Fiendish Fiction rolls up horror ideas like katamari in Up All Night
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Fiendish Fiction is just two people, writer Terra Babcock and artist Johan Faulstich. In Up All Night, they strand a traumatized young man in a snowed-in cabin in the woods with a couple of new friends. He’s not sure he can trust them, and then dead bodies start showing up everywhere. (You can tell I’d just played the game when I wrote these questions!!)
How long have you been making games?
Up All Night was the first game we made back in 2020, though we had been toying with the idea of developing the concept as a visual novel since 2016. Since then, we have released two additional games: a short, 1000-word visual novel To Mari, from the Deep; and an offshoot of Up All Night, Up All Night: Rumination, which follows Nick in therapy after the events of Up All Night. We are currently producing our third game, Birds of Paradise, with a demo (hopefully!) coming at the end of June.
What tools do you like to use?
While Up All Night was originally developed in Tyranobuilder, the remaster was ported to Ren’Py; one of the most common visual novel creation tools. For in-game art and GUI assets, Paint Tool Sai, Photoshop, and Illustrator are the most common programs utilized; with effects and video clips created in After Effects. We are currently trying out NaniNovel for our upcoming project, Birds of Paradise.
What themes or genres do you like to explore?
Our team loves to play around with a broad spectrum of themes and genres, as highlighted by our recent jump from making a shuddersome psychological horror game (Up All Night) to developing a comedic boy band dating sim (Birds of Paradise). There’s no genre we’re opposed to toying with, though some common themes across the board are a strongly developed, unique cast of characters, and a heavily branching plot with many twists and turns. Hey, not every ending has to be a happy one!
“Ultimately, we hope to shine light on the idea that in the face of trauma, self-isolation and self-flagellation aren’t answers.”
What are your favorite and least favorite aspects of making games?
Our favourite aspect is undeniably sharing our work with the world. There’s no feeling higher than releasing a game and watching people react, enjoy, share with their friends, and so forth. It’s a wonderful feeling; creating something that impacts players so deeply. We also enjoy the early development aspects… plot and story development, character design, and all the brainstorming that goes along with it. The stuff in between — you know, actually making the game — well, that’s definitely the hardest part.
Is there a game that has affected you recently?
This is always a difficult question to answer, as many different games (and other media) always spark inspiration in varying ways. We will say, however, that Johan has recently been replaying Dragon Age: Origins; one of his favourite games of all time, and find himself once more consumed by the rich character development and thoroughly engaging plot. Most recently Terra has been playing Elden Ring and Strange Horticulture, and generally plays a mix of AAA titles as well as smaller indie games. It’s always interesting to see how atmosphere can be achieved in different ways depending on the constraints and budgets of various games.
OKAY, wow, so. Up All Night is a very dark, scary, gory visual novel. How did you decide to make it?
Horror and gore have always been a big part of the media we’ve both been interested in since we were young. Some childhood favorites include Little Shop of Horrors and Army of Darkness, and it grew from there. Terra, as our writer, is also into creatively gory and violent language in fiction, and is a fan of many books that include such themes (Books of Blood, The First Law, The Acts of Caine, etc). She thoroughly enjoys making people squirm with her descriptions. Johan, well… he just enjoys drawing blood, guts, and gore.
The setting in an isolated cabin is a horror touchstone. What horror works inspired you while working on this game?
While cabins are great for that feeling of complete and total isolation, we think the idea of being snowed in is another horror touchstone we utilized equally. It’s very much a mash up of the two themes in that regard, with inspiration from movies like Evil Dead and The Shining in terms of setting, and a traumatic backstory sort of like the set up in The Descent. We’ve really watched, played, and read so many different horror stories over the years that there’s not really a large direct lift from anything specific… just little bits of inspiration from lots of different media.
I will just say that there . . . are surprises. What was it like plotting out the twists and turns?
Since we had plotted the story out before getting started on the script, the hardest part was making those ‘surprises’ seem like actual twists and turns, while still giving the audience enough info that they wouldn’t be completely blindsided once they happened. We wanted players to be able to clearly see the hints if they were to play through the story again. Obviously you don’t want everyone to get what’s going on ahead of time, but there’s got to be a few players who are able to say “I knew it!” when the answer finally comes.
[Editor’s note: I was without a clue. Clue-less.]
Nick’s trauma plays such an important part in this game. Why did you include it?
We had the general shape of the plot outlined before we really fleshed out Nick. At the start he was essentially just some sulky teenager whose mom dragged him off on a winter cabin getaway. Nick needed more of a reason for being there, and we felt that with all the horrible things happening at the cabin there had to be something going on internally to reflect that outward horror — something that purely belonged to him and wasn’t directly related to the goings on at the cabins. We eventually settled on an accident that he felt responsible for; something that was an awful tragedy, but was within the realm of the realistic instead of the fantastic. Nick is already carrying this experience when he gets to the cabin, and that trauma makes him both stronger in some ways and brittle in others; especially in the face of this additional horror.
What do you hope players take away from the experience?
Every playthrough will garner something different from an individual. Many players have expressed completing the game with feelings optimism, others despair. A recent comment expressed gratefulness that Up All Night ‘helped them to feel again,’ after a recent tragedy of their own. Ultimately, we hope to shine light on the idea that in the face of trauma, self-isolation and self-flagellation aren’t answers; and that even if a relationship ends painfully, it doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth having. It’s really what Nick struggles with throughout the game, but in the (true) end it’s his relationships that drive him forward and pull him back out of the darkness.
