We're honored to have a virtual sitdown with the developer of Those Who Remain, Camel 101, to talk about their newly-released game.

1. What classic supernatural film and/or TV series that had inspired Those Who Remain?

2. I’m sure developing a horror title isn’t as easy as it seems. Are there any particularly tough challenges which are exclusive to making a horror title that the team has faced while developing Those Who Remain?

Avoiding the jump scares was probably the biggest challenge. It’s easy to place someone screaming behind a door, or a door closing with a bang when the player enters an area, but these actions are not creating fear. These are just momentary things. After a while, they become predictable and annoying.

So, we built an atmosphere - a setting that feels oppressive and dangerous throughout, where the player feels constantly watched and uneasy. Shortly after the game starts, the player learns that he can’t go into the dark. There are strange shadowy figures roaming in the darkness, who will attack and kill whoever gets close. And they are always there. If it’s dark, they’re there. Always following the player with their gaze, waiting for their chance.

This creates an unnerving feeling, as the player never feels completely safe. He knows that all it takes is for a lamp to fail or a light bulb to explode.

As the game progresses, the player is introduced to other enemies, some of which can walk in the light too. Basically, as the player gets used to a particular rule, we introduce a new one, so that he never gets comfortable facing whatever the game throws at him.

3. I see that your studio has developed a horror title before, called Syndrome. Did your experiences with that game helped with the development of Those Who Remain?

That being said, it helped a lot with the development of Those Who Remain. We took a lot of lessons from Syndrome – we analyzed what worked and what didn’t; what were the strong points; what the players disliked most – and used them here.

One important lesson was that all the puzzles and the whole game needed to be tested while the game was still in development. I don’t mean QA and bugs – but the logic and game flow itself. So we got in touch with a few game development-related technical schools and universities and asked them if they were interested in organizing game testing sessions with us.

They were, as it was a positive experience for their students to participate in the testing of a commercial game, and we got precious feedback from watching them play. Some puzzles were harder than we thought, others were too easy - and so we got the chance to work on these areas and retest them again until we were happy with the result.

That’s probably one of the biggest lessons we got from Syndrome: test, test a lot. Then test some more.

4. According to the game’s Steam page, Those Who Remain features multiple endings. How many different endings will players be able to uncover?

5. I’m asking this for a friend who gets scared easily but can’t seem to resist a horror game with a good story – Are there any jump scares in this game?

But we do have scary and unnerving situations. An interesting thing that happened during the playtest sessions that I mentioned above, was that we noticed the players getting scared in places that weren’t supposed to be scary. We hadn’t planned anything special for that specific area, yet the shivers and shudders – sometimes screams were there. This was incredibly rewarding and satisfying.

6. It seems like the pandemic has caused a lot of delays for game releases, including yours. How does the pandemic affect the development of this game?

7. Once Those Who Remain is released, what project/s will your studio be taking on next? Mind giving us a sneak peek as to what fans of your studio could expect?

8. Would you like to add anything?