Game Rant recently had a chance to talk with Walter Tischkewitz, co-founder of Semiwork, the studio working on Voidigo. It is a roguelite dungeon crawler with a basic premise that should be familiar by now. However, the game stands out because of its vibrant color scheme, vivid animations, and gameplay elements inspired by Monster Hunter. It’s an interesting combination, and we wanted to ask Tischkewitz, one of the game’s primary creators, how Voidigo’s unique blend of style and substance came about.
Tischkewitz revealed that the studio had primarily worked on comedic animated shorts before delving into game design, which goes a long way towards explaining some of Voidigo‘s unique design and gameplay considerations. That revelation came while Tischkewitz explained the game’s artstyle. It’s far more cutesy and colorful than most rogue-likes, which usually prefer a gritty atmosphere and muted hues.
“The art style evolved as we developed the game. I would say that we developed that style because we worked together before games on making animations. So the inspiration comes from things like Adventure Time, or something like Over the Garden Wall, but more colorful. That was our inspiration for our animated short films we did before the game. The game art and style is similar to our animations.”
It turns out that using so much color has its own challenges though. Tischkewitz pointed out a similar issue to one that the developers of Minit, a game completely in black and white, described: making sure the player can still tell what’s going on can be difficult without contrast.
Tischkewitz went on to explain in more detail the ways that a team experienced in animation was able to migrate their skills over to Voidigo. It seemed like he was both surprised and pleased with how well the shift in mediums panned out. “It’s exciting how well animation translated to game design for us.”
Animators know ‘game feel’ because that’s basically what animation is. The buildup of a punch in an animation, you want that in a game…. I often hear people talk about game feel, and what they are usually talking about is how good the animation is…. [A game] should be able to turn off the sound effects and still feel punchy. If you’re an animator, you often hear sounds while animating, even though you don’t have sound yet. It’s the same in a game, even without sound you should almost be able to hear it because of the camera shake, the movement. You understand that there are supposed to be sounds there.
Something as ineffable as “game feel” is hard to define by nature, but from what we’ve seen of Voidigo, it looks like it could be a standout in the rogue-like genre. Its artstyle is one thing, but videos of gameplay do exude the “punchiness” that Tischkewitz expressed was a priority. The game is still in development, too, only recently releasing in early access, but with Monster Hunter-inspired mechanics and such a different take on game design, it’s definitely one to keep an eye on.
Voidigo is currently in early access on PC.
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