After the start of GrisA beautiful game about grief, the team at Nomada Studio in Barcelona needed a long break. They spent about half a year not even thinking about what came next, avoiding words like “unity” or “sequel.” Eventually, director Conrad Roset, who was becoming a parent at the time, came up with the idea of creating a similar experience that would introduce a new companion that would allow players to bond with and care for another character .
“I told him, no problem, as long as it's not a four-legged animal, you can do whatever you want,” says lead producer Roger Mendoza, noting that animating creatures with many legs can be “pretty painful.” But the director was able to make a case for a game with that title Neva about a young woman who goes on an emotional journey with a magical fox creature. “I think it was worth it,” admits Mendoza.
Neva comes out on October 15th (it's coming to PC, Switch, Xbox and PS5) and the like Grisit's a stunningly animated 2D adventure. Players take on the role of a young woman who cares for a young fox pup named Neva and tries to keep him safe in a world full of dark forces that seem to have been ripped away Magically gone. It only lasts about five hours, but the game takes place over a long period of time. Each chapter is a different season and you see the fox grow over time. At first it's a relatively helpless puppy, but in the end it becomes your protector.
Neva And Gris have many similarities: the short length, the accessible gameplay, the incredible art and animation, and the narrative that is told almost entirely without words. (Neva There is some voice acting, but it's several variations of the heroine calling out Neva's name. “I think we recorded 500 different ways to pronounce Neva,” Mendoza jokes.) But the new game also introduces two important features: not just a second character, but also combat.
“When she’s not with you, you really feel it.”
According to Mendoza, the latter was inspired by the former. “[The addition of Neva] In a way, that's where the combat came from – we thought it would be a good mechanic to reflect the fact that there is now a companion,” he explains. In the beginning you have to fight to protect the fox, but as he grows up and changes, the dynamic changes too. “Now she’s the one who takes care of you,” Mendoza says. “When she’s not with you, you really feel it. The fight seemed like a good way to tie everything together.”
This presented a number of design challenges, particularly in terms of accessibility. One of Gris“The biggest strengths were how easy it was to learn and play; it even worked well on a smartphone touchscreen. But the added complexity that comes with combat and a companion meant that Neva “is not as accessible as Gris“, says Mendoza. “We knew that early on; As soon as you add more controls, it becomes more difficult.” To take this into account, the developers equipped the game from the beginning with a story mode in which you cannot die in battle. “It was a way to find the right balance,” he says.
The success of Gris – the game has sold more than 3 million copies to date – gave the studio the confidence to both push forward in these more ambitious directions and continue to pursue its strengths. One of the key takeaways from this game, according to Mendoza, was that “you can create a strong narrative without the need for words.” We had no idea if it would work Gris.” Neva takes it a step further, with a more direct plot that covers multiple topics at once – not just the development of a parental relationship, but also overt themes of environmental degradation. This story is also conveyed almost entirely through art, sound and animation.
The other big learning Gris was more practical. One of the main reasons the game's development was so stressful and required such a long vacation after release was that the team was relatively small. In fact, only two programmers worked on it Gris at all, which leads to a lot of late nights and long working hours. Now that many Nomada members are a bit older and have families of their own, work-life balance is a much bigger priority. And thus one of the most important changes between Gris And Neva was seemingly simple: “We hired more programmers.”