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We spoke with Rebekah Saltsman, CEO at Finji, to discuss the new paranormal adventure Usual June.
"All right, it's your usual August.
So we're here at Gamescom 2023, as per usual, doing our things.
But now we're talking about a different month."
"It's not a month, it's the name of the protagonist, if I'm correct.
Thank you so much for joining us, Rebecca.
Let's talk a little bit about Usual June.
This is an adventure..."
"Am I correct in saying this looks to me like Casper meets Life is Strange with a Portal sort of travelling touch to it?
Yeah, not far off.
So we have our main protagonist."
"She can see ghosts.
And she has found a mystery in the town that she goes to college in.
She has her friends and they're kind of like scooby-dooing around.
And she keeps sort of falling into these places where she has these magical ghost abilities to, I guess, beat up some monsters."
"Monsters. Creepy.
How creepy can monsters get in this game?
The big monsters can get pretty big and creepy.
The smaller monsters, as you look at them, they're really beautiful."
"You're not always sure if you actually want to hurt them.
But they're kind of not acting like themselves.
Somebody else has sort of come in and kind of made a mess of their own world.
As you told me before, it's like Ghostbusters in a way."
"It's not very creepy.
I mean for the audience, it's teenagers sort of.
Yeah, we are not in sort of blood and gore territory here.
The story does have some teeth."
"But the visuals, the gameplay, all of that is definitely a T rating.
Okay. And what do you do here?
I mean, you define this as an action-adventure game.
I've seen more part of the adventure side of things."
"So what do you actually do with June to travel between worlds and solve puzzles, I guess?
Yeah, so what you're doing, you're hanging out with your friends.
It's summertime. You're in Fen Harbor. That's the name of the town.
And the ghosts have started acting really strange."
"Nobody really knows that June can see ghosts.
So she starts sort of poking around, looking into the urban legends in town with her friends.
And as she's doing this, she is being pulled into this other place, this other world, where she is discovering that she has these other abilities because of her ability to see ghosts."
"Where she has a magical wrench.
She has several other magical abilities.
And she's going in and out of these combat arenas looking for, in the case of our demo, a man named Blackhurst."
"And as you're traveling along with your companion in these sort of ghost realms, ghost realms, other world realms, other dimensional spaces, it depends on how you want to define them, you have a companion ghost that's coming along with you and sort of telling you and helping you know where to go."
"And in this case, his name is Teddy.
Speaking about Teddy, what's going on with his face?
I mean, it's the first ghost she sees and has no face.
Yeah, so Teddy does not have a normal human-like face."
"Something has happened to him.
And he's also not very understandable in the game.
There's a lot of interference with his speech.
But as you sort of progress through this demo, you're going to understand that Blackhurst did this to him."
"And he's dead because of Blackhurst, who is the man that you're sort of looking for inside this other dimensional space.
Teddy's story is pretty tragic."
"I didn't travel myself.
So what else can you tell us about these sort of different dimensions that we are getting to visit with this game?
How are you approaching them creatively?
How am I approaching them creatively?
What sort of settings and situations and things are we going to see in these worlds?
Yeah, so the way that the combat areas are designed is we definitely have, I'm going to call it a hive."
"So our main baddie is sort of in a space.
And he has set up various arenas with the local flora and fauna to sort of stop you from getting to him.
Your job is to kind of remove him."
"He's not supposed to be there in this space.
And June does have a particular type of power to get him out of this other world because he definitely originated on Earth."
"He's really, really not supposed to be there.
And he should have died many, many years ago.
Yeah, yeah. That's interesting.
So why do you map the sprint button on the X?
Is that on purpose for us to..."
"I mean it. I really mean it.
Some horror games as of late have you, you know, been...
It's trickier for you to sort of have the modern mechanics that we're used to for it to be more scary or for you to get answers?
Any controller questions should go to the design team."
"That's my way out of that one.
I'm actually... I couldn't answer it.
I would have to ask Adam.
It's not a purpose for us to feel slower."
"Sometimes they do that, you know what I mean?
So we do have two speeds. You didn't get into the combat area.
So on the Earth areas, you do move around slower because there's this thing where, like, if you're always running around to a place, if you're always dashing, does June have those powers in the Earth's place?
She doesn't."
"She's a normal girl who sees ghosts on Earth and you are discovering the other things she's able to do there.
But when she does go to this other place, she does have a lot of other abilities."
"It's just the way that place interacts with her particular ability.
So as the game progresses, you're getting a better understanding of how it works.
So how that relates to the controls, that would definitely be a question for my dev team."
"Can you give us another example of a puzzle you have to solve?
I was trying to deal with these doors here, but what are the examples of what you have to do to progress?
You can share."
"There are a few sort of, like, fetch-like puzzles.
So in the case of the demo, you basically have a locked door scenario, and it's really fun to use a broken fuse for a horror game or even a horror light game."
"So in this particular one, you have to get into a locked door, and it's been locked for a very, very long time.
All of the sort of Earth places, those are our adventure parts of the game."
"And then you actually end up in, like, straight action combat when you end up over in sort of this other dimension.
There are going to be some other sort of puzzles and mechanics that we're not showing in the demo yet, so you'll just have to wait and see for those."
"Okay, and if I'm correct, this was shown for the first time at the Game Awards last year, 2023.
What's the status currently?
When are you guys planning on releasing this by Fingy?
Yeah, so we announced 2025 at the Game Awards."
"We're still currently on track for that.
So hopefully, cross your fingers, everything stays on schedule.
PC for now? Which other platforms?
Yeah, so we are PC, Mac confirmed right now."
"And for any console announcements, you'll just have to follow us online.
Thank you so much for your time, Rebecca.
Have a really nice show. Hope it is not scary at all."
