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We spoke with developer Alvaro Becerra to learn how MoonGlint looked to classics from the 90s to create this upcoming freaky project.
"All right, I'm at the IndieDevDay 2024 in Barcelona, and I'm looking at a game that doesn't look like an indie game.
It looks like a double-A homage to, you know, survival horrors from the 90s.
We've seen low-poly come back, and also like this is a tribute to more, I guess, PS1 than PS2, but with modern graphics."
"So what is Echoes of the Living about?
Well, Echoes of the Living is a really, really big love letter from us to the lovers of the classic survival horror games, you know, the ones from the 90s like Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Alone in the Dark.
So we miss it so much, these kind of games."
"I think it's 20 years ago, the last one they made was Resident Evil Remake, if I'm not wrong.
So we love it so much that we wanted to bring it back, and now we have the tools to make it fully 3D on real-time lighting.
We want to bring back these pre-rendered backgrounds and make it fully 3D, so we can offer a more immersive experience for players, not only with visuals but with audio and a more polished gameplay feel."
"I think that's interesting that you are trying to mimic sort of the fixed camera, but it's not fixed.
This time around you're using like fixed angle, but then the camera can pan or can go along with you.
That's something that you wanted to do in order to pay tribute to this fixed camera, right?
Yeah, see, we have the classic fixed camera that points out the scenario we want to show to the player, but some areas work a little better when there is some kind of rail, camera on rail, maybe a long corridor or a forest path that is following the player along."
"So you can see not only the part your character is walking, you can see more of the environment around it.
There is also rotatable cameras, like those you will find in a supermarket that is following you around.
Maybe in these tight corners, we've got one inside, so it will block your view.
As I said, there have been several games paying homage to classic survival horror."
"Some of them are low poly, such as Fear the Spotlight very recently.
Then we're getting Post Trauma, for example, by Raw Fury and Spanish Studio as well.
So which would you say are your special ingredients here to stand out among this sort of comeback for classic survival horror?
That's a really nice question. Well, I guess I'm really focused on the lighting of the game."
"I think it brings a really powerful feeling of fear to the game.
Also, there are a few details in Dynamic Shadows that can make the player feel uncomfortable or comfortable depending on the situation.
In this scenario, the shadow is projected into the floor or a forest path where everything is dark.
You have just one spot of light going around, projecting shadows between those dry leaves and dry branches."
"Tell us a little bit about the story itself. What's going on here?
You have two characters. That looks like Resident Evil to me. Are we controlling the two characters?
Is it different stories? What can you tell us about that?
There are two main characters. We have Liam Oakwood, the guy you are playing the protagonist of right now."
"And there is Laurel Reeves, the female character.
Both of them have unique campaigns. Each one of them has about 10-12 hours of gameplay, more or less.
The story they share is not the type that most people would think.
Each one has their own objectives, their own goals."
"But they will need to cooperate in certain situations to help each other and make open paths to keep progressing.
There is also a third character that will unlock once you complete both campaigns.
But it will come a bit later because we were running out of time.
So it will release as a free content update later on."
"What's the story about? What are the Echoes of the Living?
Well, Echoes of the Living is based on those B-series movies from the 80s, 70s, 80s.
So this time around there is no one, every pharmacy or every laboratory making a virus or something like that.
It's some kind of fog caused by something we can't speak of."
"But that would cause people to be sick and then die, but not completely.
So not long after that, the bodies will rise from the ground and will destroy the city inside an outbreak.
So our main characters will try to survive the outbreak and make it out alive as they can.
Perfect. So you've been working on this on your own?
A small team, but you guys have been working hard for eight years already?
Yes."
"Not full time, but as of late?
Yeah, we have been working with self-funding for the last three years or so.
Working part-time and on free time, weekends and afterwards in the game.
So what's the status of the project? Are you guys releasing next year?
Yeah, we are aiming to release next year, around February."
"The project is almost finished. We need to finish some of the cinematics from the game and add the voice acting or dubbing to the game.
Since we are going to publish the game with English dubbing and Spanish dubbing.
It's auto-publishing and on which platforms are you releasing?
So far we are releasing only on Steam because we don't have the money to release it on other platforms."
"But if everything goes well enough, we want to reinvest that kind of money into porting to PlayStation 5 and Xbox.
Or maybe contacting another publisher that can port the games to consoles.
Perfect. Thank you so much for your time, Alvaro. Looking forward to hearing the echoes of the living next year. Thank you.
Thank you so much."
