We are Haunting Humans Studio, an indie dev team from Argentina and the creators of "Who Are You!?". Lovers of all things horror, specially psychological horror. And this is Diego, Founder, Producer and Game Designer of the studio.
We created "Who Are You!?" initially for a theme horror game jam, and with the idea that at that moment there were not really many games related to UFO/UAP Phenomena at all, so we wanted to explore fear from the psychological aspect of someone who experienced what may be an abduction of his Wife. Having to cope up with lost and taking care of his only daughter over the years, until a strange cassete from his missing wife gets dropped by his door changing his life one more time.
For this, we wanted to add all the real aspects of the investigations, also helping promoting declassification from our side as well as giving more people access to what's going on. So we teamed up with our psychologist advisor, to explore all the aspects of lost, and depression. While working with a very important UFO/UAP Research team from Argentina, learning and understanding about the different situations that involve what could be an Alien Abduction.
It's been a learning curve but, it's been great so far, it let us learn a lot, specially while creating the right atmosphere we wanted to setup.
When we started we didn't know much about development or Unreal Engine, which is the engine we decided to use for what we were trying to achieve. We develop in Unreal 4.27 because we don't have the power on our pcs for now to use something a bit more powerful.
Our biggest hurdle was trying to Balance realism with horror using real UFO investigation material and research, while mixing things with the psychological approach, and turning all of that into Art, sounds, colours and emotions. Using the old hardware we have, trying to optimize things so we can really put the quality we want into it.
At first it may seem like it's a high mountain that is not possible to climb, but with effort, everything can really happen, there's always a moment when someone will come to tell you how much your game is loved but don't forget that in the long run you have to put yourself a limit, to avoid doing a never-ending project, but allow yourself to dream too. Dreams can be possible, sometimes with limits that let you dream bigger once those little ones start to become true. But always keep creating.
Being part of the indie dev community, specially in horror is a really nice thing, beign able to fight for your dreams and create more spaces for people to enjoy, to connect with others and with themselves. Things can be hard and will be hard, but again is all about effort, putting yourself outside of your comfort zone sometimes.
Connecting, networking, community, are key words for the development process, because you will get to meet amazing people along the game dev path, that will help you, teach you, and sometimes even walk with you while you climb over the indie games mountain. Let's make more deep horror games!
-Diego
❤️
