, completely made in Unity."
"I've been in this industry for 10 years making games for mobile platforms and after that time I decided I was ready, I have enough expertise to jump one step further for PC and console game and here is.
Okay, and other than the story being sort of kinder on the player, like having this summarized to the end of the chapter, whatever, what else would you say makes this game stand out as we are seeing so many Souls-like games coming out these days?
Yeah, I think this game essentially contains the best things that I consider from all Souls-like games you can find in the market."
"I removed several things that I consider was not very interesting, like for example to work with a storage for the player that forced the player to move to a place to retrieve stuff from the storage.
I think that's not interesting for the player, so I removed that concept."
"You can hold all the stuff you need for the game, so you don't have to lose time in irrelevant things.
I recovered some mechanics, like for example the torch, the fire, which you are able to fight against beasts like spiders and animals, things like that. They are scared from the fire."
"So several mechanics that I think are important in this kind of Souls-like games.
I recovered them, I put all of them together, the best from each genre, I think.
I think it's a good combination with levels very challenging.
You will think that you can replay the game many times and it will be satisfying for you. You can explore."
"The game will be very... I don't know how to say.
It will be very pleasing with you as you explore.
It will provide you with weapons.
There are trophies to fill your set of weapons, iron weapons, wind weapons."
"You can play with bows, you can play with magic staffs, you can play with axes, swords.
You can play the game in very different ways.
How do you respawn when you die?
You said it's nicer to the player in that regard as well."
"Do you have to walk a long run or is it easier?
You will be able to do a speed run, so that will be fair with you.
If you in the first try go killing everything, as usual we do as Souls-like game players, but you can do a speed run, so the game will be fair with you."
"Looking forward to playing The Bearer next year.
Good luck with the final stretch and thank you so much for your time.
Thank you."
Interviews
More
Videos
More
Movie Trailers
More
Trailers
More
Events
More