Developer Spotlight Series: Eldritch Horror | The Gamerheads Podcast
- Roger Reichardt
- 3 minutes ago
- 4 min read
If you have followed us for a while, you know that we are fans of not just video games, but board games too. We had the opportunity to interview the developers behind the upcoming digital version of Eldritch Horror. We learned a lot from the team, and we're excited for the release!
Tell us about your team at Cornerstone Software Development, Inc and your background. Is Eldritch Horror your studio’s first game project?
It sure is, so we hope we don't disappoint! CSDI has actually been around for a rather long time at this point. Something like 40-years by now. We started out in California before moving to Pennsylvania. We've spent most of our history working on satellite, GPS and telecommunications.
How did your team’s traditional software development background influence your overall design philosophy when creating Eldritch Horror, and where did that approach differ most from a typical game development studio?
Our background was very code focused compared to the combined nature most game studios are perceived as. This was reflected in our design documents and whiteboard planning for the game. We designed everything from the ground up like it was a work of pure code. Luckily, we had some talented artists to help us integrate it into the audio/visual medium that games are.
From a project management standpoint, how different was building a game compared to traditional software development? What were some of the biggest workflow or communication lessons your team learned during development, especially when working with stakeholders and subject matter experts?
In our background, the subject matter experts were all also engineers. We were thus wrapped up together from the word 'go'. One thing we learned in this process is to make sure to get everyone else involved as early as possible as a result. We couldn't take it for granted that everyone we needed was at the weekly code meeting. That's not to say everyone had to be constantly in everyones' workflow from the start though. We found what functioned best was to have each of the teams, art, UI, music, code, operate on their own while adhering to a common design document. There was then one final decision group, consisting of only 2-3 people, who ensured everyones' work would come together well. Kind of like having a game director by small committee rather than individual.
Eldritch Horror is a beloved board game with a devoted fanbase. What were the biggest challenges in translating that experience into a video game, and how did you work to preserve what fans love about the original?
The first thing we had to figure out was what fans loved about the original game. We knew what we, individually, enjoyed, but that wasn't necessarily true for everyone else. Luckily, we learned that our own favorite aspects weren't so different from others'. There were people who loved putting together builds and combos with their teams, others who enjoyed the setting and some who liked the individual stories of investigators. The common thread we saw for everyone was a love of stories. The combo makers wanted to showcase their creations with setup, expectation and payoff. The theme enthusiasts liked having a sandbox to let their own imagination shape and the investigator fans could tell personal tales of the rise/fall of their heroes. So what we worked most was to preserve that idea of storytelling. We brought on a narrator and commissioned a score to help bring it to life while keeping the gameplay that set peoples' imaginations loose in the first place.
Atmosphere is such a critical part of the Eldritch Horror experience. What were some of the challenges you faced when building the game’s tone and mood, and was there anything that surprised you during that process?
This ties a bit into the last question, but if you get Nathan (CEO) on it you'll probably end with hours worth of answers. Eldritch Horror, as a board game, is mostly visual, social and rules based for delivering its atmosphere to you. It largely has to be just because of the nature of what a board game physically is. We tried to copy that visual style as much as possible, including using the actual art from the game and expanded universe wherever we could. Even for the UI, we had an artist spend a fair amount of time putting together a color and font guide describing what kinds were used where and for what purpose which we could adhere to. Since we are making a digital medium, we could also incorporate things like music, sound and animation, which we did, but those weren't the biggest challenges. The biggest challenge was back to that use of color and font in UI. We had to create new UI art from scratch and we had to match it to the style set by the artists who came before us, who were all exceptionally talented individuals. Making something that fit in naturally with them was the hard part.
What features or systems in Eldritch Horror are you personally most excited for players to experience?
We're really excited for players to see the new things we added in terms of storytelling and atmosphere. The game has, of course, been automated heavily so that players can tell their stories faster and with less bookkeeping than ever, but we know people will enjoy that. We're excited to see their reactions when we give something really unexpected: a theme for Cthulhu, a narrator guiding them through downtown San Francisco, talented VAs bringing the investigators to life when players' tell their stories. That's what we're excited to see.
When players finish a session of Eldritch Horror, what do you hope they walk away feeling or thinking about the experience?
That it was fun! Glib answer aside, we're hoping the story they just told sticks with them. That they want to share it as a narrative for the company, as a tale with their friends and that it inspires them to exercise even more creativity and make more stories in the future.
After the release of Eldritch Horror, do you see game development becoming a continued focus for your team moving forward?
We're certainly hoping so! We would love to continue having this wing of CSDI keep helping people tell new stories going forward.
We want to thank the team at CSDI for taking the time to answer our questions. Be sure to wishlist the game now!