This year’s Summer Game Fest was filled to the brim with creative experiences that push the medium forward in meaningful ways. Case in point: one of the live event’s standout moments was when Blumhouse Productions confirmed that it will be shepherding not one, not two — but six — unique horror game projects to market. While all the upcoming titles look incredibly intriguing, only one was actually playable on the show floor: Cosy Game Pals’ Fear the Spotlight.
Luckily, The Nerd Stash was given the opportunity to conduct a virtual interview with the California-based duo who comprise the development team at Cozy Game Pals: Head of Art Crista Castro and Head of Coding Bryan Singh. So, without further delay, let’s hit it!
Fear the Spotlight Interview with Cozy Game Pals’ Crista Castro and Bryan Singh
Editor’s Note: The following interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Dylan Chaundy, Editor at The Nerd Stash: I was really impressed with Fear the Spotlight’s short demo at Summer Game Fest. Clearly, Silent Hill is a big inspiration. From the inventory screen to the audio cues to the atmosphere you’re trying to evoke, everything feels very old-school survival horror, in a really, really good way. What would you say are your other influences outside of Silent Hill? Are there any other horror games that have inspired you? Were there any horror movies that inspired you?
Cozy Game Pals: Silent Hill is definitely a huge inspiration for us, but it’s not the only one. We’re channeling so many horror favorites from classics like Are You Afraid of The Dark and The Craft to more modern releases, like the recent Resident Evil games, or The Conjuring movies.
Some of our nods to these inspirations are explicit, but most of them work their way into the game subconsciously, making a blend of horror elements that we wish we could have discovered and played ourselves.
Dylan: From what I’ve played so far, you’ve really nailed that old-school Silent Hill vibe. What was the most challenging part of achieving that? Or did it just come quite naturally to you?
Cozy Game Pals: Thank you for such a big compliment! Silent Hill is a huge inspiration for us. We love the dread that can come from simple, uncomfortable actions, like putting your hand in a hole, going down a dark hallway for the first time, or crawling through a tunnel in your bathroom.
When making Fear the Spotlight, we experimented until we started finding elements that intuitively felt right together. Ultimately, we discovered that Fear the Spotlight has a range of vibes and gameplay that balance each other out.
Dylan: Horror often works effectively on lower budgets. Much like horror cinema, for instance, there are quite a few smaller-scale films that have broken through into the mainstream zeitgeist without costing an arm and a leg, like The Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity, or Host, to name but a few. Is it fair to say that horror video games lend themselves well to lo-fi experiences? Do you think a “less is more” approach works to your advantage?
Cozy Game Pals: Oh, for sure! The horror genre has so much variety, whether big budget or small. As horror fans, what matters most to us is that the ideas are interesting and presented well.
We approached this game wanting to do as much as we could with just the two of us. This “low budget” approach has made it fun to figure out how to pull off different ideas with limited resources. Our choice of a lo-fi retro visual style serves multiple purposes. We like how it enhances the ambiguity of what you’re seeing, building tension and atmosphere. Plus, it enabled Crista to single-handedly create all the art for the entire game.
Dylan: Building off of my last question, there have been quite a few small-scale, minimalist horror games that have gone on to become incredibly popular. Slender: The Eight Pages, Lone Survivor, and Iron Lung spring to mind, for example. On the other hand, the industry has also seen success with big budget horror games like the Dead Space and Resident Evil 4 remakes. Do you think horror is more popular than it ever has been? Do you think the indie horror space is a hotbed for creativity and innovation? How do you feel about the AAA horror space?
What excites us the most about the horror game genre is the diversity we’re seeing. Games like Five Nights at Freddy’s, Lethal Company, Detention, and Alan Wake 2 each offer wildly different horror experiences. A huge team like Capcom may be able to achieve things that a single person like Puppet Combo [developer behind 2020’s Murder House] can afford to do; as fans, we’re just grateful for the variety.
Our own growing interest in horror games over the years is what inspired us to create our own. We made Fear the Spotlight hoping that there’s more people like us out there that enjoy the same things we do.
Dylan: One of the big announcements during the Summer Game Fest live event was the confirmation that Blumhouse Productions will be publishing Fear the Spotlight, as well as five other horror games. How did this collaboration come to be? What’s your experience been like working with such a massive publisher?
Cozy Game Pals: Fear the Spotlight began as a passion project for us. The two of us quit our jobs and lived off savings for two years to make this game. We had a limited release on Steam, which started to build a strong cult following.
Blumhouse Games liked what they saw and reached out to us. With their support we’ve been able to keep working on the game and port it to consoles.
Working with Blumhouse Games has been a dream come true for us as horror fans and as indie game fans. Their whole team is made of amazing people who truly care about games, horror, and the developers they support. It’s really been such an ideal partnership for us. It’s hard to overstate how grateful and excited we are.
Dylan: Fear the Spotlight has had an interesting trajectory since it launched on PC in a sort of beta version back in September, 2023. It’s since been made unavailable to download as you work on a significant update to the game. Can you tell us a little bit about what you’ll be adding? Has your vision for the game changed in any way? Or will the core experience remain very similar to the originally-released version?
Cozy Game Pals: The updated game is almost double the length of the original limited release. Our goal is to provide an adventure that never overstays its welcome, so expanding the game has been a delicate balance of enhancing what we like about the original experience and not padding it out unnecessarily. It has taken a lot of work, but we found some ideas that we are absolutely in love with.
We’re keeping details about the update under wraps to surprise our fans who played the first release. However, we can say that the new content includes some of our favorite elements of the game, and early playtesters have found it even scarier, which is very exciting for us.
Dylan: During my demo, I didn’t get to see any real monsters per se. Will there be any monsters in the full game? Was it challenging designing the appearance of the monsters?
Cozy Game Pals: Yes, there are monsters in Fear the Spotlight. But since you play as a teenage girl with asthma, direct confrontation isn’t an option. Your focus is on stealth and survival.
We’ve designed the game with deliberate balance in mind. While enemies are an important presence, we try not to desensitize players with too many encounters, ensuring that each monster encounter is meaningful and contributes to the overall tension and atmosphere of the game.
Dylan: After Fear the Spotlight, what would you say your next dream project would be? Would you like to continue down the horror route? Or is there another genre that is calling to you?
Cozy Game Pals: While we’re passionate about horror games and their ability to blend scares with sweetness and fun, we’re open to exploring genres other than horror. We’re multi-faceted developers with a pretty broad range in taste.
Our dream is to stay creative and explore new ideas without limiting ourselves to a specific genre or project. While we have some initial ideas to explore, we know they’re just the beginning. We enjoy the process of discovery and are excited to see where our next project takes us. Going in new directions is a huge part of the excitement for us.
Dylan: Once Fear the Spotlight releases, do you foresee yourselves releasing any further updates, expansions, or DLC for the game?
Cozy Game Pals: In a way, we feel like we’re already creating an expansion for Fear the Spotlight, given that we initially released a limited version last year. This opportunity allows us to explore ideas we hadn’t considered the first time around due to budget constraints.
Our current plans don’t include post-launch content. This version includes everything we’ve got. For us to revisit Fear the Spotlight, two things would need to happen: we’d need to discover a new idea that excites us, and there would need to be sufficient fan interest (hint, hint — wishlisting on Steam helps).
That said, we never rule out possibilities entirely. If we find an idea that truly excites us, it’ll be hard to resist diving back in to create more Fear the Spotlight.
Before wrapping things up, we’d like to say a massive thank you to both Crista Castro and Bryan Singh for taking the time out of their busy schedules to chat with us. It’s been a pleasure!
Fear the Spotlight is slated to launch later in 2024 on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch.
