For an upcoming episode, we are doing a play-through of the indie game, Stars Die. I had a hard time getting more information on the history of the game. So I reached out to developer Eric Juvi directly. Stars Die was released on Itch.io on January 28th, 2020 and included in the Itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality. The Steam release for Stars Die was December 4th, 2020. My questions are in italic.
What got you into game design?
I've been playing games all my life but I guess the moment I really fell in love with them was relatively late playing Bioshock back in 2008. I never had a good PC growing up so I missed all the immersive sim classics like System Shock, Deus Ex or Arx Fatalis, so Bioshock was my introduction to this concept of emergent gameplay and narrative that totally blew my mind. That was definitely the moment I knew this is what I had to do.
How long have you been designing games?
Around seven years. I spent two years studying for a video game degree, then one year working at an indie company making virtual reality (VR) games. I then spent three years making Stars Die while doing some freelance in between. This last year after initially releasing Stars Die, I've done a bunch of narrative and level design work on another game still in development. I then worked on the Steam release for Stars Die and I'm currently in pre-production of another solo project which is totally different, but too early to know if it'll actually be done.
The aesthetic in Stars Die is quite striking and memorable. What inspired it?
I couldn't really tell you an exact reference honestly. I've always loved alien landscapes that go into more imaginative places beyond big mushrooms and purple trees. So early on I had this idea of an island that had the appearance of an organic place but without falling into grotesque imagery (you know, eyes and teeth everywhere, green bulbs spouting slimy liquid, gross stuff like that) and instead going for a "cleaner" and more elegant type of organic. For story purposes, I wanted to play with this ambiguity: This place is unnerving and not from this world, but at the same time it doesn't seem horrible, disgusting or hostile. Many parts are meant to be majestic, and I think some are kind of cozy even. Frankly, I don't know where I got it from because I can't think of anyone else having done it. Maybe it was just my subconscious response to more traditional cosmic horror which depicts everything alien in a negative and terrifying way, which I've always found it fascinating. Early inspirations, however, were this piece by Sergey Kuydin. Other inspirations are some of the massive smooth rock formations in the Mediterranean and a bunch of stock photos of microscopic organic tissue, from which most textures are derived from.
What got you excited to tell the story in Stars Die?
The story came from many small, separate ideas which, when united, created something promising. The idea that started it all came from a dream I had of a woman with a horrible mutation, which seemed more apt for some kind of enemy in a horror game. But then I considered what if I turned her into the protagonist instead. Then I began to try to explain the cause of the mutations and a story began forming. Eventually that idea was scrapped, ironically, as the story was taking me into different, more interesting places, but many of the basic elements remained. Shortly before starting work on it I had played Pathologic, which was nothing short of revelatory in so many ways, so I knew the structure would be a small open-world with a few unique characters to talk to. This type of sci-fi story with similar themes was something I had been wanting to do since I was a teenager, which meant finding the motivation to make a story like that wasn't really an issue.
Non-linear storytelling is a real challenge to get to work well. Did you have any timeline or other tool to keep the story straight?
In terms of story, it wasn't that much of an issue. The most useful tool for me was http://draw.io (which was called something different back then, diagrams or something like that) to create flowcharts quickly and keep everything organized which I could then easily translate into the engine.What challenges with non-linear storytelling did you run into? Were there any challenges that you didn't expect while writing the story?
The process of writing was difficult enough, I don't think the nonlinear aspect added that much into it. The real misery came in terms of programming, knowing where everyone was at each moment, knowing where they have to go next depending on many story variables but also on time and make sure they aren't overlapping with each other. Most of that was actually made by Tony Li, the guy who made the Dialogue System plugin and all this custom logic. He's the real hero of this project, I'm sure anyone who has worked with him will tell you he's a fucking genius and they're right. As far as "unexpected issues", other than the realization that writing branching narrative sucks, I don't think there was anything in particular, I knew it would be a pain in the ass to set up and test, but I was happy enough that it could be done at all thanks to how versatile the plugin is.
You mention that the player isn't at the center of the narrative in Stars Die, but the player character still has a notable history in the game. How did you balance those two in the game?
I knew I had to give her a completely separate story line. The good thing was that the "NPC" story was already written by that point, so it's not like I tried balancing things while writing both. I simply tried to create another story with the same material I had that added a new layer to the overall plot. Honestly, I figured out what to do with that story line really late in development when the setting was finally coming together, even though I had wanted to do it from the beginning. That was the real challenge: Creating a parallel, yet connected story that remained true to the idea of "not being at the center of the narrative" and adding something of interest. In the end, I'm not sure how well that was communicated though, as some players seem to get the impression you decide the fate of humanity or something in that ending. It's true that ending has more agency than the others, but the large scale events in motion are inevitable and unstoppable on an individual level. The protagonist on its own is never a big deal.
Having a player miss things happening in the story drives home that they aren't at the center of the narrative. Was it a challenge to both give enough breadcrumbs to let the player know that things are happening without them, but not lead them to those events directly?
Funnily enough, it really wasn't that much of a concern to me. Like I said before, I was very much using Pathologic as reference for the structure, which is a game with almost non-existent hand holding. I was very conscious of always giving directions to the player as to what to do or where to go, but only within a reasonable extent. If you don't know where to go, talk to any NPC either directly or through the radio and they should tell you roughly where the story is currently happening or will happen next. Dialogue is the main narrative tool in this game. Adding things like objective markers or a map would be superfluous and the environment, I think, is distinctive enough with plenty of recognizable "biomes" and landmarks to make navigation easier. Put bluntly, if you don't know what to do in a game about talking and light exploration, it's kind of your problem, right? Of course, I could afford to go in that direction because I was making a super niche game only liked by a handful of weirdos (no offense). Had I tried to do something more accessible, I would've made an extra effort to be more helpful, particularly in a more traditional narrative game where you generally don't want to be an asshole to the player, but in this case I was just like, fuck it, I'll try to not be cryptic with objectives and locations, but I'm not going to spoon feed you either. Thematically, it's a world that doesn't care about you, so I guess it's my excuse to not care that much about what the player does, either. Figure it out, or not, it's up to you. (playing it cool now, until a player complains to me about being lost, then I feel like shit, but what can you do, what's done is done)
Did you have an idea for which ideologies that you wanted to examine with certain characters, or were they determined by the constraints of the story?
Yes, right from the start, I wanted that each character represented a certain ideology that would highlight different aspects to the story and potentially valid ways to respond to the same event, with no clear correct answers as well as to show what is essentially the same ending seen from completely different perspectives that give some closure to those same ideologies. What those ideologies were was also written very early on, although some changed a bit over time, particularly Miyazawa, who received extensive rewriting for the Steam release (1.2 update).
You credit working with Connor O.R.T. Linning on the music. How did you end up working with him?
This one's funny because it's just so unlikely. My first game was a really shitty third person survival horror. I posted some screenshots once on a forum and Connor replied to me offering me his entire horror discography and I used some of his songs. Then, some years later, deep in development of Stars Die, I considered that making my own music would take too much of my time, (even if it was the original intention) so I got in touch with Connor again and he was fine with it. Honestly I was reluctant because I had a very specific idea of the music I wanted and I feared that if it wasn't mine, it wouldn't be quite right. After describing to him the type of game and the mood I was going for, he sent me a lot of music. I'm not sure how many he sent, but he gave me at least 40 or 50 songs that he had made over the years. The great thing about Connor is that he touches a bit of everything, he even has Dance and Black Metal albums, so his horror selection had a wide range of styles to choose from, with that eerie industrial electronic being the general direction I was aiming for. I'm still amazed songs like Child's Prey (the one that plays in the intro and in two of the endings) fit so perfectly with my intended atmosphere and it feels as if they were composed specifically for this game. Usually, I would have a scene in mind, I would try to find a song that fit and then make adjustments with things like timing so it flowed better with the music. But there were others like Eldridge's ending which were designed after using the music as inspiration (I think it's the song called Regenerator). The music is like 70% of many of these scenes frankly, so in a way I'm glad I didn't make my own, even if it's something I still want to do, I doubt the result would've been this good.
Offering a free download option is an interesting choice for Stars Die. What made you want to offer that?
Well, I had no commercial pretensions with this game. I knew I was going for a niche within a niche type of game. To me what was more important was to have anyone who was interested, to be able to play it. I didn't want to have the game for free because I still think it has enough work put into it to be worth money, plus being free can "devalue" the perceived worth of your game if you know what I mean. I feel like people are less likely to get interested in it if they see it as "just a free game" with all the (unfair or not) assumptions that come with it. Then again, I know what it's like to be too broke to not be able to afford even 5 bucks for an indie game, so I didn't want to leave those behind if they still wanted to play it. I've played lots of pirated games that I've then bought once I could pay for them, so I figured I was doing something similar. Play it now if you want to, you can pay me whenever you can afford to.
Was there anything you loved working on in the game that you want to call out?
I always say that at a degree they teach you about game development, but it's only after finishing a game that you truly learn how to make them. The learning experience this game provided is incalculable but also the entire creative process of creating a coherent experience in visuals, story, music, etc and the collaborators I worked with and the ideas and feedback they offered are definitely the highlights of the project for me.
