EIP: First, could give us a brief history of the paths that led to being co-founders of 1P2P? I know both of you have years of experience in game development — what were your roles in your previous teams? How did you meet?
EIP: I was pleasantly surprised to discover the ability to customize your character’s look underneath the armor — usually in games where you’re playing a specific character, you can’t do as much customization. What made you decide to allow the player to modify Jenn and Tristan’s look to such an extent?
EIP:The games that inspired the gameplay aren’t too hard for me to guess — Streets of Rage, Dark Souls, Diablo, and so on. But what about the game’s aesthetic? I definitely see Xavier Houssin‘s style in the art, but is there anything you can point to that helped your team create the world and characters of Young Souls?
EIP:Could you talk a little bit about the decision to have the game be a Stadia-first title?
Cyrille Imbert (The Arcade Crew CEO): The Google Stadia team had been very supportive of Young Souls at an early stage of the development, so it was just natural for us to be supportive of this new platform in return.
EIP: The game feels fairly challenging, at least at first, but you can definitely grind levels and get stronger if you’re stuck. What would you say your goal was in terms of player experience in that regard? Did you want a quarter-eater like the beat-em-ups that inspired Young Souls, a game that was fairly accessible to anyone, or something in-between?
However, we found that due to its visual appearance, Young Souls attracted a fairly large fringe of players, and we wanted to make sure those players were still able to enjoy the game despite its challenge. We resolved to integrate difficulty modes coupled with accessibility options to help players grapple with the difficulty and pace of the game.
In the end, Young Souls is a game with a very customizable challenge according to your expectations and preferences as a player. We have an in-game recommendation to indicate what difficulty we think is best for a challenging experience, but everyone is free to play it the way they want, and that’s great.
EIP: I noticed that it was pretty tough to only block or dodge — it feels like you need to use all of the game’s many mechanics to succeed; is this an intentional design decision?
Regarding the gameplay loop, we went in way too many different, often wacky directions, to end up with something simple. When we play the game today, everything looks simple and smooth, but you can’t imagine the detours we went through to end up with that solution!
EIP: Is there anything at all you’d like to share?
We hope you enjoyed reading this interview! Once again, a big thanks to 1P2P for answering our questions so thoughtfully. Young Souls releases Q4 of 2021 on PC, PS4, XB1, and Switch.
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DanielD
Unabashed FromSoftware fanboy still learning to take his time with games (and everything else, really). The time he doesn't spend on games is spent on music, books, or occasionally going outside.