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Koira
Creating a special bond with your pet (Gamescom 2024) - Interview with the creators of Koira
We interviewed Benjamin Legat (Creative Director) and Sander Vanhove (Lead Developer) about one of the most charming indies at Gamescom this year. Koira explores the bonds we create with our loved ones in a very particular and unique way.
Audio transcription
"Hi, Gamereactor friends, this is our second day at Gamescom in Germany.
This is the Dontnod's booth and I'm taking a look at a game which is called Koira.
And you might have heard of it at Gamereactor because we just had our preview by my good colleague and friend Ben on the game and the game also got its demo released."
"So we met you guys a year ago and it's always interesting to catch up when you guys progress through the project and now you got the demo and a release date and that's interesting.
So the first thing when I was reading Ben's preview that caught my attention was that you guys use no dialogue at all and it's a, but it's narrative focus, it's story driven."
"So what can you tell us about this aspect?
Thank you so much for joining us.
Yeah, it's true.
So there's no like text at all, which makes it that we can show the art way more and we can put some aspects of storytelling on the pedestal that are very, very important."
"Like it's very intimate, which makes that people can project their own story on what's happening in the game and how the relationship of the dark evolves.
It's very universal because there's no text, so nobody needs a cultural background of language and we use these symbolisms in the game itself to show actually what's happening and how we want the story to progress."
"And then it's way more poetic because of course an image shows more than a thousand words can tell.
So, and we do try to tell things through the arts, through the music, through the animation and through out the gameplay evolvement."
"I think that's nice.
It's more poetic without words.
That's interesting.
So the game, If I'm Correct, is about creating a bond with the little pup here."
"It reminded me a little bit of Handling, which is a Spanish game about these fox cubs and you have to take care of them.
You can lose some of them.
I don't know."
"What can you tell us about this creating bond aspect?
Yeah, absolutely.
So I played a bit of Handling, not the full game.
And typically I think there's a similar narration about creating a bond with a character and the emotional connection you will have with the character."
"Now the progression of the game is quite different.
What we do here is that we don't really have a survival aspect like they can have in Handling.
So what we wanted to focus is really to have different gameplay moments that would always support and reflect key moments in the story."
"So this is why the gameplay kind of evolves throughout the game.
So you have a moment of bonding with the dog where you have to find food for him, but also just play with him to reconfort him, as well as finding him back when he might be away.
And we are mixing that with more environmental puzzles of saving other animals."
"There are these hunters in the forest that are trying to kidnap your dog.
So there's also a section of stealth.
So we want to make it feel like every moment is there to really support something core to the story."
"So it's always kind of shifting and evolving to keep the story fresh.
You mentioned key moments.
What about like the really strong key moments?
Can they get too devastating?
Can they get too emotional?
Handling, you could lose the caps, but I don't know how deep you want to go into hitting our heart hard."
"We're going deep, I think.
So we love this thematic of duality, of like the wholesome aspect of the game, because you're meeting this little dog, you're becoming friends, but we also like the more mysterious and dangerous aspect."
"And I think if you play the demo, then you'll see that at the end there is a cliffhanger which is pretty gripping.
I'm not going to tell too much about that, but I think we go deep.
Is Koira the name of the dog?
So we want the player to get their own name, or put their own name on the dog, because Koira in Finnish means dog."
"Okay, I didn't know that.
And you said a bunch of things that you can do with the dog.
Can you pet the dog?
Yeah, of course."
"So it's one of the things that was prototyped the first in the project, was this emotional prototype of just having you and the dog in a forest.
So we wanted that the interaction would not only be gameplay-oriented, but also just a moment of joy and bonding and innocence."
"So not everything is mandatory, you have a lot of optional things you can do.
So for example, petting the dog, but you can also throw a stick to play fetch with him.
You can do a lot of mini-games, you can build a snowman with him, you can play hide and seek."
"So some of these are mandatory for the story, but some of them are more optional, and so we play with that to allow you to form this personal connection to the dog.
I'm seeing in the trailer, there's a new trailer for this that you might be watching while we're talking, this accompanying this interview, so I'm seeing a bunch of snowy elements, which I guess makes sense with Finland, but what can you tell us about the other biomes that we're going to visit with the dog?
Yeah, so the base biome is a snowy forest, but we try to show very different parts of the forest."
"Like at one point, you'll find a cave to explore, at one point you'll find a lake, at one point you'll find the hunter camp, which you have to traverse.
So it's always the base is the hunter camp, but then the biomes are more the different areas there and the different kinds of trees you'll encounter."
"So it's more, not very different biomes, but very different parts of the forest.
And speaking about the setting, it's all hand drawn.
So what can you share about this aspect of the game or the artists you have with you guys doing this all hand drawn?
Yeah, so the art was really something that was defined from the start of the project."
"We wanted to have something that would be very visually striking, so very different than what you might expect to find.
So we wanted that when people are scrolling Twitter, they would be like, oh, what is this game?
I've never seen such an art style before."
"And at the same time, something that would directly be emotionally very strong.
So we went from this idea of having hand drawn animation, which can be quite costly to make, but allows to have a lot of expressivity in the characters.
And so from there, we decided to use these flat shaded characters because it allows to gain a lot of time in animation."
"And you see that in a lot of animation movie or games.
But then we put these big expressive eyes on the characters so that we could, through the animation, convey a lot of what is happening in their body language, in what they are looking at."
"Wind Waker, sorry.
Yeah, exactly.
So it allows us, even if we have no text in the game, to convey a lot of the story through the animation, as well as the art and the music, obviously."
"And then, yeah, indeed, we had these characters that were kind of in this harsh black and white environment.
And so we wanted to have, indeed, these kind of bittersweet aspects, where we also had like a lot of colors and fluffiness."
"And so this is where we added a lot of watercolor textures for the bush, the foliages, as well as the snow and the cloud that you might encounter.
So it creates for this unique texturing between kind of fine black ink and more like soft and airy watercolor textures."
"Who's the main artist here?
So I defined the creative direction initially.
So I worked for nine months alone on the project.
And then we signed with Donut."
"And now we have Liv van der Zand, who joined us as a full-time artist on the project.
So now she's really doing a lot of the assets.
And so she brought really like a new addition of details to the assets.
She's adding a lot of texturing, so she refines a lot of the direction that was initially directed."
"Perfect.
And when can we take care of this puppy?
Of course, you can start doing that by downloading the demo, which I guess it's on PC only for now."
"And then the game will release on both PC and PS5, correct me if I'm wrong, on April 17th, 2025.
Anything else you would like to add about the game?
So yeah, I think it's just a very, very wholesome game."
"We hope that people can enjoy their time with the dog, go through the story, and take their own time to explore the forest, see what the trees have to offer, and where this relationship with the dog can go, for sure.
Thank you so much for your time, guys."
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