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How Does a Horror Space Surround Us? · The Killscreen Podcast

• Johanna Kasurinen (00:00) The game tells you to steer right and then you're only able to steer left. Sophie Winqvist Loggins (00:04) It just felt very natural to embrace the dark. When you go into space and you go into your own dark, Max Friberg (00:11) So she represents light. She is the sun in the story and you are the moon. Jamin Warren (00:20) Get started. Thank you so much, everyone, for joining me today for this conversation on space and the body, presented with MUBI. Just real quick couple housekeeping notes before we get started. The goal for these conversations has been to try to bring people from inside and outside of games to talk about a set of common issues. We recently did one on Scoring Fear with Jason Graves, who scored The Dark Pictures Anthology, Until Dawn, Still Wakes the Deep, alongside of Ryan Holladay, who scored the Resident Evil movie that just came out, as well as Weapons. So the goal is to try to, you know, kind of get people on both sides of the aisle, both sides of the aisle talking. Let's see here. Just just a couple things here. You know, Cross-Conversations: Horror is also presented with MUBI in celebration of Jane Schoenbrun's Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, which is now streaming exclusively on MUBI. These, you know, these free talks put people who make horror films and horror games in the in the same room. MUBI has we I put together a set of games. I believe I guess yours will go back on set the two games represented today for Eclipsium and for Mouthwashing. I believe there'll be something a little bit later this month, but we put together a set of discounts and deals related to horror games as well as thirty month, thirty days, not thirty months, thirty days of free MUBI available for for you if you sign up at mubi.com forward slash killscreen. Okay. A little bit about our guests. Sophie, Sophie Winqvist Loggins is a Swedish swin cinematographer. She shot Aniara, Pella Kågerman and Hugo Lilja's adaptation of Harry Martinson's 1956 poem about a passenger ship knocked off course on its way to Mars. I finished it this weekend. Highly recommend it. She also shot Ninja Thyberg's Pleasure and Nathalie Álvarez Mesén's Clara Sola. Max Friberg is creative director at Housefire in Gothenburg, which made Eclipsium, a four first-person surrealist horror game where you give up parts of your body the game power in your hand. It came out last September. And Johanna Kasurinen co-founded Wrong Organ, where she leads art and narrative. Mouthwashing, from 2024, follows five crew of a freighter stranded after a crash. It kind of dips in and out of different points on the timeline, but it won Best Narrative at the Horror Game Awards and was up for Best Narrative at GDC Awards as well. Both of those games are published by Critical Reflex, who's been very helpful throughout this entire process. All right, cool. Well, I I guess maybe to get maybe to get started, do you do you just on the backs of those bios, anything else that each of you would like to add a little bit about like how you made your way to games? Maybe games and film respectively. Yo Johanna, maybe if you wanna if you wanna go first? Johanna Kasurinen (03:09) How I started in gaming. Yeah. Yeah, I I was so originally I I moved to Sweden. I'm from Finland myself, but I've been living here in Sweden for quite a long time. And I went to university for like business and then when I got sort of my first real job at a a video game publisher Jamin Warren (03:11) Yeah. Johanna Kasurinen (03:32) I very quickly was like, I was hating it. And we were in the same space as as some of the developers. And I would walk past their desks every day, just be like, that's what I want to do. So eventually I just decided that, you know, I might as well take the risk and try to apply for a a game development school here in Stockholm. And I got into that. And yeah, then I met the people who became the other co-founders of Wrong Organ at that school, and we decided to make Mouthwashing right right after graduating from there. Jamin Warren (04:03) Okay, great. Sophie, how about for you? How did you make your way to film? Sophie Winqvist Loggins (04:06) Started with still photography and then when I did my first photo project in Cuba when I was in my twenties, there was no labs and I brought a small TV camera and then I was like, whoa, this is kind of interesting. And then it kind of snowballed from there, that the moving image pulled me in. So then I went to, I'm from Stockholm, I went to one film school in Stockholm to kind of try it all and then photography was what sucked me in because it was just endless, all the combinations and all the possibilities you can do. And then I went to the Danish Film School where there also is gaming. And yeah, then you know, and Aniara was one of those early, it was my second feature. My first feature was in India. And then my second there. And we didn't have much money, but we had a lot of enthusiasm and stamina, so to say. Max Friberg (05:04) Yeah. Johanna Kasurinen (05:05) Okay. Jamin Warren (05:06) Yeah, of course. Max, how about for you? What was your what was your pathway into games? Max Friberg (05:11) Yeah. I I started back in art school. I I did sculptures but I always played games and I thought this is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna I'm gonna make 3D models. So I went to a school down in the southern parts of Sweden, a school called BTO. It's no longer around, at least that campus is no longer around. And then I stumbled into the fact that no one at the school wanted to program games, they mostly wanted to do the art side. So knowing that I could maybe manage the programming side as well, I I went and did that. And for the next 10 odd years, I stumbled around doing consultant work, working on small demos, eventually finding myself at a teaching position at a vocational school here in Gothenburg, teaching 3D modeling eventually. And then the alumni team that made the original demo for Eclipsium needed and wanted someone to come in with a bit more of a senior eye and steer the ship in a positive direction. So that's where I came in. Before that I mostly worked on mobile games for musicians through a subcontracting arrangement. So that's sort of the the short but still winding road for me getting into games. Jamin Warren (06:29) Yeah, cool, cool, cool. Well, I think before we jump into the conversation, we've got trailers for each one of the each one of the works. We'll kind of run through each one of these for for folks who haven't, who are who might not be familiar. I guess maybe to start with with with Aniara, with Aniara, you know, a thing for viewers to to take a look at and one of the things we'll talk about in the conversation is looking at the light and how ordinary the the ship looks. Let me pull this up. Okay, and next up we'll go through Eclipsium here. One of the things for for folks to keep an eye on, keep an eye on the hand, that's one of the I think one of the defining features for for the game and take a look at the and take take a look at the the the composition as well. All right, last one, Mouthwashing. All right. Okay. Well, I think maybe maybe to get started, maybe to get started here. One of the things I wanted to ask about was maybe we'll start with you, Johanna. You know, Mouthwashing opens on the disaster itself and so the players with the players that the controls of the ship goes in. I was curious about like why kind of start with start with the crash narratively, like why was it important to kind of like start with that that particular that particular point of view. Johanna Kasurinen (12:05) Mm, yeah, I think well it is it is sort of the the most like the incident in the story that sort of changes, you know, everything from their their daily life on the ship to to being the sort of like pre and post-crash. So so in in Mouthwashing you're jumping between different like times, which we broadly cut up into like post-crash, pre-crash, and then what we call post-post-crash, and that that's the moment where you get the like delineation between the two. So it's like everything kind of in the story narratively revolves around this crash. And it's like i if I think about it, so in like a narrative sense, I think it makes sense to to start with that, but also just on like I think like a gameplay level, it's kind of fun to start with you like what you think at that point is is the character trying to kill themselves and it's very dramatic and and stuff and I also very much enjoy when people start playing it and then it the game tells you ste steer right and then you're only able to steer left and then they sort of start getting the context clues that the character is is very much not trying to save the ship. I just thought like we we thought that was just like a strong opening point. Jamin Warren (13:15) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. Let's see. I, you know, th my understanding is that the idea grew out of, was there a cancelled project or something that the was the team trying to finish something? I was wondering if there's that sense of, you know, the in the background of the project there is also a ship that you're trying to keep from keep from crashing, so to speak. Johanna Kasurinen (13:31) Yeah. Yeah, very, very much. So like like I said, we project as as as Wrong Organ, but we had tried during school to make a previous project 'cause our our first game technically was a little little small free game called How Fish Is Made. And that's how we kind of like got to start working working together for the first time. So we're like, okay, we're like we're working quite well as a team, so let's try and make something something bigger. So we started on this project with a bunch of other people from our class. And that project, like there was so much good work that was put into that and everything, but then it just started like going over all the deadlines and everything. And I always saw it as this like there's so much work already done in it. And at some point we kind of knew that it was sort of dead already. But you just don't want to like admit that to yourself and kind of like let everyone down. So I it was kind of from that place of anxiety where the the story for Mouthwashing like came from. It is this like dying project where you have this character really trying to make it work, even though like you can obviously tell like everything is lost at that point. So it was very directly like inspired by that event. And then the previous game heavily featured horses. So we have like this horse mascot character in Mouthwashing. So it's a lot of very direct references to the cancelled game for sure. Jamin Warren (14:46) Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess one last one last thing, because I think this is a through line also to Aniara as well. You know, the game has this countdown. There are two different countdowns in the in the in in in the game. There's the countdown to judgment, and then there's also like countdown to the crash, and the game kind of jumps back and forth narratively, you know, back and forth. What did I was curious about like, you know, cause you could have told the story in a chronological fashion, right? I was curious what does the countdown kind of do for the player? And do for the player and how much did you wanna sort of weigh in or let let players know what your sort of countdown, what the countdown is is for. Johanna Kasurinen (15:27) Yeah, and that was like the decision to make it like non-chronological was definitely I think in in part to sort of make sure that we could squeeze as much intrigue out of this like what is in, if you'd like think of the story of Mouthwashing in chronological order, it's a it's a very simple story. So then it was like, okay, well, how can I make this like very interesting? And I think one way to do that is to like screw with the like presentation order of the thing. And I thought it was just fun because you can kind of create these sort of like, it's it's hard in a game to do like a smash cut, but that was one way that we were able to to kind of pull those kinds of moments off. So like you just hard cut from one scene and then you don't kinda don't know as player when you're gonna sort of re-emerge again and and then you have to like take stock of your surroundings and see what's happened. And there's a lot of like sort of background storytelling we can also fit in that way, because then you ha you kind of put together what's happened between the cuts and then like also, yeah, you could kind of reveal things in in different orders. And then and that also like I think it was a big opportunity storytelling-wise, but it did also bring some problems at times because we really wanted to make sure that it was completely like consistent logically. So if character has a gun, for example, like he has to have the gun in a certain scene, but it would be a spoiler for later in the game. So sometimes we had to use methods like this sort of censorship where the character has the item but they can't see it. But in the end that ended up also like having some really great opportunities to do these like glitch effects and stuff that I think turned into like really cool things in the story, which were kind of born out of more necessity than actually like artistic intent in the beginning. Yeah. Jamin Warren (17:12) Ja. Yeah, I mean it has been it has been very interesting, I think, seeing your work and I think growing out of games like like Thirty Flights of Loving, like seeing more experimental, seeing games kind of walk their way towards things that are quote unquote like easy in film, right? And walking their way towards like using these techniques, like you know, blocking techniques so you don't see certain things on the on the quote unquote set or using a dissolve, for example. And these are things I feel like players have to develop a literacy around as well. Like they have to understand that that is what's happening. It's not Johanna Kasurinen (17:32) Exactly. Jamin Warren (17:42) not disorienting for you to move from one sequence to another. So it was, I thought that was really interesting in the game to move towards that. Johanna Kasurinen (17:48) Yeah, and I had just watched Memento as well, right before we started working on Mouthwashing, so I think you can really see the the inspiration there. But I did wanna mention 'cause I I'm a big fan of Aniara as well and we actually watched the movie during development. One of my coworkers, he was like, I watched this Swedish horror film and it's it's like very similar to Mouthwashing in like the the setting and stuff. And I was like, I haven't heard of it. And so I then I went and watched it. I was just like, damn, I I really enjoyed it. And my thing was I was really proud when I we first started working on Mouthwashing because we do very like Jamin Warren (18:12) Ha ha ha. Johanna Kasurinen (18:23) long time jumps, we do like months and I was like, damn, I'm really pushing the buck here, like we got months of like time skips. Then you watch Aniara and they do time skips in that and I was almost like, damn, they went even harder than I did. Like I thought I was doing something but they are doing something. So I I really enjoyed Aniara, just to get that out there. Yeah, and a lot of really cool ideas in there. Jamin Warren (18:34) Yeah. Sophie Winqvist Loggins (18:42) Oh, nice. Jamin Warren (18:45) Yeah, I mean, Sophie, it's a good question for you. I was curious for you as a cinematographer. So the way Aniara works, if you if you've seen the film, it does have these, there's a there's a count up. So there's a there's an inciting event that's featured in the trailer where they lose control of the ship. And then there's sort of this count up to an unknown sort of future where they get rescued, what's going to happen on the ship. I was curious for you, like what did that effect have of like kind of like, I mean, you know what's going to happen, but for a viewer, I was curious for you as a cinematographer. Johanna Kasurinen (18:53) Yeah. Jamin Warren (19:11) How did the count up timer impact the way that you thought about shooting the sequences in this, you know, sort of ship that is in a sense kind of like heading towards sort of a a certain, a s a s a certain doom, so to s so to speak, in in one shape or fashion. Sophie Winqvist Loggins (19:26) Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we worked a lot with the the mood and with darkness. So we used, for example, lenses that would increase blackness to be there, like this an uncanniness from the beginning, so that in the the palette and the mood you would have that feeling of, you know, the dark. And then just like you have, you know, we had these like and this is this time, so we have this kind of light for it and production design. And then we're gonna move into this chapter where we have a different light and vibe and so on. So I feel like yeah, it was for me very much about lighting and vibe building. Yeah. Jamin Warren (20:11) Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and my understanding is that some of the some of the the sequences, you you chose like sort of unvibey places like airports and like, right, because you mentioned it was your first film and, you know, tell me a little bit about like sort of picking places that would sort of fit the mood of this this ship as well. Sophie Winqvist Loggins (20:23) Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So the directors had their eyes set on the, like they were thinking of the ship as this kind of like fantastic cruise ship in the Caribbean, like it was like the a capitalistic heaven, you know, you have all these different dinner selections and you have all the entertainment systems and so it's like this super nice place to go. So we went for the Ricci, we went to the ferry that goes between Sweden and Finland. And we visited also the cabins where the crew lived and like their working conditions and everything. And we ended up, so these ferries are very well known in Sweden and in Finland and there's like, we wanted that vibe of like also them, the messiness of like the space trip is not only glamorous, but it has like, you know, the grittiness of life. So that's what we wanted to get in there to make it real and to get to you more. And we watched references like Haneke movies and things like this that look at the mechanics and the mechanics of the human, you know, descent into an inner heaven, hell, so to say. So that was very much, we looked, you know, we used hotels, we used entertainment system places. We used a ferry both to Finland and to Gotland to make it real. And yeah, all these places that were, and the one of the art directors come from art school and she had already had her eyes on several of these like non-spacey spaces, right? To in the architecture also try to get that in there. This, how would a Scandinavian spaceship look, right? Jamin Warren (22:06) Right, right, right. Right, right, right. Yeah, that that that makes a lot of sense. I I presume losing ships at sea is not a common a common occurrence in in Sweden. I'm guessing this is, there's no real-life Aniara that I should know about that when you were looking at the the the the ferries. Sophie Winqvist Loggins (22:26) When Well, there have there have been, yes, but I guess our eyes were very much set on also, you know, what's the illusion of a spaceship, of a Scandinavian spaceship. What what would that feel like, right? And also in a world where we used up all the trees and there would like, you know, this dystopian reality, so to say, yeah. Jamin Warren (22:48) Yeah. Max, my question for you is, you know, you didn't have, you know, there's not an inciting kind of like disaster at the at the beginning of Eclipsium, although the the the main character does wake up in a hospital. So it's sort of implied that there is something something afoot. Yeah, I was curious about how you wanted to communicate like a sense of, you know, in both Aniara and then Mouthwashing, you do use the timer, creates this sense of like tension and mood counting up or counting down as an imp implication that you were going somewhere. I was curious for you at Housefire, how did you want to create that, maybe that sense that sense. I guess there's only so many so many parts of your body that you can you can give away at the end of the day. But yeah, tell me a little bit about like creating that sense of like tension or stakes in in in in your game. Max Friberg (23:30) Yeah. First I wanna say that I think that both Aniara and Mouthwashing do a great job of building this sort of tension and what we needed to do for Eclipsium was to really, really trust in in the players to follow along and get invested into what we were doing. Because for us we decided very early on that dialogue for our game is out of the out of the question. And believe it or not, for for the game there is a very long like script written out with every scene planned and what it's supposed to represent for for me and for the team. But then we decided to, okay, we have our overarching narrative and we will we will be presenting that, but we will be using symbolism and iconography, and there's a lot of religious subtext in the game that we evoke because these like common symbols and common ways of of like exploring icons, I guess they they they like hit at something core within you, and I believe that we we managed to get a lot, a a large part of our audience to to follow along, and even though, I mean, their interpretation varies in some places from from my own, I find their versions no less appealing or interesting. And coming from a role-playing game background, something that you tend to do a lot is create these fantastical places that your players are able to visit. And that was very much at the core of what we wanted to do here. I wanted to create impossible spaces, which usually mix together two seemingly untenable or or unincorporated, like oil and water sort of things. So there's this church structure which is huge and grand, but it's all, its interior is entirely a slaughterhouse. This isn't a spoiler. This is part of the trailer, I guess. And the the part the the part that I found so fascinating with this slaughterhouse is that it's an endless, like it's an endless suffering. The pigs which are ferried in on these hooks, they never stop. And eventually you find out that you're feeding this huge maggot at the altar site, which is also like a bottomless pit. So, what we did was there is there is a clear story for me, but the this the game exists in three layers. So, there's the the the like the reality of things. The the story is about two people at the end of the day. It's about the like the husband or and wife, or maybe it's yourself, like exploring parts of your own identity. That's an interpretation that I really enjoy, that I find a lot of like weight to. But there's the there's the reality part and then there's the sub-reality, which is styled as a as a normal war, like between between countries here on earth, I guess, but it's it's it's a it's an inward struggle. And then we have the world of Eclipsium, which is which only exists in the emotional space. So we like descend into less and less reality as the as the game goes along, and and when those worlds like intertwine and mix, we get some really like fun like tension points that we can work with. But mostly the way we approach story is through symbolism and very carefully crafted, like because we have our first-person camera and we can control it more than usual, I'd say, in this game. We can, we know pretty well where the player is looking. Jamin Warren (27:08) Yeah. Max Friberg (27:10) And we were able to frame these things sort of like postcards, and that was very much intentional. Jamin Warren (27:14) Yeah. Yeah, there you go. I I mean one thing I I really appreciate is, you know, a willingness to not have everything be so explicit. You know, I think that, you know, game players are mature enough at this point. And certainly that's something that I look forward to. I don't, I do not need things like spelled out for me. I do not need every loose end to be resolved or everything to like quote unquote make make quote unquote like make sense in a traditional way. So I did really appreciate the sort of these, you know, nightmarish visions that you're having with a s, and like everything does not need to be, you can do things that are they're gestural, certainly gestural as well. Max Friberg (27:29) Mm-hmm. Jamin Warren (27:46) Max, one of the things that you, one of the things that you mentioned was, well, I guess this also, Sophie, you mentioned this as well. I think with all all three works, there is this interplay between like light and dark or a lack of light. All three works are sort of dark, with there's not there's not sunlight in a in a natural in a natural sense, partly because, you know, Mouthwashing and Aniara take place in outer space. And then certainly the world in which the the world of Eclipsium is not necessarily one that the sun shines in a in a particular way, way. I was curious about, yeah, that decision to to focus on these like darker, like a darker, a darker palette for the work. Maybe Sophie, you could start, like that decision maybe to have so much take place like in in that becomes a flash point in the film as well. Like once you know once Mima dis, you know, once Mima is no longer part of their lives, this decision to basically have more and more of the the world kind of be shrouded in in darkness. Sophie Winqvist Loggins (28:36) Yeah, no, I mean it just felt very natural to embrace the dark when you go into space and you go into your own dark. And we picked the lenses that were used on The Godfather that really like crush the lowest blacks and lift midtones, which was great because you could have that hardness at the bottom of every shot. And then, w since we were a low-budget production, we struggled with the windows and how we were gonna emulate space outside. So we actually put black cloth or what we had on the outside and then we would add stars later in post. So it was very like basic, but mentally it was very powerful because we, after a couple of like weeks into pre-production, we could go in any room and be like, now I'm in space, like you could really push that button in your head and visualize it, and n yeah, of course darkness will will creep in on you. Jamin Warren (29:45) Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you find as a cinematographer, cause you know, the film does jump back and forth between these like very bright interior sequences and like close-ups of faces and then, you know, sort of set against the background of like outer space. For you as a cinematographer, were there some challenges in terms of making sure that, you know, folks were not too like washed out or not having, yeah, I was just curious about how compositionally like you you maybe were, there's some struggles or challenges for you in terms of making sure that sort of both sides, light and dark, were were represented in an equal fashion. Sophie Winqvist Loggins (29:52) Mm. Yeah, we did, we did tests before we started. So we did what I like to call a LUT test, when you also build the like the color grade you're gonna use on the film so you can have that on the camera and all monitors so everyone looks at how you're gonna grade it. And then we d d had a modest light budget, so we kind of went with, you know, the ugly shopping mall available light and to to lean into the the harsh harshness of that. So there was like a confidence within our group that this is where we're going. We had also built like ten references that was like, this is the look. So it was not a struggle as such to combine these things. That w they were more like parts of the world. Jamin Warren (31:01) Yeah. Sophie Winqvist Loggins (31:08) And we just try to always have something really dark and then you could go into the bright and still make it feel right within the world. Jamin Warren (31:16) Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Johanna, do you want to talk maybe about some of the visual references for for Mouthwashing? I'm just curious. And then also, you feel free, obviously, the if there's stuff in Aniara that you know that that Sophie has mentioned that you want to ask about, obviously feel f feel free. Feel free as well. Johanna Kasurinen (31:30) Yeah. Yeah, I just I I like the fact that Sophie brought up the the fact that, you know, it's in the different time spaces to like having a very specific palette was a big part of it 'cause that was a really, really big part for for Mouthwashing. We wanted it to be like immediately, like when you cut into a different time zone, like immediately obvious what time you're in. So we had the like stuck in the sunset mode, the the big fake screens that we have. And then like it's more like daylight simulated before that. And we also had the same thing where we were like, we don't really wanna do space like kind of skybox, which is why we don't have any windows on our our spaceship 'cause we were just like, we don't wanna do that. So, you know, but in a like a narrative sense, we were like, okay, well the company's too cheap to actually get them real windows, so, but it it just to not have to deal with making a a space skybox outside of windows. Yeah, I think yeah, w again, quite quite similar to Aniara, like one of our big goals was to have the like the fake light that these characters have to live with, like it's there, it's being provided to them, but it's always kind of shitty. Like they have these big windows which are supposed to be comforting for them, but they're just like kind of terrible. They have these like massive pixels and everything. And yeah, like it was to kind of underline that that attitude that the company has towards their workers, where it's like, you're kind of putting these motions towards comfort, but in the end the the entire ship is just like, it's it's must be so shitty being on there. And I'm glad, Sophie, that you brought up the the ferry from, because yeah, it's I feel like any Finnish or Swedish person has has gone on those ferries and it's like the minute you said it, I'm like, yeah, it makes complete sense. It's it it was such a treat watching Aniara as as a person who lives in Sweden and and as a Finn. Cause yeah, like you said, it's like you recognize stuff that you don't really see like presented in in movies usually that are from the States. I even like when I was watching it back when I watched it a couple years ago for the first time, I had to Google because I was I was convinced one of the the rooms was a room from Stockholm University. And I was like, they must have shot it there. And it wasn't, I think it's the Waterfront. Is it? Sophie Winqvist Loggins (33:44) It is. Yes. Johanna Kasurinen (33:46) I I knew it! I knew it! I was out, I it doesn't say that on like Wikipedia or anything, but it's and it was, yeah, it really hit me. And I know it's it's like a, you know, of course it hits me because I, it's like stuff I recognize, but it was it it was a very like unique experience to have something like so sci-fi but yet so familiar. And like Sophie said, yeah, getting that grittiness and that kind of like mundanity into a spaceship, I thought was like a very like fun way, because it is to us it's like very sci-fi tech, but to these people it's like just normal everyday work conditions and environments. And a lot of inspiration for that of course came from like Alien, which I think is one of the like really best representations of this, like for us sci-fi high tech, but then everything kind of looks grimy and like old to the characters. But we also, yeah, we had a bunch of like other references. Sunshine, the movie, is was a really, really big inspiration, of course, with the the sunset screen and everything we have. And then just movies like like Event Horizon and stuff were really inspiring. Yeah. But I do also, just 'cause Max mentioned it, I cause I was gonna bring up the the slaughterhouse part in Eclipsium. We played Eclipsium as the Wrong Organ team basically one one evening through. And I think like I it I almost like, when you look at trailers, I feel like it doesn't kind of do justice to how beautiful the game is when you're playing it. Cause I was like, going into it, I was like, it's it it looks great. It looks wonderful. But I think it really like comes to life when you're playing it. And the the slaughterhouse segment I think was just like one of the most, the most beautiful, like just visually stunning game environments I've I've seen, and it's low poly and everything. So it really shows that you don't need like triple-A photorealistic graphics to get something that is like truly beautiful. So if you haven't played it, I would like really recommend anyone to not just watch it on YouTube, but to actually go play it. It's like well worth it. It's a great game. Jamin Warren (35:52) Yeah, that's such a great, that's such a great point. I just also, I think just in general, like, you know, so much of people's experiences, many people watch games and then don't actually end up finishing the final product. And I I yeah, I totally agree. Max, I mean, one of the things I wanted to ask Max about about you is like the the the palette is often changing like while while the, not just the player's perspective, but it kind of like moves in and out in this kind of like undulating fashion. That was really pronounced to me like during the for Max Friberg (36:17) Yeah. Jamin Warren (36:21) forest sequences, for example, where you can sort of have the sky and the background. Yeah, I was just curious if you could tell a little bit about, just talk a little bit about that like back and forth, light and darkness, that like stippled, stippled portrait. Cause I I did feel like that that was something that really stood out to me visually while while playing the game. Max Friberg (36:36) Yeah. I I think that everyone on this panel can like relate to the fact that we're, we all, of what we've made, have kind of reached some, some at least, I mean, we're not Mouthwashing big for Eclipsium, but you know, we've all reached some sort of like critical mass in terms of viewership or or players. And it's always fun to like pull back the curtain a bit. So for us there has always been a push and pull between the the palette that we're allowing the game to use because we're actually forcing Jamin Warren (36:46) Ha ha ha. Max Friberg (37:04) the game to only use a subsection of colors. It there's, it's not allowed to blend, but there are more colors available in the palette than are ever displayed at any one time. So the team way back in development wanted to do like this touch fuzzy get dizzy sort of nonsense gameplay mechanic where you where you interacted with this hallucinogenic mushroom and the screen was supposed to like start breathing in and out and things were supposed to start spinning. And just as an experiment, they dialed that effect like way down, like from from a thousand down to like five in terms of intensity, and they slowed it down and created this breathing effect. And I mean, sometimes like you catch lightning in a bottle because that, with the dithering, like stipple look that you that you're explaining, that sort of made the world honestly come come alive in in a way that has garnered a lot of it, it's been such a workhorse for the aesthetic. And in terms of like the contrast between light and dark, the we we we wanted to like make light a physical character within the story. So the the the woman in the story that we internally called the princess, sort of like the classic like damsel in distress trope, but obviously she is, she's in distress but she's no damsel. So she represents light. She is the sun in the story. And you are the moon. And her light, you are only shining because she is reflecting off of off of you. You know, you are you're just passing along her light. So she is the entire light in in Eclipsium, and all of all all every fire that you that you have yourself or every every lantern that you come across, that's supposed to, for me, be a part of her. So that was really nice. And the only natural light that you'll ever find in the game is inside a painting, spoilers, I guess, that you can walk into. So so inside of this world there is a constructed world, a world that someone has has made to be beautiful and be perfect. And there you have natural light that is that is devoid from from her. So but like what I wanted to get back to was the fact that like we had to make Jamin Warren (39:21) Yeah. Max Friberg (39:30) artistic choices, like where the palette that we decided to use informed the spaces that we decided to build. And the spaces that we decided to build in turn informed the types of like avatars that that the protagonist and the heroine, I guess, were allowed to become. So there's this very like, there's this interconnected push and pull relationship between these aspects. And I can only imagine that this, it goes doubly for for for games or or movies with more like pronounced characters, like, okay, this in this scene the character is has this type of light, so the dialogue will of course veer in the t in that direction, or or there's a push and pull at least. Jamin Warren (40:11) Great. This is great. Any, I guess any for for a non, I am not Swedish, obviously. Anything you you would want to add, I guess, Max and Johanna, for a player. I mean, it was interesting to hear you talk about, Johanna talk about, for Aniara that there were these these things that would be very resonant for you because the film is not, you know, because the film is is is is made in a place that you're familiar with. Anything like that in, I just I guess, is there anything like that you would say for Mouthwashing and for Eclipsium that, you know, for players that are maybe, yeah, not familiar with where you're from, that they may not pick pick up on before you move on to the last last bank of questions. Johanna Kasurinen (40:42) Mm, for Mouthwashing, one of the the sort of ideas I had, 'cause 'cause everything outside the sort of outer world outside of the spaceship is left intentionally very vague, so that the characters, like I didn't want them to read as coming from any one country specifically. 'Cause I was kinda like, you know, we don't even know what, you know, Earth looks like back where they're from, so would they, you know, even have the same nationalities that we have? So, in that sense, like I didn't want to make them sort of very Swedish or very Finnish in that sense. There's a few like nods that we have, like the the mascot of the of Pony Express is called Polle, and he's like, he's based on this Swedish cartoon character. Just like small things like that. But yeah, it was very intentional to make it sort of like very like not from anywhere. You don't really recognize anything. You, we, I kinda don't want anyone to go like, that reminds me of home, because it should be very like impersonal in a lot of ways. Yeah, our next game is, however, very, very inspired by Finnish culture, so I guess I get to go go swinging with that for the next one at least. Jamin Warren (41:48) Yeah, fair enough. Fair enough. Great. Max, go ahead, sorry. Max Friberg (41:51) On our side, yeah, yeah, sorry. The I I mean Aniara is so cool and so bleak. And I mean Mouthwashing is similarly not really a a positive story, as as Johanna has alluded to. Go play it yourself if you haven't, you know, be prepared. But I I think I'm honestly a very optimistic type of guy, I guess. I and I I scare easily. So I mean I think that Jamin Warren (42:06) Yeah. Max Friberg (42:20) Ma, Eclipsium has to be the least scary horror game ever made. I mean, it's it's more like a vibe or dread or something. But to me a lot of the game is is about romance. I I mean I read this book by George MacDonald called The Day Boy and the Night Girl, which was super influential. I mean not directly. I mean it's obviously not a story about like sickness and dystopian dream worlds, but a we bring a lot of that in like from disparate sources. I mean there's a lot of Eternal Sunshine of the so of the Spotless Mind in the more like relationship between the characters, and are they, are they, you know, how are they intertwining. So I think that horror is sort of like super interesting because without like without allowing horror to be a part of the experience, you're sort of putting an emotional cap on how real your characters are allowed to become. Like, you know, Aladdin, great movie, but you know, he's not allowed to feel the upper echelons of human emotions. That wouldn't be fitting for the story. And that's sort of, I mean, besides being drawn, it sort of cartoonifies him, of course. So I tend to enjoy horror for the fact that it l br makes everything on be on the table, I guess. Yeah. Jamin Warren (43:38) Well, the last set of questions that I have for you all is just talking about the the body. And, you know, and I think with all three works they deal with different types of bodily decline. Maybe Sophie, you could go first. How did you sort of shoot the decline in like sanity of the characters, like over over the years? Like what changes in the camera, like what changes in in the camera, like as you have all these passengers that start to, you know, their lives start to to come apart, particularly when, you know, reality starts to sort of set in about what they, where they're going and what is going to happen to them. Seems pretty obvious to us as viewers in some ways. But I think that it's very slow, obviously, to many of the characters in the film, in terms of, yeah, I was just just curious about, yeah, how you went about kind of shooting individuals in different states of, you know, different states of distress and dissolution. Sophie Winqvist Loggins (44:30) Yes. And first I need to get this one th thought out on Max, is what you were talking about, because what I felt when I watched it was that it goes into my body and I feel like I'm in this dream. Like it felt very close to when I'm dreaming, in a super scary way, but also very like dreamy, powerful dreamy way, which Jamin Warren (44:36) Of course. Sophie Winqvist Loggins (44:54) goes in the line of what you were saying, that if you put a cap on things, and that horror will, it will communicate with your subconscious and your dreams and everything you repress. So I felt that it was, yeah, very, very beautiful and powerful when I watched it, and I had to like navigate through the world instead of just, you know, as with the movie, you're passively watching something, but when you're playing you're actually in there yourself. So that was very strong. And then about, I mean in Aniara, we tried to move with the bodies in a way that you get to experience in your own body. So what they say is less important than what they do, and that you tap on to the the energy and the movement, and some movements were very hard, made on a dolly. So you're just like powerfully pushing. And perhaps that comes more and more towards the end. It's been a couple of years now. But yeah, I felt like the severeness was in the dolly and the more like upper energy and the hectic breathing was in the handheld when you're running and disoriented. But yeah, I think it was a a play between the the heavy, hard, slow, st powerful and a more reactive, disoriented movement. Jamin Warren (46:20) Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's that's a great point about that juxtaposition, you know, certainly like between the two. Max, I mean, I guess for you, you know, you have this on-screen green hand that's casting spells, and then what's really happening is like you're kind of tearing parts of yourself away. I was curious, was there a particular sequence for the game that you felt like was really impactful for you in terms of communicating that relationship between a player's mental state of what they might be experiencing and what's happening to the physical body of of the of the protagonist for for your game. Max Friberg (46:49) Yeah, for sure, for sure. I mean there is a scene that I find very enjoyable or very interesting in the game, which it's, we call it the planetarium, because there's this sort of like galactic body, and you physically rip your heart out and you place it within this smaller like replica of the tower, which is like the Eye of Sauron, sort of like antagonistic object within the game that you're trying to reach, like the, supposed to be the tower with the princess in it, but sort of like morphed into this fleshy, gory thing. And, you know, having to be an active participant in the construction of the world by removing a bit of your physical self and manifesting that into like a dreamscape. I mean it's all very, very, you know, flummigt, as you would say in in Swedish, I guess. But there is, there was a a bunch of fun things that I felt that we were allowed to do with with symbolism here, and and for me that was really, really important, the fact that we we all like, a heart is, it's a powerful icon used, and used correctly there is a lot we can, yeah, there is, there's a lot we can, you know, we don't have to say much if we're like overly explicit with the symbols that we use. But the hand is, it's like the main way that you're allowed to interact Johanna Kasurinen (48:15) Yeah. Max Friberg (48:16) with the game and the game world, and I wish we had done more with it, honestly. It's it's, unfortunately, it's not an afterthought, but I wanted to pepper interactions throughout the entire game. But eventually a game has to release, and I'm, I guess I'm very happy where we eventually landed anyways. Jamin Warren (48:36) Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I think the last question is for Johanna. And for anyone, if anyone here has any questions, you can drop them in the chat before we before we take off. You know, I think the image that I think a lot of folks will certainly have is, in terms of Mouthwashing, is the, you know, this this image of the the bandaged-up, bandaged-up Curly who appears like throughout throughout the game, appears throughout the game. There are things that happen to Curly that are obviously like very like upsetting, I think, psychologically and physically as well. At the same time, you know, it's a character who requires a lot of, I think, empathy as well. And it, how did you find that balance between sort of having this this visible reminder of kind of like the horror and the tragedy has happened on the spaceship, but balancing that with like wanting people to sort of see that there is an actual like human being there, even if you can't really see, see his face. Johanna Kasurinen (49:37) Yeah, that was definitely like a a a big part of, I think, setting up expectations for people who'd, you know, just look at the the Steam page or something, and yeah, that's what they see. They see this bandaged, looking scary guy. And it is, it's like very, I, we tried to like very, it's sort of like a red herring where, you know, I think Jamin Warren (49:57) Right. Johanna Kasurinen (49:58) when the first sort of Let's Players came came up and started playing Mouthwashing, I think you could tell that they were kind of, this is gonna be like a ooh, spooky game where stuff jumps out at you. And then we like very early on also lead with Polle, the mascot character. So then I, I'm sure a lot of people go, okay, it's a mascot horror game. Like it's very much like trying to sort of mislead you, because then what, then the actual horror of the game is, is is it completely takes like a Jamin Warren (50:17) Right, right. Johanna Kasurinen (50:25) a left turn. But I think, yeah, with Curly, the point with him was always that like he looks a certain way, and it was always like this, getting to like kind of, through the story, kind of underline that he is is still very much human, even though he looks so scary and and like so damaged, but like he is still a person. And obviously the sort of like autonomy and and the body in general are huge themes in in Mouthwashing. And Curly losing his his autonomy is reflected also in the the spaceship sort of like being lost in space and them being out of control. And then towards the end of the game, obviously, like we we go into like full gore and it it becomes like very overt horror in that sense and very body horror, like very the it inspired, which I'm just like a huge fan of that kind of horror. But I do, I do think like the scariest and the maybe the most interesting parts of the game, despite that, are kind of the horrific moments that aren't so bloody, aren't so focused on on the body and and gore, which I think is is also what both Aniara and Eclipsium also do well, is I think that, yeah, some of the like the scariest parts of both games are, or the most interesting parts, are are not the like actual bloody horror parts, but the sort of more like just imagining yourself in in some of these situations or being as confused and like sort of lost as you are in in something like Eclipsium. Yeah, I think it it it works out. And sometimes, yeah, you can kinda tell when you're watching Let's Players play Mouthwashing, at some point you notice they're like, this is a very different game than what I expected. I'm kinda like, huh, gotcha. Jamin Warren (52:10) Yeah, I guess you would say that's shrewd, shrewd marketing. I suppose that's one way, the one way to think about. But I I do think it also reflects like what we're seeing with contemporary horror. There's a wide range. You know, you obviously still have like extremely gory films like Terrifier, but like at the same time, you know, you do have more psychological, psychological, you know, dramas, Ari Aster's work, or like you you do have this like wider range, and it has been nice to see I think games embrace a wider palette of like dread and horror and like other emotional valences that are not just like, you know, Five Nights at Freddy's, for example, or, you know, that doesn't really, doesn't require that kind of like moment-to-moment jump scare. No shade on Five Nights at Freddy's. But that's like a specific, you're playing a very specific like type of game. And so I think it's nice to see, it's nice, it is nice to see like a wider, wider palette. I guess before we go, maybe we can start with, just before we go, we can talk about what you're working on next. Johanna, I believe you you have a, there's a there's a new game that you're in the process of working on. We can just go right down the list, Johanna, Max, and Sophie, you can talk about what is next on your next on your docket. Johanna Kasurinen (53:13) Yeah, so we have announced at this point we're working on what is practically a complete one-eighty from from Mouthwashing. Our our next pla game is called Carcass Clad, and it's a three-player, like multiplayer tank horror game where you're playing as three different roles that are completely different and you have to control a tank. And yeah, it's still, it's still a, it's so, it's completely different. It's not narrative-led this time. We're kind of wanting to flex a a completely different muscle as as a group. So it's maybe a bit of a risk, but we're we're very excited to sh kind of show what else we're capable of aside from narrative, even though we still obviously love narrative. I'm I'm, I still work here, so I love narrative, but I'm also excited to try something different and see how it, how it goes. Maybe, you know, people won't be on board, but Max Friberg (53:56) Yeah. Johanna Kasurinen (54:02) yeah, it's still, it's still very weird. It's still horror. It's still a Wrong Organ game. So yeah, please look forward to when we announce more about it. Jamin Warren (54:12) Amazing. Max, how about for you? Max Friberg (54:14) Yeah, so I don't know if you can do more of a one-eighty than Johanna and the team are, but if it were possible, it would probably be what we're doing. So we are alienating every single fan that we have for Eclipsium, I guess, by making, we only work apparently in like derogatorily named genres. So Eclipsium is like a a walking simulator, which is like Jamin Warren (54:38) Right, right. Max Friberg (54:38) was made as a as like a an affront to the, to whatever it was. And now we're making, I guess we're making a friendslop game. I I resist the label. There's nothing slop about it. We're making a multiplayer cooperative game in the in the vein of Human: Fall Flat, where you're hauling a dead king from his, from where he died, back to his castle, and it's actually inspired by Fitzcarraldo by Werner Herzog, which we have Johanna Kasurinen (54:48) Yeah. Jamin Warren (55:05) Okay. Yeah. Max Friberg (55:06) mangled through the meat grinder in in in, very, ending up at a very different point, and I guess. But I I'll, I'll be remiss if I don't say that I think that Curly and the way you have to care for him in the game is extremely potent. And I mean I thought it was gonna be a a a more horror, scary, freaky game. Every time I went into the Medbay I was like, okay, this time for real, it's gonna, it's gonna go down. You know, but yeah, so I just find him an expertly written Jamin Warren (55:29) Ha ha ha. Max Friberg (55:35) character. I just wanted to give some praise. So, but check out All Haul the King on the Steam Next Fest. It's live right now. Play with your friends. Yeah. Okay. Johanna Kasurinen (55:36) Thank you. Thank you. Jamin Warren (55:44) Sophie, how about for you? I mean, I'm un, if you're making a game, that would be wonderful, but a great time to announce that you're making a game. Sophie Winqvist Loggins (55:47) Yeah, for me. Yeah, yeah, no, not up there yet. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I have to work on that part. But I'm doing, I'm looking forward to one project about a female serial killer, which is gonna be fun. And then, pr, hopefully dance horror in Taiwan. And that one that cuts between the 1890s about a real story about the woman who lived there, in the 1960s when they shot a movie about her, and how the actress in that movie looks back and kinda connects with her, and how their destinies intertwine. So yeah, lots of fun. Jamin Warren (56:27) Wonderful, wonderful. Well, thank you everybody. Thank you so much for, so so much for joining me today. You'll get a recording of this after we're done. I'll actually do like a little touch-up as well. We'll work some other assets into it. It's hard, obviously, to the live, live visualize assets like as we're as we're as we're chatting. Yeah, so just, you know, as we close today, expect email from us. And then if you're interested in some of the themes that we explored, you can look at, check out the Scoring Fear talk that we did last, last week. That's on YouTube and it's on our website at killscreen.com. You can keep looking at the other games in the Killscreen Horror Collection at killscreen.com forward slash horror-collection. That'll also be in the email. And we're gonna have one more talk next week with the production designers from Camp Miasma, and I believe it'll be the the creative director from the Italian studio that made HORSES, the the horror, very controversial horror game that came out last, earlier this year. Thank you everybody for joining us. Thank you so much and we'll talk to you soon. Okay.