'HEAVEN WILL BE MINE' RECEPTION: In an exclusive interview with The Fly, Pillow Fight Games co-founder and lead producer Jo Kreyling said that the critical reception to her company's latest game, 2018's visual novel "Heaven Will Be Mine," has been "really good." Kreyling noted, however, that "it's kind of hard to tell" how successful a game is when it comes to making money versus building an audience. "I’m pretty sure all of our customers who are kind of used to the products that we sell pretty much went for the game as we expected it to go,” she said.
PUBLISHING GAMES: Pillow Fight both published and developed "Heaven Will Be Mine." When asked about the challenges associated with publishing and developing games at the same time, Kreyling said that there are "a lot of challenges, especially with a studio as small as ours." She said that the main development wing at Pillow Fight consists of her and her husband, neither one of whom has a business management background, which sometimes leads to budgets being based on limited experiences. "We're kind of just winging it sometimes," the Pillow Fight founder told The Fly.
Kreyling also mentioned that another difficult part of being a publisher is "deciding what an ethical publisher looks like." "Without kind of going into numbers at all, it's kind of like 'when do we take pay if we know that our target creative teams tend to be on the less privileged side,'" she said. "I think that's one of the bigger challenges."
In response to a follow-up question about whether Pillow Fight would ever consider partnering with a bigger publisher for future projects, Jo said that she and her husband have "thought about this a lot," but noted that she likes being independent and having creative freedom. "There’s no such thing as a free lunch, and I tend to mistrust publishing offers and the kinds of agreements people make," Kreyling said, adding that she would never want to "sign a deal with the devil."
VISUAL NOVEL DEMAND: When asked about why the overall demand for visual novels, which tend to be almost entirely story-focused with very little in-game action, Jo said that players sometimes "want simple, branching narrative games," though she added that the desire for such games and how well they're doing in Western markets is "kind of up for interpretation." Kreyling noted that not many people release their sales figures for visual novels and that while certain games in the genre, such as 2016's "Dream Daddy" and 2017's "Doki Doki Literature Club," drive a lot of curiosity and attention, it's still "up for debate" whether these games were financially successful or will have a lasting impact. ”Some of the best visual novels and some of the ones that make the biggest splash are free,” Kreyling commented, adding that she believes players have very high expectations for the time they spend with a visual novel, but don't want to pay, which limits what people are able to create. ”I just don’t see a bigger publisher going out of its way to find the next best VN developer to fund," she said.
VN COMPETITION: On the topic of how to navigate the competitive environment around visual novels, the Pillow Fight co-founder said players tend to look for a good, easy-to-understand user interface. "People who are really observant about ["Heaven Will Be Mine"} will notice that it's really like an email system," Kreyling said. In addition, she said that she wants her work to highlight "cool artists" from indie comics and "zine zones," since games that feature "cool art is what helps us get a look and a style that is helping us build or brand." “People are investing more in video game art that challenges more people,” Kreyling told The Fly. “People who play video games for the specific kind of game they like… I don’t think they’re the kinds of video game consumers that are looking for different kinds of art.”
NEW GENRE: When asked if Pillow Fight Games is interested in exploring different game genres, Kreyling mentioned her company's next game, which she called "Later Alligator," is "more of a minigame collection" that involves all kinds of little puzzles and challenges. She noted that this won't be a branching narrative game, but it will include "full-blown animations." The game she wants to make after that will feature a branching narrative, she said, but will also feature a system "some people would call game mechanics, some say it would be leaving VNs, but I don't feel like it is." "“Would I be interested in things that aren’t visual novels? Definitely, but I’m cheating a little bit by saying I already think I am," Kreyling said.
SWITCH: On the subject of porting games to the Nintendo Switch (NTDOY), which indie developers and publishers have frequently been doing since the system launched in 2017, Kreyling said she "would love to be on the Switch," noting that the visual novel genre makes accessibility super possible. Jo added that it "doesn't make sense" to her why more visual novel games aren't available on the Switch yet. "Nintendo should definitely call me back," she said.
"Game On" is The Fly's weekly recap of the stories powering up or beating down video game stocks.
