Phage’s gothic mystery The North is a dark, lived-in PS1 world
The Queer Games Bundle is a collection of nearly 600 items by LGBTQ+ creators and teams, nearly 400 of which are independent video games, all sold for just $60. I’m talking with creators from the bundle about their games and their making habits. Visit the bundle and consider buying it.
In The North, you play a disliked ship’s surgeon tasked with solving a murder aboard an arctic exploration ship in the 1800s. He explores the ship and talks to different crewmen in a 3D setting. Phage based her game on real ships, like the HMS Terror disaster, as well as the influential book The King in Yellow.
How long have you been making games?
About two years now. I got into it when the pandemic started. I’ve always wanted to make games. It was one of those things I never sat down and actually made time for. Then COVID came in and I had a ton of free time.
What tools do you like to use?
Primarily Unity, Audacity, and Clip Paint Studio. The Playmaker visual coding plugin is a life saver! I like working in Unity. It’s pretty easy to use, there’s a tun of tutorials, and a big community around it. Clip Paint Studio is also very fun to play around in.
What themes or genres do you like to explore?
Mystery, atmospheric, things that defy genres. I think Kitty Horrorshow’s works encompass what I like most in indie games. She really makes these wild worlds. They’re so immersive. They just suck you right in.
What are your favorite and least favorite aspects of making games?
My favorite aspect is the level building and script writing. I love writing and I love just piecing the whole thing together. Taking a void and slowly building a world into it. Little bit by little bit this empty nothingness becomes an office, or a ship, or an island. It’s really satisfying to watch it come together. My least favorite part is making 3D objects. I can’t stand how Blender is setup. Eventually I had to forgo it altogether and either ask people to help me with assets or grab free ones from the asset store.
“We’re so focused on financial, ecological, and political catastrophe we have forgotten we as human beings are the architects of it all.”
Is there a game that has affected you recently?
I think Disco Elysium really spoke to me about rewarding failure in games. The game encourages you to take chances and be wild. A lot of games slap you on the wrist when you mess up. Especially RPGs. You pick the wrong options and you’re stuck in a loop or have to come back later. In Disco Elysium, you pick the wrong option and you’re in for a wild ride. You never know what will come out of Harry’s mouth. Rewarding “failure” is a really good idea as paradoxical as it sounds. Keeps players invested and makes the game more interesting.
The North is a mystery game set on an 19th century ship. What inspired you to make it?
The 1800s is probably one of the darkest, most oppressive times. It makes for a great gothic backdrop. The two main pieces of media that inspired me were The Terror’s TV adaptation and “The Repairer of Reputations” from The King in Yellow by Robert Chambers. Chambers’ work is so well written. The King in Yellow has inspired countless stories but I think it deserves a more direct revisiting. It still has a lot to offer.
The game has so much text that it’s almost more like a visual novel. Why was it important to build out the 3D world?
Visual novels have a crucial problem and that’s player engagement. Picking up a visual novel can be like just reading an article on a website. I needed more immersion, more interaction. The player needed to be there, see the place, be the one to start the conversation. For me it was about player agency. It wasn’t enough to just tell the story, you had to be there to get the atmosphere. To live it.
I love arctic ships like this. What was it like doing research for the game?
The research was kind of a mixed bag. I found the blueprints to the HMS Terror but the problem with a real sailing ship is that the decks are pretty much the same. There’s not much variation and the space is too cramped. So I had to stretch it out as much as I could. Rooms got bigger, decks became more single purpose. Parts of the ship got moved around a lot. The HMS Terror really did have a library, that wasn’t just a thing I put in. I couldn’t have the player getting lost. I spoke with my friend Jerry Peterson who is huge into the Age of Sail. We had a few hours long conversation about all the aspects. I took as much in as I could but the vibe and gameplay did take priority over realism.
You specify that this is a PS1 style game. What games from that time period resonate with you?
The two games series that really take me back to that era are Tomb Raider and Myst. As a kid I played the Tomb Raider games endlessly. There’s not much to them looking back, but back then they were these huge worlds. Giant caverns, huge temples, my imagination ran wild. It just filled in all the blanks. I wanted to recreate that feeling. A giant polygon low res world. The less you show, the more your imagination does the work. I think Myst and Riven played an indirect role in its construction. I like lived in worlds. Worlds where you know people are there and have been there. I dislike when games feel like ghost towns. It kills the immersion.
The North is pretty dark. What do you hope people take away from it?
I think we need to tell more dark tales. Especially about the nature of humanity, or lack thereof. We’re so focused on financial, ecological, and political catastrophe we have forgotten we as human beings are the architects of it all. I feel the queer community, especially in game dev, is a bit averse to this kind of dark. You have lots of monster or haunted house games, you have people exploring personal trauma, and there’s a mountain of magical girl esque whatnot.
But the darkness of the human mind and its own twisted way of distorting the world to fit a personal narrative isn’t explored much. People are sentient, a human’s nature is whatever they choose it to be. Nobody’s genes made them cruel or evil. Someone chose it and justified it to themselves. 9 times out of 10, they somehow convinced themselves it was the right thing. I like to write about that element in horror. Not “people are the real monsters,” that our decisions and justifications are fucked up. That we lose ourselves along the way. The path to hell is paved with justifications.
