Review Fix Exclusive: Inside ‘Island’

Review Fix chats with “Island” creator Nicolas Brondino, who lets us know what this survival game headed to Kickstarter is all about.

About Island:

London: 18th century.

In another life, you were a sailor, but a set of bad decisions and an unforgiving storm has thrown you and the remains of your embarkation on the beaches of some forgotten archipelago in the Pacific.

Lost and alone, far away from home and civilization, you will have to show resolve and cleverness to adapt to the extreme situation that awaits you.

Island is a roleplay and strategy game inspired from two classical books, Robinson Crusoe and Mysterious Island, and offers you the closest possible exploration of the original scenario: the long-term harsh experience of a lone individual surviving on a desert island.

Review Fix: How was this game born?

Nicolas Brondino: When I was running games as a GM, I started offering scenarios one evening based on the « surviving on a desert island» theme, as an experiment. While extremely classic in literature, the « Robinson Crusoe  » fantasy applied to D&D and RPG elements resulted in producing a number of surprisingly exciting moments. Imagine rolling for the content of an abandoned crate on a beach or to avoid the infection on your broken leg. Yummy. Anyway, I kept the idea in the back of my mind, waiting for the perfect opportunity to turn it into digital game form.

Review Fix: What has development been like so far?

Brondino: The true difficulty in making the perfect iteration of Island doesn’t reside as much in technology as it is in re-transcribing the desired experience. It’s absolutely necessary that players should be able to re-transcribe naturally the “what would I do in this situation ?” in the game, and that the game seems to follow naturally.

Aside from the development itself, there is a huge process of back and forth review, and advice from gamers from all sides of the world, as well a survivalist enthusiast.

Review Fix: What makes this game special?

Brondino: To me, approaching the concept simply by filling a hunger meter or collecting branches after branches to build a shelter would get boring rather quickly.

Real survival situations are about cleverness and mental fortitude. The mind always breaks first. Island isn’t just about hunger, thirst, or staying warm. Pain, terror, and despair, can quickly degrade your mental condition. Conditions can stack quickly. You are often hurt, diminished, and desperate. You’ll often be confronted to critical situations, and the game is about how you will face those.

Review Fix: What games influenced this one the most?

Brondino: In the first Fallout, there’s this moment where you leave the vault for the first time. You don’t know what’s outside, but you know that you and your companions’ survival depends on you finding that damn replacement part. Soon after, you’ll start crossing the wasteland, where you’ll feel the crushing weight of nothingness. Nothing seemingly survived, and you are at that moment unsure it saving the remains of life is worth it.

I loved this feeling, and found an almost similar emotion in FF6, right after the world is destroyed. Celes tries her best to save her only companion, lost on an arid island with no proof any life survived except herself. After his death, the crushing realization of being the last human alive in a dead world precipitates her into an intense feeling of sadness and loneliness.

Review Fix: How important is the music in this game?

Brondino: To me, the most memorable soundtracks make the most memorable games. My gaming years started in the 8/16 bit era, and the music was the cornerstone for creating this wonderful feeling of adventure.

We are currently testing different styles, and aren’t set on the subject. One of the possible choices is a musician that makes Snes sounding tunes. I have a thing for this style and would like for Island something atmospheric and gloomy, close to what we can hear in the deeper caverns of Maridia in Super Metroid.

Review Fix: Any fun stories or wild moments during development?

Brondino: Because we wanted Island to emulate a set of rules from real survival situations, we had this great idea to test a typical survival scenario by ourselves, spending a few days building shelters, scavenging for food, etc.

We already were in contact with survivalists that were helping us for the “theoretical” side, but nothing is as instructive as the real deal.

Well, let’s get to the point, we froze to death and came home very hungry. Overall, let just say it was very informative.

Oh, remember when they say, “it tastes like chicken”? It doesn’t, they lied.

Review Fix: Do you think preserving older gameplay mechanics in new games is important?

Brondino: There is no such thing as an “old” gameplay mechanic. If it’s fun or immersive, gamers are going to ask for more. Take for example side platformers: The genre lost most of its popularity right after we 3D gaming dominated the market because it didn’t fit with the technology. Now thanks to indie gaming, it’s back and loved as much as before, and it’s here to stay. I’d say “old” and “new” gameplay mechanics will cohabitate harmoniously, as long as each game bring something new and exciting to the gamer.

Review Fix: What’s your favorite memory as a gamer?

Brondino: I only had a few games for my GameBoy. Amongst them were Megaman 1 and Gargoyle’s quest. I was 10 or 11 and sucked so bad at these games. In both games, I kept getting pulverized and to increase difficulty my playing time was very limited by the few batteries I was able to put my hand on. The rage, despair and retry cycle lasted at least a year before I was able to beat them both. That feeling of triumph then is just indescribable.

Having Capcom as my gaming ‘tutor’ at that time has been the best way ever for becoming an addicted gamer.

Squaresoft took the rest of the job, but that’s another story.

Review Fix: Who will enjoy this game the most?

Brondino: To me, a good game can be defined by two elements, it’s atmosphere, and how much excitement you can get from the challenge it provides.

We want Island to offer you an immersive experience, allowing the kind of gamers that like to ‘play a story in their mind’ to do so.

“I broke my leg, and a storm is coming, what am I going to do? The last shelter is at least half a day’s walk from here, I’ll never make it.”

Island is also, of course, the perfect game for the kind of gamer that likes a punishing challenge. We want you to be put under the perfect dosage of pressure, sharing the character’s fears, making mistakes, and learning from them. This is your trial: only those of you with the good amount of adaptivity and cleverness will survive and escape the island.

Review Fix: How do you want this game to be remembered?

Brondino: We would like gamers to remember Island as a punishing & realistic yet exciting castaway experience in RPG form.

A multiplayer mode has been requested recently, and we’d really love to bring gamers together and build an online community addicted to feverish survival gaming sessions. If we go in that direction, we would like to go for both a 2~8 collaborative mode, as well as a “savage” mode.

This would be very exciting for us to watch bring a community together, and we’d really love them to remember it as a unique & thrilling experience.

Review Fix: What’s next?

Brondino: Well, Island is at the beginning of its adventure, so it’s a little too far to speculate on another game. While Island is meant as a solo gaming experience, as quoted previously we’ve got many requests for a multiplayer mode for Island. A lot of these requests were for a cooperative mode, where a group of castaway could play together in a structure similar to say, a tribe, each bringing a specialized set of survival skills to support the group’s survival.

It would be very exciting for us to watch survival tournaments on Twitch. Depending on the success of the solo mode, we’d really love to go in that direction.

Review Fix: Anything else you’d like to add?

Brondino: Right now, the game’s campaign is about to be launched on Kickstarter. It’s the occasion to support us by buying the game at a discounted price or have the ability to put your personal creative touch to the game with the upper rewards.

Some vital decisions will be taken during the Kickstarter, like including the previously quoted multiplayer mode, and some optional target machines like the PS4.

I know many can’t help us and times are hard for everyone. If you do love the game’s concept, you can help us by talking about it to your closest friends, or simply by leaving us some support note on twitter. Every piece of help counts.