NIGHTIN CAGE, an upcoming action RPG single-handedly developed by creator GRIS灰白 (hereafter, GRIS), has recently been attracting a lot of attention, especially from Japanese gamers. After a certain in-development clip of the game showcasing the heroine’s ladder climbing animation was criticized for being a bit too “unnatural,” the dev quickly came out with an update that makes everything a bit smoother while, still keeping the “focal point” right where it’s supposed to be. In an interesting turn of events, the two jiggle-physics-rich animations went viral, causing Japanese Wishlists to skyrocket in just a couple of days.
AUTOMATON recently sat down with GRIS to ask them about NIGHTIN CAGE’s newfound success in Japan, and discuss what new fans can expect as the game’s development steadily progresses.
While GRIS would rather not disclose the exact numbers for each country, they said that Japanese Wishlists jumped from around 300 to 5,000 after the ladder video. “These numbers are considered huge for a solo-developed indie game which doesn’t even have a demo out yet. The number of Wishlists from Japan surpassed Wishlists from the US, which both exceeded my expectations and was an outcome completely contrary to industry norms. I am really grateful to everyone who Wishlised the game.”
As the developer explains, the intention behind sharing different in-development clips of the game is to get direct feedback from users and pick out what works best for a certain scenario. Despite being rather new to development themselves, GRIS has around 10 years of experience in the art sphere, most notably having worked on 3D character designs for Mabinogi: Heroes. “I may be a rookie developer, by I’m a very experienced artist. I always try to seriously judge what kind of change could benefit the work itself and the things I’m personally pursuing. Thanks to this expertise, I have a clear understanding of my art style, and while sometimes that can manifest as blind stubbornness, I believe that, from time to time, the concept of art itself can hold that kind of foolishness.”
As an example, GRIS explains that, despite NieR: Automata and Stellar Blade being major inspirations for the game, they couldn’t just replicate the cool acrobatic movements 2B makes when climbing ladders, because such movements wouldn’t be natural for NIGHTIN CAGE’s characters. ”However, having the character just normally climb the ladders isn’t fun, so I decided to add a little twist,” GRIS notes.
While taking feedback into account, GRIS seems to be paying a lot of attention to details, making sure to keep them within the game’s worldview. However, they say that it’s not their intention to “sell” the game with its animations. “My game is not trying to use animation as its selling point. I’m not a professional animator. But animation is something that can’t be avoided when making games, and in order to cover up its lacking quality, I always try to make it look special somehow. I especially consider the interactions between the characters and environment to be important, and even when it comes to animations where she falls into traps, I always think thoroughly about how my character will act in various situations. It’s not that the heroine is just waltzing around the stage alone – my goal is to show how completely she blends into this fantasy world.”
NIGHTIN CAGE is currently in development for PC (Steam).
