Steelkrill Studio is an independent 3D video game developer, publisher and asset developer. After releasing the first game in steam in early 2021,he created Trenches and The Backrooms 1998 in 2023.
Did you survived the WW1 horrors and sunk in the creepy Backrooms? Mybe you want to know who’s behind these beautiful but terrifying experiences. Let’s know better Steelkrill and discover if he had something new for the next future!
Indie Games Devel:
First of all thanks for granting us the interview. Would you like to introduce yourself to our readers?
Steelkrill:
Hello! My name is Ryan from Malta, Europe. I am a solo indie game developer that works on the games by myself. Also I am a big fan of horror when it comes to games and movies as you may have guessed from my previous titles!
Indie Games Devel:
We Know you are a one man army. What is the hardest part of being a solo developer?
Steelkrill:
The hardest part being a solo indie developer is that you have to do everything by yourself and you have to always mentally prepare yourself to maintain motivation. The competition is very hard, especially when you are comparing yourself to bigger teams with other amazing talented artists. With all that being said, creating a game alone takes a lot of time and can be stressful at times.
Being an indie developer means you are not only creating games, coming up with new ideas, creating environments, story ideas etc. But you will also have to eventually learn other things. Marketing, promoting your game, testing it out, support and all the other things that come with it.
The ‘job’ won’t actually be finished after you created the game. It will just be starting because of all the other things you need to do related to marketing your game (especially) on a budget, trying to get your game out there and a lot of other aspects. Being an indie developer you have to mentally prepare yourself for every outcome, as this takes a toll on some people especially if a game does not meet expectations after you have been working on it for years. I saw it happen with a lot of other developers unfortunately, who had to give up their dream because of this and it also did happen to me at one point. You just have to keep pushing forward.
Despite all this, there are also a lot of advantages. One of them is that creating games makes me happy and I do feel that is a very important role when it comes to doing a job that you love!
Indie Games Devel:
You have three games running on Steam and one is still in development. After the first Customers from Hell, you decide to approach the psychological survival horror genre. Can you tell us why you want to take this path? Where did you get inspiration from?
Steelkrill:
Yes. Customers from hell was my first “big” project. I created and decided to use it to learn more on how things work when it comes to releasing a game. I did not want to create an ambitious game that I was never likely to finish so I wanted to start small, that is why I started working on Customers From Hell.
A simple game that still took me months to create, but it was fun and I enjoyed doing it! At that time I was working a full-time job so I was very exhausted and had lots of sleepless nights coming after work and trying to finish the game. When I decided to release it, I knew little to nothing so the game did not go well. At that time I knew how hard it was so I was close to giving up. Feeling a bit miserable to be honest, but something in me wanted to try something else. I got motivated again and I decided to create something I really loved this time which was horror, but did not really have any ideas.
I remember watching a WW1 war movie and that inspired me to create something in WW1 which seemed ‘easy’. So I started creating a trenches scene which was going to be kind of an “action zombie game” at first but everything seemed scary and gritty in the scene and thought how scary would it be to make it as a horror game.
That is basically how my second horror game Trenches was born From there it just picked off and continued my journey into the horror genre! Which is something I really love to work on horror games.
Indie Games Devel:
The backrooms-1998 was your last title published and we talked about it in this news. The game has a strong inspiration to creepypasta and urban legends. Do you have anything in store for the future?
Steelkrill:
Yes! The Backrooms 1998 was very fun and I really enjoyed working on it! It inspired me after reading about the backrooms. However I wanted to do something different and put my own twist and theory into it.
Before I started working on The Backrooms 1998 I wanted to do a “VHS” horror kind of game and also had to dig up all VHS family tapes to use them in my game. When the backrooms idea came to my mind I thought this was the perfect opportunity to use them in.
I do have lots of ideas and games in mind that I wish to work on so I have big plans for the future! As of right now I am currently working on The Voidness. Is a horror LIDAR-techonology game where you have to scan the enemies in order to see them which will be releasing soon on 7th April, 2023.
Indie Games Devel:
But let’s talk about your new upcoming game. Can you give us some information about story, gameplay or game mechanics?
Steelkrill:
The Voidness basically takes place in a sci fi setting where you play as a space specialist sent to space along with your crewmates after a discovery of a new planet that is just filled with gloom, and in order to see in this new planet you will be equipped with a range scanner device that scans an area. However, something goes wrong and the story unravels from there.
The game takes place both in the normal and scanning environment. You will also meet hostile enemies in both – and they can hear your voice from your microphone. That means apart from the fact you cannot see the enemy, you will also have to be careful on not making any noise in the game. Stepping on debris, glass or such will also make noise and give your position away.
These are some of the features that this game has, along with others such as upgrading your scanner, having scanning turrets scan for you and much more.
Indie Games Devel:
The game is still in development. What are your next steps? Release date, beta, early access or Kickstarter?
Steelkrill:
The game will be released as Early Access to hopefully get feedback from players so I can still try my best to improve the game with the help and support of the amazing community – mostly with fixing any bugs, adding any of the suggestions and the like. I still have big future plans for the game depending on how it goes and move on from there! There is also another whole new mode, with its own different story planned out in the game!
I am very excited since this is the first level-based game that I have created since I left my full-time job a couple of months ago. Depending on how everything goes, I will move on that! Fingers crossed hehe 🙂
Thank you so much for the interview!
Thanks to you Steelkrill! I hope this interview will help you to let our readers know something more about your games and works. And I can’t wait to try The Voidness!
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