Fotocopiadora interview

- Preface

What follows is the transcript of an interview with Fotocopiadora, done on the 27th of October, 2023. The original three hour conversation was only trimmed down for the sake of legibility, and saw addendums where extra detail felt relevant or was agreed to be added later.

Both of our usernames starting in 'F' meant it took a big effort not to make a terrible joke (using identical labels). Q and A will always refer to the interviewer, and interview victim respectively.

A large part of the interview focuses on her game First Land and is better appreciated by the reader who has played the game to completion. It's been kept mostly spoiler free, but either way the game is one best played without help or guides, for those interested in trying it.


- P. 1 (General questions)

(Greetings)

Q. The way I'd introduce you is foremost as a video game developer, since that's how I came to know of you. But you're also a musician, artist, author, probably more... does that work for you?

A. Yeah that's good. I don't think I write too much, but yeah I guess, video games and music are the things I make the most, and that I spend the most time making.

Q. I see. And then writing happens out of necessity at times?

A. Yeah, I guess. Yeah. (laughs)

Q. So then what happened first? Did you start by learning to program?

A. Not really. I think the first stuff I made when I started making video games, I was maybe 10-12 years old and I was just using a copy of RPG Maker 2000 that I downloaded at my dad's office work, which had internet when at the time it wasn't very common to have unrestricted access to it. I got a copy of RPG Maker which was translated to Spanish based on the English translation by Don Miguel; the famous RPG Maker 2000 Don Miguel version. And most of it was really incomprehensible to me, even for a tool that's not programming based or whatever, there's still so many moving parts and logic and stuff, and most of the more technical parts went over my head. But I really found it fascinating as a tool, where you can just make maps and places and have this whole database of spells your guys can cast that's just there by default. It felt like a very blank canvas sort of thing, but at the same time a huge world with some kind of mysterious context.

  I think the first game that I released to the public was probably Hard Office , which I made in 2013, 90% of it. But I didn't feel like finishing it until a couple years later. That was the first thing I made, and then programming came out of necessity because, well, I'm a fucking nerd. So, at least back then I thought that I wanted a job where I use my brain, and everyone needed programmers and whatnot. They taught me a little bit of Fortran in university, so that's where I started. And then I found out about unity, that was 2014 or so. And I tried to make stuff with it, but it was way too complicated for my brain, and it didn't really click to me until a couple years of fucking around with it on and off. And it's still very complicated, so it's not like a lot has changed.

Q. Do you know about when you made that start with RPG maker?

A. I think I started making random things on my computer in, maybe, 2003.

Q. So you remember using it for about a decade then?

A. It was more of a thing to mess around with, you know. At the time, I wasn't trying real hard to make games or learn this tool real good. It was just something I had on my computer that I could fuck around with, more like a freeform creative activity than having a hobby or project. I mostly just, for example, remember taking a picture of my brother and scanning it, and putting it over a sprite in RPG Maker that made it look like he had a massive head. That kind of stuff.

Q. Were there any things you were surprised you made, looking back?

A. Honestly, not really; there was this one project I started that was this kind of pointless, more technical project that everyone back then wanted to make; especially in the times of RPG Maker 2000-2003 where there were no under the hood scripting capabilities or anything, and everyone was trying to make very janky custom battle systems- which were like emulating some kind of other RPG, and was usually made outside of the actual RPG Maker battle screen, with events and NPCs all over the screen that cause different logic, etc. It was mega complicated, and I started making one of those but I never finished it. That was the most complicated thing I made, but in terms of something that I actually found interesting, those were more like the kinds of funny drawings a child can make, which I guess can be interesting in terms of psychoanalysis or whatever. But it's never really been something I've been interested in going back to. The process yes, the process was very fun, but the product itself was kind of garbage, I guess.

Q. So then, when did music come into the picture?

A. Well, I had a very strong introduction to music when I was a kid, but I really didn't understand it or have any use in going through that; you always have this stuff where your uncle gives you classical music CDs or whatever, to develop your inner Mozart or something, but I wasn't really that interested in that. It was in 2013-14 that I started getting into heavy metal music. I had that edgelord teenager phase, where I was more into those things. But I didn't start wanting to really make something, or play an instrument until I was a little bit older, like 20, 21. I started having a band and we were trying to rehearse and stuff. We put out an album late 2014, and did a bunch of concerts, and we put out another album just last week, which I really do like. And I hope we will go back to concerts, because that's the kind of stuff that I just really want to do, you know. It's a very kind of tortuous, but also very comfortable experience for me, personally. It sounds kind of cliché, but I find it a very strong, kind of transcendental feeling- at least in my case, for the music we make in particular. I do know that you can have an entirely different set of feelings or motivations to play music. But I think that it was kind of liberating for me as well.

Q. Which instrument(s) do you play?

A. I'm on guitar and vocals.

Q. Would you like to mention your band?

A. Yeah, it's called súper cadáver, in Spanish. So, "Super Corpse". It's kind of noisy, kind of fast, a little punk rock oriented and more shoegaze, or noise wall, or noise pop or something. And it's really fun! It's fun, and I feel good doing it.

Q. Back on video games; when you started out, did you have any goals? How did you know you wanted to make games?

A. Well, I just really like messing around with things, I remember the first real treasure trove of video games I found was finding out about old consoles, like emulated stuff. I played a lot of Super Nintendo RPGs in particular, and half of them were never translated into Spanish, so I didn't understand them at all. But that was the era when fan translations were starting to appear. I remember playing Final Fantasy 6, and being fascinated, particularly with the world, these huge, really vast spaces. It really had a very interesting sense of place, for example one at the other end of the world you know, and there's maybe a house there, and people in the house, and there's tunnels, and secret passages. It felt like something; maybe the whole world making thing was more of an escapist impulse, but it's still something I feel strongly about I guess. So I guess it's a continuation of the same feeling, the stuff that I make now.

Q. And is there some sort of formulated goal, or dream that you have?

A. Honestly not really. I remember it was more with things that I would start making, I wouldn't have a goal or anything. I remember this RPG Maker project that was called... I forgot the name, but it was called something with monkeys, it had monkeys in the title. But I remember making this huge world map that was almost completely empty, and making dungeons and shit and I was thinking like, maybe I would add more stuff to the dungeons, just like add more tunnels, or add more whatever. It was something completely chaotic, not organized at all. Just kind of going forward wherever. Looking at it in retrospect it was obvious that it would never be finished; and to me I never had a vision of the entire thing. So I think it was fine, it was a fun thing to do and to never finish.

Q. Would you call yourself an indie developer?

A. It's not my favorite word, but sure. I guess in the sense that I make games that lose me way more money and time than they make me, I guess I would.

Q. That sounds indie enough, doesn't it? You said it isn't your favorite word?

A. I guess it's a similar development with the word "indie" in music: it's come to encompass a massive range of things, like freeware, weird experiments, things kids make that get three downloads on itch, and stuff like nostalgic pixel art metroidvanias, or whatever. I guess all the games that I work for professionally would be considered indie games. But still, they cost more money and make more money than I'll ever see in my life. So that's why I don't think it's a very useful categorization.

Q. Then, just "developer" would do?

A. I guess that's fine. Developer suggests someone that looks at a screen and types code and stuff. So I guess I am that.

Q. Probably sounds more serious too. You could impress people with that.

A. (laughs) Well, it could also be a real estate developer right?

(No real estate questions were prepared. Moving on.)

Q. Do most of the developers you've been working with in recent times come from the Bitsy scene?

A. I guess, yes. Mostly yes. But I wasn't very involved in that back then either. I do know that a lot of people I work with, in particular most of Domino Club come from there. I have used Bitsy for the stuff I made, but I never had the kind of attachement that other people I work with have.

Q. Then, have you moved on from it?

A. It still has its uses. It's very nice to sketch out little places, things that don't have a very strong visual or aesthetic idea for what they'll be like, it's very useful to use Bitsy and cycle through many different iterations of the scene very quickly. It's fun to mess around with, like many other tools. Worth mentioning, my friend candle has been working on a tool called "Bipsi", which is kind of a continuation of Bitsy as a tool but in a different direction, which feels more akin to RPG Maker, without all of the RPG elements and stuff obviously. And I would really recommend it, if you want to try that, make something similar to a Bitsy game, you should check it out.

Q. When it comes to groups or art movements, do you see yourself as part of any?

A. Well, I don't think in terms of bigger trends, no. I make stuff, the most comfortable to me is more of a private thing. So I make stuff that's for me, mostly, or closer friends. And sometimes other people also like it - which I'm very happy about. But I wouldn't say that it's in conversation with a larger movement.

I remember when the whole PSX visual thing came out, when it started being a thing. It was interesting, but I immediately knew that I wasn't going to bother fitting my thing into it. And at the time I was working on First Land, and I was thinking like, I guess it has enough in common that it could appeal to people who also like the other thing. But I didn't really feel like taking inspiration or trying to move in a direction similar to that movement, that was going on at the time.

I guess I'm more comfortable identifying with smaller things, that don't have as much to do with aesthetic of mechanical sensibilities. For example, with Domino Club I felt really comfortable, because the themes we like to explore, the way that we do them and the things that we are comfortable are loosely defined, but it's on a common ground of something that I would understand being from someone who is closer to me and that I know better. The point of it is that I feel much more in conversation with the stuff in Domino Club, even if I am not actively trying to make the same thing as the rest of them. Or the whole glorious trainwrecks thing, I feel very sympathetic to that way of making games, that's more experiment oriented, within the extremes of what tools create, like the immediate result of janking a number up, like to 9999 or something. And I really do like working like that as well, I really like the more theme oriented, more story but also very focused on atmosphere way that Domino Club has.

I think more importantly both of these things are not really seeking a commercial or wider audience, which is why it feels so comfortable to me.

Q. How did your username come to be?

A. I think I got this moniker in 2013 or so; the first thing I used it on was for music albums that I made- I removed it from my bandcamp but anyway, I was trying to make this kind of ambient, more industrial oriented type of music. And at the time I was in university, and it was kind of an asphyxiating environment, where I remember photocopying vast amounts of notes and textbooks, waiting for a good hour or so in the photocopier room, carrying massive stacks of paper. It felt kind of calming, less ominous than the intellectual activity that was the rest of the time.

Q. Are you fine saying which topic you studied?

A. Yeah, I got a degree in physics.

Q. So physics are what caused you to use that name online.

A. Yeah! At the time I was also, like many... well, I won't say many, cause I don't like to speak for other people. But myself as a transgender woman at the time, I was completely unaware of this fact about myself, and I would always naturally pursue some kind of neutral- or abstract, less "gender expression oriented" identity. And I think for the fotocopiadora being an object, being a thing, while still being a feminine noun was a comfortable thing. It's not like I called myself fotocopiadora to my friends or anything, but it was a good start.

Q. Currently, are there any games that you're interested in, and/or enjoying?

A. Yeah, I'm currently playing this Domino Club game called Sump, which I feel touches a lot of the sensibilities that I was feeling with First Land, and I'm really enjoying it; it's also a wonderful riddle that I haven't been able to solve yet. But it feels so calming and so nice to just explore, and try to figure things out. It's very good, honestly.

Also, something that I like to do, as my kind of game that I always play, one way or another: I do like invading people in Dark Souls games and trying to kill them. It's really a fun thing to do, and it's very niche in terms of multiplayer gaming. It's very unserious, not balanced at all, but I do like it. It feels like there's a lot of creativity and expression that you can do in that space. And the very limited interactions with people and the communication you can master with gestures and movements and things that you throw at each other, I think it's kinda fascinating. It's never gotten stale for me to do these things in these games.

Other than that, I have played Junkoid last year, and now I'm playing Super Junkoid, which is a ROM hack of Super Metroid, for the SNES. And it has this kind of dream like, kind of surreal story about a serpent, and it's very wishful and melancholic at the same time, and it has a mysterious world that I like to explore. So I'm looking forward to more of it, and more from P.Yoshi, who made the hack.

Q. Similarly, what sort of music have you been enjoying recently?

A. Recently, I have been... I have always been listening to a bunch of ambient, stuff like new age adjecent stuff, like G.B. Beckers and Enno Velthuys which I think is very appropriate for autumn. I've also been listening to a bunch of Japanese breakcore and hardcore, like this compilation I found that is really good: "YAMINABE" it's very fun, sort of depressive, very high energy. So yeah, I've been listening to it a bunch, and a bunch of heavy metal, and our new album... I've been meaning to get back to noise wall stuff, since I haven't listened to a lot of records of that since 2016 and stuff. And I dunno, I'm always having some kind of horrible ear-piercing noise in my headphones I guess.

Q. When it comes to your own music, is it fair to assume you have favorite samples and synthesizers that you like to re-use?

A. Yeah definitely. Well, almost all of the instruments in my tracks are just Synth1, the famous VST. And there's a bunch of samples, like the jungle breaks collections, and Legowelt has a really good bunch of zip files of samples of synthesizers and drum machines that I use a lot. They're pretty good, even though if you use like two or three of them your music just sounds like Legowelt now, which honestly is not a bad thing.

Q. I should have tried guessing Synth1.

A. Well, I also use many presets. I have a big zip file of presets for Synth1, I sometimes just click on whatever and start messing with the knobs. It's a fun way to do it, when you're trying to make something and you don't want to stop, you try to click on something that sounds approximately like what you want.

Sometimes based on vibes, sometimes the title of the presets is very abstract. Like "Martian Sphere" or something, that's the kind of name that things have. It's a fun kind of abstract game to play with yourself.

Q. When it comes to game design, are there any ideas that you really like?

A. I like, in particular, complicated stuff. I like when things are complicated in a way that you can't really appreciate them from the outside. By that I don't mean fine tuning the controls, or like, coyote time or whatever. Rather, things that really add to the confusion, or make things feel more alive or arbitrary or something. I feel like part of the motivation for making First Land was that I wanted to explore a bunch of these things, like the "mass" that appears and stuff, and it's not very clear what causes it, and stuff like that. I always like those things, when things require a little bit more of you than just playing the game and interfacing with it in a certain way, you know.

I do enjoy for example making maps of games a lot, things like that, where it's not considered good design or whatever, because the more canonical ideas for design go towards, you should be immersed in the game, and not contemplate it from the outside, like some artifact or puzzle box. Or you should make things as intuitive as possible for the player. I don't like that, it feels like some misguided sense of honesty, or trying to sell the product, because I really don't care much for selling my games; I don't feel obligated to grab people right off the bat, or make them feel immediately engrossed or whatever. I kind of want to make it more like it's up to you if you want to go deeper, it makes it feel more meaningful, in my opinion.

There's a bunch of people who really dislike the design philosophy of games like the original Legenf of Zelda, or La Mulana, because it's not conductive to the player finishing the game, but I think the idea of a mysterious puzzle box that isn't really a game that you will finish or find the answer, I think that's the coolest thing to me, and it's the kind of thing that I usually aspire to make.

Q. So you do enjoy arbitrary design, but it feels like you make efforts to keep your game fair?

A. I don't super care about being fair to the player, and I don't think First Land is a very fair game, at least on the first playthrough. Where it's not very clear why or how, and then you suddenly jump to the credits. It's probably a very boggling experience for most players, but I think it's fine like it is.

I do make an effort so that the complicated and absurd bullshit things are the things that I want them to be, you know. I spent a lot of time doing the movement coding in First Land, to minimize the amount of times that you can get stuck in a corner and stuff like that.

I think that's an aesthetic thing in itself, I don't judge games in which you can get stuck in corners. But I did not want that to be a thing in First Land, I kind of wanted it to feel more like a sort of smooth, or rather functional movement that doesn't say much to the player. That's why I didn't have any platformer challenges in First Land.

But I wanted it to feel like the 3D movement of some kind of 3D encyclopedia CD-Rom for Windows 95 or something.

Q. And when it comes to platforming challenges, you know players will find some anyway, even if they don't exist.

A. (laughs) Yeah, that is very true.

Q. When I asked about fairness, I was also thinking about creating expectations for players. Like settings trends, patterns. Did you have any thoughts on that?

A. I think I always liked the more, and this is not very game designer of me, but I always liked the more trial and error bullshit kind of gameplay. I do enjoy some games where it would be too fucking complicated if there wasn't that kind of learning curve structure or something. That kind of maximalist 90s puzzle game style where there's like a quadrillion elements, deadly rooms of death or whatever.

I kind of like that, and I appreciate that it tries to teach itself to you somehow. But I think for example for First Land, part of the character of the game is that it's difficult to understand, it doesn't try to explain itself to the player. I feel like it's kind of necessary to do that, so it does feel like a little mystery box you know.

For other games I made like Greasemnk, I feel like part of the character of that game is that it is very punishing. And in a sense it does teach you that at the very beginning, that you have to trial and error yourself through the thing.

Q. Do you have any affinities with abstract art?

A. I'm a little bit illiterate about art, so I don't know if I can answer your question correctly.

I do like abstract stuff in general, but when I make stuff it's mostly, for visual stuff, it's mostly in the context of something else, and I guess making cover art for music, or things to put into a video game world, it's a lot easier for me, because it's easy for me to find a correspondence between the visual and the music, or what I imagine the world looking like. I do like abstract art, I guess my favorite painter might be René Magritte.

I really like his whole use of imagery, as some kind of pure symbols. The way Magritte paintings are to me personally, they elicit a very strong emotional reaction from me; at the same time they speak in riddles, like it's talking in a language that your mind can process but your language can't quite get to. It's very fascinating, a very interesting artist to me.

Q. It sounds like you generally don't pursue abstraction, but have it as a consequence of your work?

A. I guess, yeah.

Q. And you draw as well?

A. I draw a little bit. I've made some stuff, but I've never really made an effort to put out visual art by itself. But I do draw like, blobs with horrible faces, or weird landscapes and stuff. It's always that kind of stuff.

Q. Have there ever been any words of advice, or a motto that have helped you in creative pursuits?

A. That's a good question, and I don't know if I can really give you answer. I think it's always been more of an attitude thing to me, and in general attitudes towards art that don't really seek recognition or commercial success have been very liberating to me, to assimilate.

But I don't know if I could tell you, there's probably something by Stephen TheCatamites that kind of summarizes it perfectly.

Q. What would you say from instinct, if someone told you they're making a game?

A. I would say, just don't worry about what people make of it at first glance. Because a lot of what you make, the looks that you get on your art aren't always going to be sincere, or open minded.

Something that I did feel when I started making stuff was that I was just putting stuff out into the world, and that was it, and people would see them and evaluate them and sort of decide whether it was worth their time or not.

But there are so many things that complicate that process, and people have expectations of things, like maybe you find someone who just chastizes you for not putting enough shaders in your game. Or someone who thinks that PS3 style bloom is so passé. Or someone that wants you to make something cozy and wholesome, relaxing, compromising. Or people who want you to be political.

And people want you to be industry, and people want you to reject industry. So your work is always going to be seen in various lenses, that are almost always purely contextual.

So it's like, the only thing you can make is stuff for yourself, and your own perception of the world, or what you think you want to see, what you think is missing, what you feel.

And, the most liberating thing that I have had to learn making games was to cast away any ideas of tying my professional life to the silly little games that I make. Because otherwise, now both my job and my hobby are miserable. It feels like a bad idea.

Q. Do you think there's any specific origin point to some of the ideas you get?

A. There's a bunch of stuff that I've alwasy been iterating on, but most of it is just stuff that comes from dreams, or very specific images that pop into my mind. First Land, the internal world of it, was originally based on stuff I put in Warrior of Sunlight which is a little interactive fiction card game that I made, for a Glorious Trainwrecks event.

In turn, those things came from some dreams that I had about like, a very wet, a very moist underwater world, like caverns and stuff like that. They feel like in a very primitive way, things that I want to make over and over.

And there's other stuff that are images that I've always had present. Like in some of the endings in First Land, you can see a place, there's these themes of chairs put together, like listening to something. Almost like peering into the world, like that idea of remote vision, or a strange connection between a point and the rest of the points. That's always been an image and a concept that I've really liked, and that I put in there whenever I can.

Q. What the world really needs to know, is how the idea for Mouse Sector came about.

A. Mouse Sector started in another little jam in Glorious Trainwrecks, which was the Mouse Jam, organized by Mariken S. which is also someone I've collaborated with a bunch of times. And I was thinking about making some kind of free movement thing, that felt like aimless exploration; then I felt like I'd give it a kind of internal story, that's told in a very fractured sort of way. I just thought of mice, and I thought of exploration and stuff, and I wanted to make weird 3D movement games, so I just put those things together.

Q. Did any of your other projects have some sort of surprising origin?

A. Actually, the language in First Land, the original inspiration came from the youtube series Petscop.

I really became a little obsessed with Petscop in that era, and the way that phonetic language works was very interesting to me, so I just wanted to make a controller input based phonetic language for First Land, and that sort of communication style that requires you to press a bunch of buttons, and you can speak faster the better you get; I thought that was very interesting and had a lot of character. So I kind of just ripped it off.

Q. So that idea happened during development?

A. Yes. It was something that I was meaning to make in a game, and I didn't really find a good place to put it, but when I was making First Land, when it really started increasing in size I was like, "I guess this is a thing I could do now, I guess this is a thing I could try adding."

And it also led to the multiplayer mod, because I thought it would be nice to have people to talk to with that language.

Q. You were mentioning in greeting that you work as a freelancer, on Dread Delusion among other things. When it comes to your own projects and/or plans, are you still focused on games?

A. Yeah, I am. I do get a little tired of looking at Unity all day, so I really don't feel like looking at it more in my free time. That's one of the reasons I've started making games that are more like, purely writing, or visual novels, or just GameMaker weird toys and stuff. I want to avoid writing big files of code in my spare time if I can. But I'm definitely still making games.

Q. Are there any creative mediums you've recently been interested in?

A. Honestly, between video games and music, I think my plate is pretty full. There's a lot of stuff that I like doing, that I could incorporate in video games. I've been writing a little more, taking pictures and stuff. That's like the base components of visual novels, you have pictures and writing and put them together. So it ends up circling back to making games.

Q. Are there any upcoming games that you're looking forward to?

A. Yes, there's one that's out now that I've been meaning to play: Crypt Underworld by Lilith Zone.

There's also this maybe less well known guy on Facebook, making some kind of crazy huge cyberpunk looking game. They've been making this game since 2010 or something, and it's been going through every single version of Unity ever made. It's always this huge giant thing. It's called "Genocide Dolphins"

It's this kind of weird visuals, like transparent glossy people that look like some new age 3D render meditation video, and I've been wondering if it'll ever come out, and what kind of a monstrosity of a computer I'll need to play it, or if I even want to play it. But I've been fascinated by the kind of strange process, of just filing stuff up, and creating this gargantuan thing.

Another more conventional, more polished game; I've been excited for Radio the Universe. It's a very minutely detailed pixel art game, that feels kind of dark, really gives me the feeling of a kind of half-mechanincal body, and it looks really great.

I guess another is one of those things everyone has been waiting for for many years, I've been for Ryukishi07 to continue work on Ciconia When They Cry. I read all of Higurashi between last year and this year, and I've been reading Umineko, and they are just such incredible things, they have been honestly a little bit life changing, so I'm excited for him to not make a weird Majhong based spinoff of Higurashi or something.



P.2 (First Land)

Prefacing the following questions, please note: none were asked which could either spoil answers in completing the game or piecing together its story. While we did discuss the game's mechanics and story, the conversation was aimed moreso at the philosophy and the creative process.

First Land

Playing the game is hugely recommended at this point, but it's a comfortable read either way, and the order in which you read and play should not matter much.



Q: The opening question for this part is moreso a sentiment, that a lot of personal feelings were put into your game, correct?

A: Yeah, I would say that it's true.

Q: Most people I asked before reaching out to you shared the sentiment of not wanting a proper sequel to the game. What are your thoughts there?

A: If I made something like that, I'm not interested in extending the story anymore I think. But I did enjoy a lot of the process in making it, and I do want to make things that are sort of like it, like the emphasis on the identity or exploring, knowing a place that's kind of strange, I feel like there's a lot there that I could make, and there's ideas in that sense that I want to explore. But I kind of want to leave First Land alone.

Q: As a game designer, if a player tries the game, gets the "Annihilation" ending and calls it a day, is that fine for you?

A: Honestly, yeah. At first I was a little bit concerned that people would miss the entirety of the game, but I actually like it like this now. I feel like I've never been looking for a big audience or the ability to really connect to every player. So I think that if some people really just got the "Annihilation" ending and just quit it's perfectly fine. And it's also pretty fine for the level of exploration that they want to do. So it just works fine.

I feel like most of the things that I put in the game, it's fine if they're there for the players that want to dig more into it. Secret places don't feel special if you signal them more or if you want everyone to participate.

Also, having put the "Annihilation" ending in the game also adds a really funny benefit, which is that I get a lot less comments on Itch, of people that got stuck and don't know how to continue, because they got an ending so it's fine, you finished the game! You don't have to do anything else now.

I think it's good at communicating the idea that you don't have to see all the content if you don't feel like it.

Q: So it's a way to "free" people, so to speak.

A: Yeah, exactly.

Q: Do you think that sort of thinking was similar for say, the designers of Castlevania games with their endings?

A: That's a very good comparison I think. I would say that the Castlevanias, post Symphony Of The Night at least, do a good job at signalling that kind of stuff, because you have completion percentages, and a bunch of empty space on the map and stuff.

And yeah, I think it's kind of a similar thing. On the other hand, Castlevanias are commercial games that you pay money for. But it's an interesting way to let people know that like, the game is over if you want it to be.

Q: In First Land, there is a notorious maze segment. Was it made with any particular intent?

A: Well, the original idea for that part is that, when I was 80% done with First Land, I just had a dream that the ending was different. I just had a dream that there was a different ending that involved an underwater maze with a submarine and stuff. So I was thinking, I just have to make it now, because I saw it in a dream. I didn't want it to be isolated from the rest of the game, so there's still stuff you can do in the maze, like collect worms and stuff, which have some use in the rest of the game and vice versa.

But there wasn't a very specific design to the maze. I guess it's like a dungeon crawler sort of thing, I just drew the map in a notebook. And just thought it would be interesting, to have a certain arrangement of doors and corridors and stuff. And you sort of need to make a map of it, which I mentioned I always like.

Q: I was expecting to hear about hand drawing maps, I'm glad you didn't contradict that thought.

A: Yeah, I just like drawing maps. So I put a bullshit maze in First Land. (laughs)

Q: In the First Land manual, there is a mysterious object presented. I heard that it appeared later in development, to replace a similar mechanic?

A: Yeah, it was one of the very last things that I put in the game. The idea was that I wanted to make the worms that you have do something. It also allowed me to put a bunch of other stuff that I didn't really have a place for, like the dream objects. And if you really want to find one of the endings for example, then you can sort of use that to make it easier, instead of the ending being a sort of collect every worm ending. I thought that would have done a disservice for world as a place, rather than some Super Mario 64 level.

Q: Unless the game had Super Mario 64 movement as well.

A: Yeah, well that would have been interesting. And actually, this a funny thing, there is an add-on for Blender that lets you put Super Mario 64 in Blender. You can drop a super Mario in there and it has the exact movement and mechanics. It's amazing, and naturally the first thing I did when I found it was put the entirety of First Land in there and put super Mario in there.

Q: Is that mysterious object an example of "puzzle boxes" you mentioned earlier?

A: Yeah, I wanted it to feel vague, but possible to figure out that there's a pattern to how it works.

Q: When you designed the words and spells in First Land, were you ever conflicted over the fact that not all have a function?

A: Not really. I guess all of them do have a function, because there's always the possibility of communicating to another player, however it might be. So I guess they're all minimally functional in a sense. But not really, I was originally thinking of it as a sort of spell-casting system so I really didn't need every word to do something.

Q: Did you ever have the expectation of players to translate the First Land language to legible Spanish?

A: I imagine that could happen at some point. All the spells are just spanish words written phonetically. It's something that you can do if you want, it doesn't really tell you much other than like, some kind of perfunctory word that kind of describes the spell, so...

Like the spell that kills things is just "death" in Spanish.

Still, I am surprised that people have done that.

Q: Yeah, it's happened. It does help writing faster.

A: Well yes, and actually that's how I think of the words when I am typing them.

Q: Were "walking simulators" any inspiration to your game design?

A: It doesn't tell me much about anything, other than walking around without shooting things. So I guess it is a walking sim, but I don't care particularly that it is one or not. And there isn't really a design framework that I want to follow or dissect for walking sims.

Q: So you aren't too influenced by that genre of game.

A: I think that something I really didn't want to emulate from that genre was, the way that they feel is usually easy and fluid when you move. I felt like that was kind of contradictory with the idea of careful exploration of a place. I ended up giving up and added mouse look and wasd movement to First Land, but the original idea was to have turn around and look controls. That's what I use to play the game, but there were many people who preferred mouse look, so I figured I would just put it in as well. But I don't think there was any hurt to the artistic vision or anything.

Q: First land features a few real world-looking locations. Covering those, one is the IESC conference hall.

A: The idea for a conference hall was that, at my previous job, before I started working on this stuff, I was a PH.D student in physics, so I went to a bunch of conferences. They always felt to me like a strange space, sort of places that are alive in a very momentary way. I felt like I wanted to put one of those in First Land, and it's actually an amalgamation of a bunch of different conference centers and university faculty buildings I've been to.

Q: Some levels also feature dumpsters.

A: Oh yeah the dumpsters. There's actually a funny anecdote, when I was more active with the band, playing gigs and stuff, we did one in an art building in Madrid. It was connected to the city hall, and there was this basement area where we had to unload all our stuff and pass it through security and stuff, and it was like an underground maze. It had so many corridors, and sometimes I would just open a door and it would lead to a room with just a bunch of dumpsters in it. Or sometimes it was a very large room with a large table and a bunch of papers. It was all kinds of stuff and I got lost multiple times in there.

I felt like the dumpsters especially were a bit of a surreal thing, so I thought I wanted to put it in because it was a thing I saw in real life.

Q: Pretty quickly you notice that a few levels are connected by unopenable doors. What sort of idea put that in place?

A: I kind of wanted the game to anticipate the rest of the place, like give you a little glimpse of what's behind a locked door. It felt a little bit like recurring dreams, where something appears but it's not always the same, or from the same angle, or the same place. So I just felt like it would fit to do it that way.

Q: There's a few places that feature symbols, like a blue mural that you eventually find. Are those anything specific?

A: About the blue mural, there's this thing I was thinking about when making Marina's character. The idea of Tiamat as a character as well; I was thinking that I would have a certain kind of philosophy, that they would manifest in the game, but without explaining it upfront. The mural is a little part of that, I feel like it's related to the way Marina talks about stuff, like invisible ties under the world that connect all things.

Q: There's another place, some computer in a basement. Since it features little icons and stuff, was it inspired by anything specific?

A: I was just trying to make what I thought a computer that you put weird stuff into would look like. Some of the icons are sort of inspired by old interfaces like Windows 3.1, stuff like that. They're kind of like a computer interface that looks very primitive, it's inspired as well by scientific instrumentation that I've used that have really ancient operating systems, and this really rudimentary presentation.

Q: There's a few machines that make a really nice beep in the game.

A: Yes.

Q: Another place is the train station. It's the Majadahonda station?

A: Yes, it is. It is like, an approximation of it. The real one is a little bit more decayed. But that's basically it.

When I started making this, or before I even started, I was working as a teacher for high school computer type subjects. And it was really, not a very good stage of my life. I was very depressed, very anxious. When I was working as a teacher I would have to take the train back and forth, and I would end up really exhausted every day. So, this sort of fantasy of disappearing into somewhere else magically was interesting to me at the time.

Q: And that's clearly expressed in the game.

A: Honestly, in a related aside, it was just me making a place on the computer, that I didn't really do much with. I guess as time went on, it became more explicit, more aware of the fantasy itself at which point I wanted to express it in the game. I think the station was sort of the beginning for that, one of the overarching themes of the game.

Q: A few scenes in the game are pictures. Is that your own photography work?

A: Yes!

Q: There's a shared theme of beaches, the sea. What is your sentiment on those?

A: I always saw the sea like something very much different to any other place, to me. It really feels abundant with life and deep to me. So it's always a thought that comes back, of this great thing that can erase everything, or begin everything in.

It really feels like a representation of the origin and end of all; which I feel is also, the way it's represented in First Land, the way that all secrets, magic and fantasy begins and ends in the sea.

Q: Okay, so this next segment I called "lore questions", which makes it sound really bad. But, since you shared ideas between two games, you've created a bit of a universe with Warrior of Sunlight and First Land.

A: I guess. I think they are kind of loosely tied, but I don't think that they are things that coexist in the same fictional world of whatever. They're more like iterations of the same thing.

Q: The three symbols that you see, did they originate in Warrior of Sunlight?

A: Yes. I tried to give them a more definite form in First Land.

Q: Which is why their drawins ended up changing?

A: Yes. In Warrior of Sunlight, I tried to do a more stylized thing. But I didn't think it would fit very well in First Land, so I ended up changing them.

Q: If you were to expand on that whole universe, would you rather keep iterating rather than share the world?

A: I guess maybe, but I don't think I really want to. I always end up connecting things together, but it basically isn't ever my goal. It's more about what I want to make, in a more basic sense.

Q: So it's more spontaneous?

A: Yes, definitely. I definitely want to make something with a similar process than First Land, which was very much focusing on environments and places, and what it feels like to be walking in those spaces. But I don't think I want to continue the "First Land universe", so to speak.

Q: Did those two games have that link by coincidence?

A: It's more that both of them pull from the same images that I had in my dreams and stuff.

Q: There are pretty obvious ties to mysticism in your games, and you were mentioning those earlier?

A: Yes, it's something that's always been interesting to me as a theme. I guess it's a good vessel for ideas that at their core are related to primal emotions or whatever, but I feel like the way that people are creatures, and communicating in a non rational way. I feel like that sort of primal mysticism, or magic, it's a very fertile way to express those things to me.

Q: Is there any specific notion you had in mind with the duality of "Tulpa" and "Body" introduced in the game?

A: I think it's a common enough idea in mysticism, something like platonic ideas of medieval alchemy. To me, more than a coherent system, it's more related to the character of Marina, how she exists in both worlds, how the separation is this painful irreversible thing akin to death. So I guess it's more like concepts maybe rather than a system of belief.

In the game, I think that it's also a good reading; and they are presented like that. But it's more complicated than that, in a way that I can't really explain too much.



P.3 (Awful geeky questions)

The remaining conversation has to do with details concerning First Land that the fans I know and myself felt like pointing out to Fotocopiadora, on the chance that she might have something to comment on.

If you haven't played the game, this could slightly spoil things. But mostly, it'll just not make sense; and still then, these really aren't the sort of details that matter.

So essentially, this is a bonus round or something.



Q: There's this mechanic in Warrior of Sunlight that has to do with presenting the symbols that you learned, which is different in First Land. Was that a conscious change?

A: In First Land it didn't make a lot of sense to do it that way, because I did want to let you explore the thing, and you do enough back and forth as it is, so I'd rather just do it like that in the case of First Land. In Warrior of Sunlight, I think it works, because you see the beginning of the dream but then you're prevented from reaching the further parts, so it makes it more intriguing.

Q: You were talking about the Mass mechanic. Which I think is fun, because it's not like the player ever sees that word.

A: Yeah, I just call it Mass internally. I just thought it was something like a mass of worms, more literally. But I also thought about this thing that's also in Warrior of Sunlight, that's some horrible space feeling thing that makes everything into itself or something. That sort of thing kind of fit the word "mass", that's like some kind of material in a more physical way, but also some kind of burden. So I kind of just left it like that, and didn't think too much about it.

Q: So the red body gives you a code, and from what I figured out it's randomized. Since it's the only one like that, I was wondering why it's the case.

A: It's actually using the operating system or hardware identifier as its seed, so it's more or less always the same for the same computer. I just wanted it to feel like it's the player's code.

Q: First Land is a real game, because it actually has cut content and wasn't released after simply cramming content into it. Some of that cut content are spells: Klarita, Golem, Tulpa.

A: The idea of Golem was like a multiplayer spell, that would create a thing on the ground, that if another player touches it, it would give them a bunch of mass, and remove a bunch of mass from the player that cast it.

Q: Oh, like Dark Souls multiplayer combat.

A: (laughs) Basically yes. However I ended up not doing it because messing with the unity code not working for it was making me lose my mind, so I just decided to abandon it.

The Tulpa spell was simply to display a list of players, probably identified with their pseudo-randomized code.

And the Klarita spell I think still does something. It makes you lose one point of mass, but you can only cast it once. And it also has no visual effect.

Q: In a few places in the game, you have those reflections, really bright specks of color. My assumption was that they're part of the pursued aesthetic, but what can you say?

A: I did want to make something with kind of real looking materials, but also low resolution and fizzy enough to feel a little more abstract or surreal. Those are lightmapping artifacts, which are kind of annoying to get rid of, but I ended up liking them well enough to not worry too much about them.

Q: There was a harp track in the game, that ended up being removed. Why?

A: I removed it because the place I wanted to play that was that place with the big green column, but it was too close to the big giant pit, and I didn't want to play that and the big growling sound at the same time. But I did like it.

First Land OST

Q: There's also a rare track when you enter the beach. Does it just play at random?

A: Yes.

Q: There are little loop creatures, who can remain mysterious of course. What I was wondering however, is if the "twister" animation ever did anything.

A: What's the twister animation?

Q: The blue ones twist up and disappear.

A: Oh yeah they disappear. Nothing else in particular happens.

Q: There were plans for mass and things to be colored white or blue.

A: I was just experimenting with different versions, and just ended up with this one.

Q: And it's possible to have different colors still.

A: I think if it happens it was mostly an oversight on my part. I think it was (the colors) just a visual thing.

Q: Another cut feature was the "blood egg". Was it removed for a particular reason?

A: I think that the disc ended up doing what the blood egg was supposed to do at first.

Q: Is the basement key consumable as a prank?

A: Yes.

Q: The final question is from my mother, who asks if the player character is wearing high heels.

A: It can be if you want them to.

I wanted to make something that would work for any kind of material, because I didn't want to make a system for realistic footsteps, for sand, or rock or whatever. So I just made one that kind of works for everything.

Q: And we're done! Do you have any words to wrap this up?

A: Well, I am very surprised that people have taken to this game so intensely, and explored and looked into it so much. It definitely was really an intense experience and I put a lot of myself into it, so it really feels great to see that it's appreciated in that regard.

Thanks everyone, for playing the game.