Blasphemous has arrived. The wait, which began with its presentation in May 2017 , has been long but the gamer community will finally be able to step into the Penitent’s shoes and put themselves to the test with the experience created by the TheGameKitchen team. In order to open our mouths, we have spoken with Enrique Cabeza; creative director, designer and artist of the Seville studio and one of the leaders behind Blasphemous .
Surprised by the support of the community
TheGameKitchen defines itself as a small studio with few resources that, despite everything, tries to stay true to its principles by creating video games with meaning and quality . They became known with the success of The Last Door , a graphic adventure point & click of terror with clear elements of the narrative and the universe of Lovecraft or Poe. Using crowdfunding , the game was published by chapters between 2013 and 2016 and garnered recognition and appreciation from both critics and the public. It was also in 2016 that TheGameKitchen started working on the first ideas for Blasphemous.
The studio once again turned to the support of the gamer community to carry out its project and presented it on the crowdfunding website Kickstarter. They asked for $ 50,000, but the enthusiasm and expectations were such that the collection exceeded $ 330,000. According to Enrique Cabeza, “the scale of the budget completely changed the video game”, assuming a great change as developers with respect to their experience in The Last Door and allowing them “to maintain the concept but expand it with more content, more development and assuming more risks” . The unexpected amount of money received allowed them to hire more people and expand the original idea, paying special attention to animations.
“Animations are one of the most colorful elements in the game,” says Enrique. Blasphemous can boast of being a game whose pixel art has been handcrafted to the fluidity and detail that can be seen in the final result. In fact, comparing the first trailer that was shown with the most current ones, it is not difficult to notice the qualitative leap that the game has experienced . In this case, players have invested in enhancing the experience that they themselves will enjoy.
Less stats, more gameplay
One of the main hooks that TheGameKitchen caught the attention of players with was the genre chosen for their project: a metroidvania . It is a genre of video games, generally in 2D, characterized by a large map that expands as exploration progresses and that usually requires objects or special skills to access hidden areas . The name comes from two of the great sagas that popularized it, Metroid and Castlevania , and precisely this second is one of the great sources from which Blasphemous drinks.
“The most important influence is Castlevania , but also other games like Hollow Knight “, confesses Enrique Cabeza. With just a few minutes of playing, any gamer familiar with the genre can recognize the influence of the classic Castlevania: Symphony of the Night , considered by many to be one of the best games ever and probably the best of the metroidvanias . One also gets to feel the presence of the Dark Souls although, as Enrique confirms, Dark Souls is noticeable “in the atmosphere, the story”; more present in “form than content”.
And is that Blasphemous is an intense game both in its narrative (one of its strengths if the player is willing to delve into it) and its gameplay . TheGameKitchen launches you on an adventure without a word, including “some RPG elements but not many, focusing more on the gameplay”. Statistics take a backseat and the action and frenetic pace of the game are boosted, whether jumping from one platform to another or fighting enemies.
Depth in history and design
Between so much platform game and combat, TheGameKitchen seeks to stand out by taking care of its history to surprising levels, giving the player the minimum elements to understand the story as it progresses and leaving the rest of the secrets scattered around the map in a somewhat particular Easter egg hunt . The world we travel, baptized as Custody, manages to take the leading role from our character on more than one occasion. “Instead of a regular story, we have created a world alien to the player,” says Enrique. “The real protagonist is the world, not the character .”
But this dark universe did not come out of nowhere. TheGameKitchen has used as inspiration the religious iconography of southern Spain and its city, Seville, to give Custodia its characteristic aesthetic and personality. Far from wanting to generate any kind of controversy over the use of religious images, Enrique Cabeza says that they intended to “honor all of that just as it is done in Japan with manga or video games.” Even in the music, the work of Carlos Viola, sounds and instruments typical of Holy Week and other religious festivals have been used that are so assimilated in society that they are “cultural products, not just religious”.
Blasphemous has arrived, and now it’s gamers’ turn to see the fruit of their trust in a studio that values the potential of video games and strives to do them justice. Ready to wield the sword Mea Culpa and set out on the path of the Penitent?
