Text/Lin Zhi & Repair

The new independent game "Mercury Sanatorium" was launched today (November 22), and it has rushed to the first hot new product on Steam.

The development team received the investment from Eagle Point in 2022 and is the original team of the particularly well-received game "Mist Detective".

It was first revealed in 2021, when it was still quite concerned, and it was originally planned to be launched the following year, but it was delayed to this day for various reasons.

As you can tell from the reviews, this game

Kept players waiting too long

Today, the game was released, and the producer also wrote a small essay in the circle of friends, saying that they have made more bold attempts in art, explored richer light and shadow expressions, and the scale and quality are far beyond the previous work. There are more than 40 characters with standing drawings in the game, and the amount of text has exceeded 280,000 words.

Mercury Sanatorium is a pixel puzzle game about Harold, an uninspired writer, and Willy, a nephew who loves dinosaurs, who accept an invitation to explore a mysterious mercury sanatorium.

The game's delicate art style has attracted many players, and many people feel that "Mercury Sanatorium" looks like its predecessor "Mist Detective" at first glance. There are also immature places in the production of the previous game, but many players will let them go because of the superb art, and give good reviews instead.

This is partly due to the fact that Fei Ye, the producer of "Mercury Sanatorium", is an artist and has a very strong control over the art style of the entire game. He did almost everything himself during the development process, and during the three years of development, he painted every day except for sleeping. But this art-driven game almost couldn't survive because of the extreme pursuit of graphics.

Recently, Grape Jun chatted with him about the difficulties encountered during the development of the game and how they got to where they are today.

01

From artist to producer

Feiye originally planned to complete the game in 2022, and he only reserved less than a year for the team from the first exposure to the launch. However, in the process of paving, the development process of the game became more and more uncontrollable, and it was not until this year that it came to an end.

"Mercury Sanatorium" strives for exquisite details from the production of the demo, especially in terms of lighting and art, and they all want to do better than their predecessor "Detective of the Mist".

At the beginning of the game, the player can walk around Harold's room as they please. What would a novelist's room look like? Facing the sun, there were many crumpled paper balls on the floor, and coats and ties were thrown in different corners of the room...... They do everything they can to make the world real, to integrate the narrative into the environment.

As Harold walked around the room, the paper ball under his feet would be kicked up, the warm sunlight would shine on his hair, the shadows would change with the light, and his reflection would be reflected in the glass case and mirror where the fish were kept.

His nephew, who loves dinosaurs, has covered Harold's house with dinosaur stickers, and dinosaur dolls of various shapes are placed on the windowsill.

The writer's messy desk is filled with a variety of items that all offer simple interactions. When a typewriter is clicked, it makes a keyboard click, paper balls fly off the desktop, and books and newspapers are clicked on with a line of text.

Flying leaves say that this is an effect they hope to achieve, and maybe they will do "obsessive-compulsive" achievements in the future, encouraging players who like to read the description of every item.

Walking out of the apartment onto the street, the player will feel that the environment is noticeably lively. All kinds of furry are walking on the street, and the front, middle and back scenes of the picture are full: the close-up is a patchwork of wrought iron street lamps, the middle is a busy shopping street, and the distant view can also overlook European-style buildings, which makes people believe that this is a warm and lively animal town.

As Harold and his nephew Willy set off for the mercury sanatorium, the tone of the picture gradually transitions to a mysterious, cold tone. The lights of Daddy Charles, the coachman, were the only warm color, and the further you went, the darker the night became, and when you arrived at the sanatorium, the picture was almost blue-purple.

The tall buildings are full of doors, creepers are all over the walls, the doors of the sanatorium are closed, and the dripping beasts of the Gothic buildings look eerie in the moonlight...... The picture is completely shrouded in the atmosphere of a suspense novel.

And this high-quality content is just the demo they launched and the beginning of the game.

It was precisely because each part was as detailed as possible that when it was rolled into the game, they found that the workload exceeded their estimates. At this time, Feiye thought that since it had been postponed, it was better to further ensure the quality of the game and polish the game as well as possible.

Hiba told me that the decision to continue to scale up was directly exposed to a series of problems when the production experience was not very experienced.

First of all, when it comes to the production process, they follow the art first, but this brings inefficiencies and rework.

When implementing a function, they are usually completed by the artist first, then the program intervenes, and then the planning and configuration of the content. If there is too much detail in the art, it will affect the progress of other links.

At the beginning, he always wanted to do everything to the extreme, and he was busy every day, but he couldn't get any results. And after doing so, the final result is often different from what was expected, and the next step is to rework and adjust the art, which takes a lot of time.

Secondly, a large part of the entire game art assets were also completed by Feiye alone.

In the process of making "Mercury Sanatorium", they did not outsource anything other than music. And the artist with the most workload is actually only three people. The painting part was basically done by Fei Ye alone, and the remaining two colleagues were responsible for the engine and special effects.

For the past four years, Feiye has been painting almost all of his time except for sleeping. He worked in the company during the day to promote design and communication, and at night he was quiet and painted alone, a state that lasted for several years, but he said he enjoyed the process.

As for the reason why they didn't expand their art recruitment, although they tried to recruit people, the game's art style was too stylized, and it took time to find an artist talent who could match perfectly. As the project progresses, the pace of re-cultivation and run-in may be slower.

Thirdly, Fei Ye wears many hats, and his work covers art, text, and level design, and he does everything himself. However, there will always be moments when one person is in charge, and there will be moments when judgment is wrong.

One of the big problems at first was "too many ideas". Because I'm a producer, I seem to be able to do whatever I want. New ideas pop up every day and he wants to cram all the ideas into the game, which leaves the core gameplay of the project uncertain.

"It's a good idea to look at them individually, but if you pile them all in, you'll just hold each other down, and the game will become a mess." Later, it took them a long time to sort out a basic version and finally decided on the direction.

Another lesson is to ignore the player's perspective. When he first started working on "Misty Detective", Hiba often relied on his own intuition to make designs. "For example, we didn't have a running feature at the beginning because I thought the slower pace would make players pay more attention to detail." But a single player experience would change his mind completely. He stands behind the player, watching the other person walk back and forth through the scene, gradually becoming irritable. "The next day, I immediately added running." This made him realize that his preferences were only one of the perspectives, and that it was better to leave the choice to the player.

Another problem is the separation of levels and narratives. In "Detective Mist", because the early story did not have a clear direction, they filled in the content with a lot of puzzles, and as a result, the plot and the levels were seriously disconnected. "There's a level where players have to run back and forth, and I can feel the players crashing during the stream."

Later, they learned their lesson by clarifying the story outline and then using the narrative to guide the levels, ensuring that each design served the story and setting.

02

Crossing the river by feeling the stones

For Feiye, this is the first time to start a business in the true sense. Although he had also participated in the development of "Detective Mist" before, he was only a minority shareholder at the time, and the company had other projects, and he was more of a collaborative role.

Hiba's creative style is very personal, and he likes to recall how he felt when he played certain games as a child, and incorporate this experience into his creations, rather than deliberately playing similar games. He describes his inspiration as "observing anytime and anywhere" rather than "deliberately accumulating inspiration".

This casual style also made it difficult for the team to fully understand his standards. When newcomers come in, there is no clear process and norms, and the adaptation period becomes longer. "If there is no standard, the direction of everyone's work is not clear, and the efficiency will naturally not be improved." Therefore, he began to try to sum up his experience and slowly explore a set of standards that everyone can get.

The team management side has also experienced some issues.

At the beginning, there were only four people in the team, and the process was very simple, everyone just communicated at any time and then went straight to work.

But as the complexity of the project increases, there will be disputes like "I said it" and "you didn't remember it". So they started experimenting with management tools to document the content of the communication and make every feedback happen.

The team was later expanded to eight people, but due to differences in philosophy, some members chose to leave. This was an opportunity for Feiye to rethink team management, and he realized that as a boss, he couldn't take everything on his own.

As a result, he began to let go of the text, level design, and art to the team members, while focusing on the overall direction.

As for the team, he still hopes to expand to 10 to 12 people in the future, but in the expansion phase, he wants to remain cautious and prioritize supplementing planning and procedures. He believes that only by finding people with the same concept and excellent professionalism can we really help the team. "A small team is different from a big company, the concept has to fit, and everyone has to like what we do."

Looking back on this journey, he feels that entrepreneurship is crossing the river by feeling the stones. From the initial small team to the current gradual standardized management, although there are stumbles on the road, he always believes that as long as he adjusts step by step, he can always make good works.

03

Indie games are about self-expression,

It's not a label

Feiye was born in 1986 and is now nearly forty years old. "Mercury Sanatorium" is the second game that shows his personal style, and it has been working for three or four years.

Grape Jun asked him if he had ever been worried, although the art and subject matter seemed to be quite selling at the beginning of the project, but after doing it for so long, the popularity might cool down, and the Furry theme has become a lot in the market.

Feiye told me that he chose the Furry genre not because it was popular, but because the team was good at it and interested in it. Even as similar subjects gradually increase, he is not worried about the popularity, because storytelling and building worldviews have always been his passion. But then they don't necessarily just do puzzles or narratives, they also try to add new ways to play.

Recently, they also bought back the IP of "Fog Detective". This project carries too many emotions from the team, and it was bought back not only to continue its story, but also to respond to the expectations of players.

He and his team didn't plan to define themselves by the label "indie games" either. He feels that indie games are like indie music, with self-expression at its core, not labeling. He doesn't recommend people who don't have a long-term preparation to jump into indie games. Many people can make a great demo, but there is still a long way to go from demo to full game.

He thinks that the most important thing for indie games is to control costs and not take too big steps. To make a game of this size, it takes a budget of several millions. Gamera's advance payment and Eagle Point's investment came in time to get them through the difficulty of not being able to pay their salaries. "We're lucky," he said, "otherwise we wouldn't have survived." ”

Although the results of the former one are not particularly impressive, at least they have accumulated some word-of-mouth, so they got the investment in "Mercury Sanatorium". Without that accumulation, he felt that it would be difficult to get to this point. "You have to have a work that you can put out and people can see, otherwise it's hard to get support. To make an indie game, the investment is not only money, but also time, and these investments must be long-term. ”

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