‘Crisol: Theater Of Idols’ Game Developer Talks ‘Resident Evil’ Inspiration, Haunting Game Design & Teases Future Ideas
What are you willing to sacrifice for the greater good of a nation, your heart or your religion? These conundrums are just a few of the many players will have to face in the Spanish-inspired horror folklore tale Crisol: Theater of Idols .
Developed by Vermila Studios' and published by Blumhouse Games, Crisol: Theater of Idols tells the story of Gabriel, a sanctified soldier, tasked to visit a Spanish island marred by sacred rituals and haunted by terrifying statues of deities that come to life. As you try to survive the circumstances, the player has to sacrifice their own blood to use as ammunition or hide from the horrors that threaten your existence at every step along your journey.
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Below, Vermila Studios CEO David Carrasco talks with Deadline about the importance of Spanish culture in gaming, inspirations, and what the studio potentially has next in store.
'Crisol: Theater of Idols'
DEADLINE: What was the jumping off point for Crisol: Theater of Idols?
DAVID CARRASCO:Many years ago my business partner, David Tornero, who is the creative director of Crisol, was in the southern area of Spain in Andalusia for Easter. And during that time there is a celebration called Holy Week, where they take the saints and virgins out of the cathedrals at the churches and people just walk them in the streets. Usually it's cold or rainy and there's music involved, which can make it feel like a dark march. There are also people praying and clapping, it feels a little ominous, like you're in the presence of something big. While there, he had that vision of what would happen if those statues came alive and killed everyone? So, it sprouted a larger universe with its own religions and characters with their own intentions.
When it comes to representation, we started to think about how to make Crisol something that wouldn't feel as if we were mocking culture or religion. We wanted it to be an inspiration and something that we can honor in our own way just by taking a lot from many different places and melding it to our own vision. There are many games that make a joke of historic moments of Spain, I'm sure in many other countries they do the same. So, we made sure to do all we could to be respectful to history, religion, art and all of that. We were doing our own thing, which in this case means, statues come to life and kill people. You also use your blood as ammunition, there's temples, churches, cathedrals that remind you of real things but they are not. So that was a big intention for us and we tried to keep it as one of the cornerstones of the game.
DEADLINE: That sounds very difficult to balance. What would you say is the biggest challenge you had in creating this game though?
CARRASCO:There's several. I will say one is, for example, in terms of art, which is a main element in Crisol , we have a larger than usual art team in the studio. We are 20-ish people and the art team is around eight people, so it's quite large compared to other studios. One thing that was important was for them to get as many references as they could from Spain's different areas, art styles and eras so they could meld them together and make something believable.
That way when you see one building and another building, you're not like, "OK, this was made by two different people or by two different teams or they had different ideas." Despite using different artistic resources, we always tried to keep the standard and consistency very clear.
Another challenge came from working on a project for five years and trying to keep everybody aligned, motivated and energetic. We were able to do it, but it wasn't easy at all.
DEADLINE: Right, because I would imagine you have to keep reassuring yourself in your process that the same thing you've seen a million times is, in fact, worth it or scary.
CARRASCO:It's true. You end up in your author bubble where sometimes you start questioning like, Oh, am I making the right decisions? I've seen this 100 times and now it doesn't seem right. Is it because it's not right or is it because I'm tired of it? Nothing makes sense at some point, then everything makes sense. Then it's like a roller coaster, ups and downs all the time. And then at one moment, you are like, "OK, I hope people will like it. I will release it and hope for the best."
We also do events. I go to many places around the world like Thailand, Japan, the United States, Latin America and Europe so that people can play and I can listen to what they say. Sometimes it's similar and then in different countries there might be specific feedback.
So, that gives us a glimpse of what people will think, but it's still very limited to specific events for people that like video games and are interested at least somewhat in your game because they went there and played. It's a little limited, but it gives us an external insight to the game and from time to time is very healing and also helps the game a lot.
'Crisol: Theater of Idols'
DEADLINE: In previous interviews, I've seen you talk about some challenges you faced with trying to get a publisher for the game. How did you end up at Blumhouse?
CARRASCO:We wanted to make something authentic to us. This is about Spanish culture because we were born here. We live and breathe the culture, so we wanted to talk about that and share it with the world. There are many games that go deep into American, British, French, Chinese and Japanese culture. Surely, you can name many off the top of your head. But Spanish culture is not as well known or represented, which caused some push back with some publishers, who said things like, "We don't believe people will be interested in this. We don't believe it is an interesting or a worthwhile topic" or "Maybe you can make it a little more generic. Change the statues for zombies. And all the signage? Make it in English so people can understand it." It was very much an attitude of erasing the culture so that you don't need to be interested in Spanish to play the game.
We always thought that keeping the game in Spanish gives it some flavor. It's another language that you may not know that could be exotic and interesting. But at the same time, if you see something that is new to you and you see it in a game that is cool and interesting that covers things in a good way, then you may become interested about it and you may want to visit the country where it was made. Or you might discover more about the history or art and that can be a source of inspiration for other people or just something to talk about.
We continued to stand our ground about this not being a generic game, but instead a game that talks about our roots. And luckily, we ended up finding partners who were interested in that. Blumhouse was the best at respecting our creative vision and they supported our decisions. They've been super helpful and supportive and they have increased the value and elevated the final product instead of changing it into something different or more generic and palatable for anybody else in the world.
DEADLINE: I'd like to talk about Dolores' design from her being this beautiful goddess to this monstrous version of her.
CARRASCO:Thanks for noticing her. She's a key element in the game and more than just an enemy attacking you. She's the counterpart of Gabriel that adds to the background and historical background of the religions, so she's quite [multifaceted].
In the beginning, Dolores was beautiful and human. She was loved and the representation of perfection to the sun god. But at some point that was all corrupted and she felt betrayed. Her feelings transformed her to become a monster, an inhuman creature. But she still has traces of her humanity because in her design you can see the skeleton. The other enemies are made of wood, rock or glass. But, Dolores is the only one that has a skeleton with some flesh attached. She also has that mask that still shows her human side to the world, but she's been so tormented that she's become a monster that cannot rest [until she kills Gabriel.]
DEADLINE: Speaking of torment, what happened to Mediodía? My girl disappeared. Talk more about her character. And is she really dead?
CARRASCO:Mediodía is kind of the character that knows Tormentosa, right? She's a local. She tells you about the people there, the locations. Instead of you just knowing about it passively or by reading a note or a map or facing an enemy, we wanted you to find Tormentosa as a neutral place where you can find friendly people and bad people. And she will be one of those friendly ones that can help you in your journey, not only in your gameplay journey, but also in your narrative and growth journey, because we can see Gabriel growing and becoming a little different throughout the story. So she's a catalyzer of that transformation of Gabriel. And I will say she does definitely have more in her and we hope that we can explore more in the future, we hope.
'Crisol: Theater of Idols'
DEADLINE: What were some media influences that inspired the game?
CARRASCO: Resident Evil , the Silent Hill series, Dishonored , BioShock for some of those animations and world building. In terms of movies, we love horror movies from the '80s, like Gremlins or Killer Clown from Outer Space . We also looked at horrors that don't take themselves too seriously, because you can have some laughs at the same time you're screaming. We tried not to make the game such a tense sensation that the player is screaming all the time. You have some laughs, some screams and some moments where you're trying to understand everything that's going on.
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