Failsafe Interview

Failsafe is a first person (now third-person) parkour game looking to finish its final stretch of development through Kickstarter. I recently met with Daniel Lisi, Game Over’s co-founder and managing director, to talk about its unique and inspired take on the genre.

MonsterVine: What brought you to Game Over LA & Failsafe?

Daniel: I initially got the ball rolling with Game Over LA because I wanted to have a structure to house my own personal projects. This idea evolved when I saw an opportunity to start a small studio. The opportunity presented itself after meeting a handful of independent developers who I felt stoked on, some encouragement from a business mentor of mine, and after talking it over with Seiji Tanaka, who would later co-found the company with me and become Failsafe’s creative director.

MonsterVine: What’s the premise of Failsafe? The sellthrough pitch?

Daniel: Failsafe is the story of a young girl named Isra who leaves everything she knows, everything that she’s comfortable with, to explore the lost and fabled ruins known as The Forgotten. The gameplay is focused around a dynamic parkour movement system. The player will spend their time exploring sprawling environments and discovering old secrets hidden within the nooks and crannies of The Forgotten.

MonsterVine: Why Kickstarter? Has this project been pitched to publishers or was this going to be a crowdfunded effort from the start?

Daniel: We chose to take the crowdfunding path because we want to keep Game Over an independent studio. Our long-term goal with the studio is to have multiple development cycles going on at least 2-3 projects at once. We want to have total freedom in dictating what those projects will be, thus keeping the studio owned by its developers is very important to us.

MonsterVine: Are first person parkour games viable? With the exception of Mirrors Edge…why cater to this audience? Was this always going to be a first person game or were other perspectives (third-person, 2D) considered in the development? (Note: At the time of writing, Failsafe has announced a third-person mode to be included in the game.)

Daniel: I definitely feel like there’s a market for first-person parkour. We don’t have a team of market analysts to tell us this, but I feel confident in the assumption when looking at games like Call of Duty Black Ops 3 and Mirror’s Edge 2– there are large-scale games being released that employ first-person parkour and dynamic movement systems. Instead of this reflecting negatively in a competitive sense, it fills me with optimism– these giant companies feel like people want to play first-person parkour, so my assumption is that there’s a market for it somewhere. Also a third-person mode for Failsafe is not out of the question.

MonsterVine: Who comprises the talent behind Failsafe? I noticed some of the team had their hand in other notable games such as Shadows of the Damned, Metal Gear Solid 4, Journey, was Failsafe partially inspired by these games as well? What are its inspirations? How did the Burches get involved with this project and why them?

Daniel: I’m sure that the game’s been inspired in one way or another based on the works that our team have previously produced. Isra’s outfit– her scarf in particular– is almost a direct shout-out to the garb in Journey. Overall we’ve been inspired by the world-building of Miyazaki, and the visual aesthetics of The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker. Gameplay wise, we’ve been heavily inspired by Mirror’s Edge, of course, Prince of Persia, and Spiderman 2 (when it comes to the rope-swinging features we’ve implemented).

Full disclosure, I’m friends with both Ashly and Anthony. I reached out to Ashly about the project when it first kicked off almost a year ago. She was receptive to the idea of Isra and agreed to voice her. Anthony was into the idea of working with a poet (Beau Sia, the other writer on Failsafe) and wanted to see what that collaboration would be like. As to why I wanted to work with them, well, they’re genuinely some of the most talented people I know, and they’re both delights to work with. Ashly’s ability to encapsulate a broad emotional landscape of a character and then represent it is unparalleled. Anthony’s capable of developing characters that extend through their archetypes and actually grow a persona, a soul. I’m very lucky to be able to work with them in such a capacity.

Failsafe’s heroine, Isra.

MonsterVine: Where are you at in development? Given that Game Over LA has a presence at game shows, is it safe to say that Failsafe is more than a prototype at this point? Is it in alpha, beta, etc? What about Kickstarter will bring this to fruition? How will you attempt to avoid the pitfalls of game development and scoping to make the intended 2016 release target?

Daniel: Yeah Failsafe’s past the prototyping stage and is in alpha. We have gameplay builds and challenge maps that we’ve been showing off at festivals and conventions. It’s been a hoot. Kickstarter will ensure that we have enough dough to get us to the completion point which is slated for summer 2016. A big part of my job is laying out the development tracks and production deadlines, keeping a cap on scope or at least partitioning up tasks to where they become slightly more digestible and less scope-expanding. Game development remains a wild and unpredictable beast, but we’ve worked hard to create a communication and development style that will mitigate some of the more common game dev pitfalls.

MonsterVine: Are there other projects being worked on at Game Over LA or is this Failsafe fully dedicated to at this point? Is virtual reality being considered due to the first person nature? Is the team considering other crowd approval sources such as Steam Greenlight?

Daniel: Failsafe’s the pilot project and only project being focused on at Game Over. Last summer we did some smaller contract gigs, but otherwise it’s been full speed ahead on Failsafe. I think about virtual reality a lot. I’m so excited by it. Will Failsafe come to VR? I’m not sure yet. That would require a lot of resources, so we’ll just have to see where the tide takes us. We may go through Steam Greenlight, but I prefer to handle distribution deals directly, so I’m going to focus on that before anything else.

Thank you for your time!