#Blud is an motion RPG with vampiric overtones and is the debut sport from Exit 73 studios. In our evaluate, we talked about how the sport touches on nostalgia, but additionally brings again a few of these traditional 90s TV Collection vibes as nicely. It additionally includes a distinctive utilization of social media, as its X/Twitter-like program can be utilized each to submit selfies but additionally to maintain observe of sidequests.
Not too long ago, we chatted with the heads of Exit 73 studios to debate the lengthy journey of #BLUD from quick video to full launch.
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Twinfinite’s Damiano Gerli has been talking to Exit 73 Studios’ Artwork and Sound Designer Bob Fox and Author and Sport Producer Gregory Lane.
Twinfinite’s Damiano Gerli: Blud positively brings some heavy 90s cartoon vibes, what had been your inspirations engaged on Becky and the remainder of the forged?
Exit 73 Studios’ Greg Lane: Lots of Becky’s pals fill roles just like social gathering members of a tabletop RPG. Terrell is the healer, Morgan is the witch, and many others… however there’s additionally quite a lot of affect from different ‘ensemble’ casts. (Ali wouldn’t be such a recurring character if Cordelia didn’t hang around with Buffy first.)
Damiano Gerli: So far as vampire inspiration goes, which had been your greatest ones? I positively really feel some Buffy in there, because the general narrative framework positively works intently to that of a TV sequence.
Greg: Buffy for certain. Couldn’t even get via the primary reply with out going there. Lol. Whilethere is an actual Carpentersville within the US, our city title is derived to honor the grasp of horror,John Carpenter. However yeah – Blade, Misplaced Boys, all of it appears to be honest sport.
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Damiano Gerli: How does Twilight and the “shiny vampires” mania, consider so far as #Blud inspirations go?
Greg: There’s some extent within the story the place Becky’s mentor tells her she must “smite the vampirelord Dragur”, to which she responds “he’s going to be so smitten”. Corey then chimes in with an “Ihope they’re not that type of vampires.” We needed to drive house the thought of killing vampiresinstead of falling in love with them.
Damiano Gerli: That is your first sport as Exit 73 studios, have you ever labored on something beforehand gaming-related?
Bob: Our first involvement within the sport trade was after we had been requested by Capybara Video games toanimate all of the cutscenes for Cartoon Networks O.Ok.Ok.O Let’s Play Heroes! It was certainly one of ourfavorite experiences as an animation studio and so they had been completely wonderful to work with. Itdefinitely obtained us a bit extra serious about studying extra concerning the gaming trade.
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Damiano Gerli: You talked about in a submit on X that you’ve got been engaged on the sport for a number of years. How was the journey from the primary drawings to the ultimate product?
Bob: #Blud initially began as a pitch for an animated sequence years in the past. We animated a brief take a look at and created a pitch bible, however by no means actually garnered any traction, so we shelved the thought. Afterward, we needed to begin testing out making a sport and went via a bunch of our outdated concepts, we ultimately settled on Blud. After getting a demo collectively, we took it to a number of conventions and saved tinkering with it. We lastly had been capable of land a writer and had the time to complete our sport.
Damiano Gerli: Talking of gameplay, #Blud is an actual time motion rpg/journey, what had been/are your favourite video games within the style and the way did they arrive into play when designing the gameplay?
Greg: Legend of Zelda: A Hyperlink to the Previous was positively the largest pillar. The liberty andability to discover a city at your personal tempo lined up with our challenge objective of letting gamers really feel likethey’re in a cartoon. For a number of of our boss battles and mini-games, we reached exterior genreconventions, trying to video games like Battletoads, Punch Out!, and even Quantity Munchers.Something that would hit the mechanics of nostalgia, actually.
Damiano Gerli: #Blud additionally closely options social media amongst its gameplay mechanics. What’s your relationship with social media and the way did it affect its function within the sport?
Greg: Because the title was set from the unique sequence pitch, we needed to make use of that as afoundation of worldbuilding. The primary draft of the mission log was going to be utilizing the participant’snotes app, however we rapidly transitioned to social media, since we might have extra interactions withNPCs (for sidequests and issues like that). We leveraged the hashtags in our social media systemas hints, in case gamers don’t wish to learn and parse via the textual content, or simply get caught up at aglance. Personally, I’m a recovering neighborhood supervisor, so I’ve spent an exorbitant period of time onsocial media. The themes of our relationship with social media play strongly in our sport. It’sreally a parallel to the soul-sucking nature of vampires.
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Damiano Gerli: the crew that labored on #blud is unquestionably small, with solely 5 individuals (if I bear in mind accurately). How did you handle the work over a number of years of sport growth?
Greg: Yeah, our crew is 2 artists (Chris & Bob) in Lengthy Island, two programmers (Andrew &Cody) in NJ & FL, and myself in Maryland. Pre-pandemic, we went to quite a lot of festivals and eventstreating them as “mini-milestones” to get work completed. Through the pandemic, we had the chance to accomplice with Humble Video games to pivot to full-time growth. (There’s no telling how lengthy we’d be at it if we didn’t swap issues up!) The 5 of us are all in the identical time zone, so we will spend many of the day in a video chat, developing with concepts or tackling areas of growth. It’s been an actual delight to get the sport into the fingers of gamers in any case this time!
#BLUD launched on June 18, 2024, revealed by Humble Video games. It’s presently out there on Steam.