The Last Look is a realistic horror that mixes up strong atmospheric horror with clever, logical puzzles as well as an enemy you should avoid at all cost; or at least, that’s what developers ChaosCore have said about the game. And, from almost every angle, that description seems to be pretty accurate. Creepy and ambient, The Last Look certainly has the feel of a horror game that’s ready to torment any player who takes a chance at playing the game.
While the game still isn’t finished — ChaosCore have only recently launched the horror RPG’s Steam Early Access campaign — The Last Look is certainly most of the way there. And by all rights, the game should be most of the ways to completion; the ChaosCore team has been hard at work on the game for several years, perfecting the horror puzzlers look, music and overall gameplay, as well as constantly tweaking and updating the game based on player feedback. And there’s been a lot of feedback; not only has the game changed in look and scope since development first began, but player feedback has guided The Last Look through Steam Greenlight and ongoing development.
This work has certainly been paying off; so far, all of the reviews on the games Steam Early Access campaign has been positive. We recently sat down with Janina Jetschick, CEO of ChaosCore in order to talk about the continuing development of the horror game, player reactions to The Last Look and the inspirations behind the game.
You’ve described The Last Look as “MacGyver meets The Ring.” Obviously, both must have been influences on the game. Was there anything else that helped shape the games look and feel?
There were tons of things that inspired us. As kids of the 80’s, we grew up with games like Phantasmagoria and Lighthouse, horror movies like Nightmare on Elm Street and Hellraiser and later the Fatal Frame series for PS2. Funny thing, while we do often get compared to PT, the Silent Hills teaser had no influence. Actually, The Last Look had been in development for a long time before it even was released. If any Silent Hill titles inspired us, it was “the room” and “shattered memories”.
The game launched on Steam Early Access recently, and it seems like a lot of the feedback has been positive. Firstly; how does the team feel with the feedback The Last Look has gotten so far. Secondly; Has any of the feedback led to any potential changes for the game?
We were amazed that people seem to like our game. Our team is very small (3 people in the core team) and we had to compete with so many amazing games, that were developed by much larger teams with more budget. We have changed some things already, included more feedback for the puzzles, cut dialogues to help the game flow, changed the voice actress. Feedback is very important for us and we are sure, that it will continue to help us to develop a better game in the end.
Obviously, a fair amount of the game has been developed already. Is there much left of the game to finish off, or is that a matter of what kind of feedback you get from the Steam Early Access users? Is there a timeline of when you plan to have the full version of the game released?
There are some bits that we need to finish. But most of the work is polishing, polishing, polishing. And we want of course consider the feedback we get, which will take some extra time. We won’t make a total different game in the end but we aim to create a great experience. And listening to the players is always a good start to achieve that. Therefore, we were going into Early Access late. We wanted to show what our game is like in its core and add features that help to make it better. We are aiming for a release at the end of Q1.
Before you launched on Steam Early Access, what kind of feedback were you expecting? Did you think there might be anything that players may want to see tweaked/changed?
We tried to be as open minded as possible. We knew that we have some harsh design decisions in our game. And we are pretty sure that some people would really like to keep their items after death. We are discussing a second game mode the “kitten cuddler” mode right now. But we can’t make promises on that. It is just an idea right now.
The Last Look went through a Steam Greenlight campaign not too long ago. What kind of response did the game get? Have there been many changes to the game since then?
It was far more positive than we expected. We changed minor things here and there as I have already mentioned. We added a lot more help for the puzzles as we noticed that people were really struggling because we did not communicate everything well enough. Also, we changed our voice actress as we got a lot of negative feedback for Alice voice. We are very sorry for that. As German developers, we do not hear the differences between American and British English very well.
The Last Look has dynamic AI — there aren’t any pre-scripted enemies. What made you decide to go with a dynamic AI instead of, say, pre-scripted jump scares and enemies?
We think that not knowing where the enemy is, but knowing that it must be somewhere is ten times more terrifying then a prescripted enemy. In many stealth games, you just have to watch the AI to learn it’s routes and then you do not feel as helpless as before. We wanted to take that away from the player, leaving him/her blind and exposed. Jump scares can be great if not overused. But right now, we were more going for atmosphere. We also wanted to have some variance in gameplay, but we felt that randomly generated environments wouldn’t feel good for us.
Obviously, the game is grounded in realism. How important was it for the ChaosCore team to ensure that the game was as realistic as possible? I noticed that the games inventory is limited to Alice’s pockets in order to help the game feel real. What other features can players expect to help the game feel as realistic as possible?
It was very important to us. I always thought it is strange, that game characters can carry a whole Walmart in their pockets. Another design choice to add more realism is that Alice gets “thirsty”. Her health is going down all the time. But some activities, such as running and jumping, will drain her even faster. Also, if the monster gets you, you’re dead. And we put a lot of effort in the characters and background story. All of them have their flaws and strengths.
The Last Look is one of the very few quality horror games that has a female lead, something we don’t see enough of at the moment. How important was it to the ChaosCore team to have a female lead in the game? Was it just a natural choice, or was there some thought behind the decision?
We are sure that our story might surprise one or two people. I do not want to spoil too much. But everything related to the story has a very good reason. I can tell you, that Alice is not there for “eye candy”. She was written and designed by a woman and inspired by a real woman. We wanted to start with a stupid cliché (the horror damsel in distress) and then rip it apart. Alice is not the “emotional wrack” crying and whining all the time, taking the stairs instead of the door.
The game seems to be ChaosCore’s debut game. Having said that, it looks like an amazing debut from what I’ve seen so far. When the team first started making the game — as well as started the Steam Greenlight & Early Access campaigns — were there any nerves among the team members? How did the response to the game affect how felt about development?
We have studied game development here in Germany. And each semester we had to present our project to a jury of game veterans from AAA studios like Crytek. So, we were used to raw nerves and hardcore crunch times. Yet we are very introvert and a tad shy and none of us had a private army of friends that supported us. So, we had to convince people with our work only and that was something that made us nervous. But that people liked our game helped. For us, it is still the greatest thing on earth to see others play our creation and see their reactions. This keeps us motivated.
Luke Luby is a Journalist and Award Nominated Digital Marketing Specialist based in Cork City, Ireland. You can find him on Facebook and Twitter. Luke is available for Freelance Opportunities. He is the Editor-In-Chief of LJ Tribune.
