{"id":27192,"date":"2024-02-14T17:10:03","date_gmt":"2024-02-14T08:10:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=27192"},"modified":"2024-02-14T17:10:04","modified_gmt":"2024-02-14T08:10:04","slug":"20240214-27192","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/20240214-27192\/","title":{"rendered":"The Exit 8 dev reveals how he made a top-selling Steam game in UE5 in 9 months\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In an interview with Game Makers<\/a> published on February 14, one-man Japanese indie developer Kotake Create talked about the development of the hit walking simulator The Exit 8. <\/strong>He revealed his influences and explained how he gradually came up with the simple yet addictive formula. The game was Wishlisted over 40k times on Steam and sold more than 30k copies on launch day. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Exit 8 is a \u201cspot the difference\u201d walking simulator in which you travel through an underground passage in a Japanese subway station while searching for the exit. In order to find it, you must go through multiple loops of the same passageway while looking out for anomalies. Whenever you see something out of place, you must turn back. If there are no anomalies, you must continue walking forwards. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to a recent interview, Kotake Create started off the development of The Exit 8 knowing that he wanted to make a short game with a relatively short development period. As an example of a short and simple game with significant commercial success, he took inspiration from I\u2019m on Observation Duty; a horror game about spotting anomalies in CCTV footage. Although he decided to adopt the \u201canomaly spotting\u201d mechanic, the developer introduced a new setting, one that he had a personal fascination with \u2013 Japanese underground passageways. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another crucial point of The Exit 8\u2019s concept was a \u201clooping mechanic,\u201d and this was inspired by Twelve Minutes \u2013 a game that traps the player in a 12-minute time loop. Having decided upon anomaly spotting, underground passageways and looping space as three main elements of the game, Kotake Create next tackled the question of how anomalies should be dealt with. Apparently, early prototypes included taking photos of anomalies with a camera and even shooting them with a gun. However, he decided that these methods would not match the game\u2019s setting and would increase development costs, ultimately arriving at the solution of having the player \u201ceither proceed or turn back\u201d in response to anomalies.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In terms of the game\u2019s looks, Kotake Create decided that having realistic graphics would work best with the concept of eerie anomalies, which is why he created authentic assets for the subway passage based on real-life examples and utilized a wide-angle lens view and camera shaking effects. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next process in development was creating a variety of anomalies, which were inspired by horror games such as P.T and films such as The Shining. However, Kotake Create comments that he made sure to keep the anomalies only \u201cborderline horror,\u201d and more on the \u201cunsettling\u201d side, which is why there are no instances where the player is killed. Even one of the scariest anomalies, where a \u201cwall person\u201d jumps out at the player, only ends with the scene fading to darkness.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The game also makes use of many existing assets, such as for the famous middle-aged salaryman<\/a> that walks past the player in each loop. Apparently, The Exit 8\u2019s planning and prototype creation took about 6 months, and final development lasted another 3 months. Aside from test playing, debugging and English support, all processes were handled by Kotake Create. The developer\u2019s systematic approach of defining key features of the game while shaving off unnecessary\/costly options proved successful, as the short and simple Exit 8 proved to be addictively popular, inspiring a whole subgenre of \u201cExit-8-like” games. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Exit 8 is available on (Steam<\/a>). Kotake Create is currently developing Strange Shadow<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a recent interview, Kotake Create, the developer of the Steam hit “anomaly spotting game” The Exit 8, reveals details about his creative process and how the game came to be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":27195,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[64,62,3],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-27192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-development","category-indie-games","category-news","tag-japan-related-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Exit 8 dev reveals how he made a top-selling Steam game in UE5 in 9 months\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In a recent interview, Kotake Create, the developer of the Steam hit "anomaly spotting game" The Exit 8, reveals details about his creative process and how the game came to be.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/20240214-27192\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Exit 8 dev reveals how he made a top-selling Steam game in UE5 in 9 months\u00a0 - 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