Interview with the Team Behind City of Dolorosa
It’s that time of year again! The Six One Indie Showcase is in full swing and that means loads of amazing indies being shown off and, of course, we’ve got more developer interviews for you. We sent some questions over to the team at Cuelebre Cult about their upcoming hand-drawn visual novel City of Dolorosa and they were kind enough to answer them.
A huge thank you to Óscar, Rober and Ari for being a part of our September showcase and for allowing us to show off City of Dolorosa.
Can you tell me a little bit about the team and how you all got started working on City of Dolorosa?
(Óscar, 2D artist, writer and game designer): Rober told me he wanted to make a video game, something simple and small (which is funny to say, 4 years later). When we started, it was like a dam had broken, with lots of crazy ideas, characters and lore, and now we have this great project about the most evil city in the world.
(Rober, programmer, 3D artist, writer and game designer): I had just gotten back to Asturias after some years living out of town. I have known Óscar for many years and always loved his art style, so I asked him to do something together. Dolorosa started out in a completely different way, as a boring-as-hell grid-based dungeon crawler, and after many iterations it has become the game we all know and love. When things started to get serious, Ari joined the team to help us structure things out.
(Ari, Producer and marketing/community manager): I was originally going to help them a little bit with socials, but as soon as I tried the demo I fell in love with it, it had lots of potential and definitely something special, to this day I still don’t know how to fully describe it. I was out of a job with lots of time to spare, so I started getting more and more involved with community management, and then onto (lots of) production tasks. In the span of a year, we have gone from a silly little proof of concept to a polished, professional project. Now I just act as a Dolorosa walking billboard, specially on events.
What inspired City of Dolorosa’s eye-catching art style?
(Óscar, 2D artist, writer and game designer): Without wanting to sound pretentious or arrogant, we didn't develop the visual style of City of Dolorosa with any other video game in mind. I can tell you that I love The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and Jet Set Radio, and I love the feelings conveyed by Lisa The Painful. In terms of drawing, there is a comic book artist, Jack Kirby, who drives me crazy with his approach to proportions. I also love Hirohiko Araki's use of colour, and of course, I would love to consider Eiichirō Oda a master in how I design characters, with such strength and joy.
Can you tell us just a little bit about how the team was able to use hand-drawn india ink in order to create the 3D/2D environments and characters in the game?
(Óscar, 2D artist, writer and game designer): I know how to draw digitally. In my work as a graphic designer and illustrator, I usually use tools that work with vectors, but with my brush and Indian ink, I work more intuitively. I think it's easier to create an original aesthetic with that touch of spontaneity.
(Rober, programmer, 3D artist, writer and game designer): In the beginning we were looking at different ways to incorporate Óscar’s traditional drawings to the gamedev pipeline. After some trial and error we found a workflow that works for us, which involves a lot of manual labor, like printing UV Maps in an artist friendly way, then scan it (huge thanks to our local copy shop!) and clean the pieces digitally so that Óscar can color them. Once we settled on this method, everything ran smoothly.
What can you tell us about the three main characters that players can choose from in City of Dolorosa?
(Óscar, 2D artist, writer and game designer): One is timid and overthinks everything, afraid of hurting himself and hurting others. Another is competitive and misanthropic, always finding even the smallest reason to despise his peers. You know, the gates of hell are locked from the inside. And the other is everything I want to be. Pure vain courage and a shameless love for life.
(Ari, Producer and marketing/community manager): All three of them bring different things to the table, the way they interact with the world and its characters is meticulously thought out, and I can’t wait for people to play and have fun with them.
(Rober, programmer, 3D artist, writer and game designer): At least as much fun as we had writing them.
Which of the five great powers was your favorite to bring to life?
(Óscar, 2D artist, writer and game designer): They have all been fun because they are the most unique characters, with their own music, colour palette and very distinctive way of speaking. And although I love all the ones we have done, I sincerely believe that the best is yet to come.
(Rober, programmer, 3D artist, writer and game designer): Without giving away any details and speaking strictly about what you can see in the demo… the whole process of making Flaga has been so much fun, but I’d say my favourite is Alastor.
(Ari, Producer and marketing/community manager): Flaga intimidates the hell out of me (she’s also a character that draws a lot of attention, for the wrong reasons (the reasons being: serving lots of c***)), so I would have to say Alastor as well. He’s got the coolest setting, too! I’d love to hang out with him.
What does “indie” mean to you?
(Óscar, 2D artist, writer and game designer): It means that it's difficult, but we can do cool things if we figure out how to do it.
(Rober, programmer, 3D artist, writer and game designer): It means that we do things for ourselves and not to satisfy the greed of some guy in a suit (even if the process is more difficult).
(Ari, Producer and marketing/community manager): I believe the ‘indie’ concept has evolved considerably over the past decade or so, and not necessarily for the better (is this the right moment to blame capitalism?). To us, being indie means finding a way to do what we want to do, conveying it just the way we envision it, perfecting our craft in the meantime, learning as much as we can, and enjoying the process. We are not privileged enough to have a million dollars in our pockets, and hell, we know we won’t make a living off of this, but we don’t care, because we will still put out something amazing, and you bet we’ll have poured our hearts into it.
(Rober, programmer, 3D artist, writer and game designer): And this is why she is our producer and communicator.
City of Dolorosa does not have a release date just yet but be sure to wishlist the game on Steam to stay up to date on future news.