2019. Horribilis Annus Mirabilis!
Awakening on the first of January after a visit from Victor Hugo, who loudly proclaimed “There is a sacred horror about everything grand. It is easy to admire mediocrity and hills; but whatever is too lofty, a genius as well as a mountain, an assembly as well as a masterpiece, seen too near, is appalling.” Over breakfast we instantly knew to stand way back if we were to peer through the darkness toward the future!
If that at all sounded way to colorful, then perhaps we should dial it back just a touch. The year of 2019 was Feardemic’s reformative year. The year a new business plan was nailed to the front door. Let us share with you some of the highlights and of course, more aptly, the horrors that befell us!
The year started with 2084, our first game and one we developed in house with the team from Observer. It started out as a great way for the guys to blow off some steam and taking advantage of the many FPS fans in Bloober, we took the raw assets of observer and re-worked them into a horror themed first-person shooter. 2084 was born into early access.
April heralded the arrival of The Padre (Padre Alexander). He burst out of early access like a mine crafter from hell, I mean from the church. The game arrived on the Nintendo Switch simultaneously with the PC version coming out of early access. Alpha Beta Gamer heralded its arrival as “A fabulously freaky voxel-based point and click survival horror with a healthy dose of dark humor.”
Shortly after the arrival of the game we came to know of the Padre’s other talents with the release of excerpts from the Padre’s other life as a TV Host on the Vatican Network. We came to know his compassion and empathy as he dealt with letters from pilgrim’s in his show “Dear Padre”.
We also learnt about his fondness for fine wines and his deep knowledge of the world of the sommelier through his Vatican Network TV program “The Wine Library”. We learnt of wines from different regions, supplied by some of the world’s best wine traders.
Padre also visited E3 and created some valuable guides for those about to attend. He became very much concerned about the pilgrims and provided insight on how best to pack and what to do and where to stay.
He was due to report back and do some live crosses for the Feardemic social channels but unfortunately after entering the Doom Eternal stand on the first day he wasn’t seen again until September. There is a rumor that he was directly involved with the delay of the release, but only he and Todd know the truth in regard to that rumor.
In Summer, our least favorite season, we got to head out for a couple of shows. We headed out to Gamescom and although we had to bunk with the Blair Witch, trust me she snores like a demon, it was a great opportunity to catch up with our industry peers and play some new builds and meet plenty of creative people. We also headed up to Helsinki where we were able to meet with a great crew of Finnish based developers on a game day prior to DevGamm St Petersburg.
In September we announced the publishing of our sister companies fantastic game Ritual: Crown of Horns. Developed by Draw Distance, Ritual was a hard core horde mode weird western that would challenge gamers on both PC and Switch!
The Padre made his presence known again as October rolled around. He found himself the center of attention in a very special bundle that allowed him to almost treble his users in the course of a week. The new users were kind enough to write some glowing steam reviews and had the Padre ending the month with a 100% positive score. Gamer “Audrey Hepburn” was kind enough to write “This game is a love letter to Alone In The Dark One. But more than that, anyone who grew up playing and loving pc gaming in the 90s I believe will enjoy this game. It's hard to explain but everything about this game makes me feel like I'm a teenager again playing an adventure puzzle game on the old PC.”
The end of October saw us out and about again this time taking our particular form of pestilence and terror to Paris and spreading all through the halls of Game Connection. It was a very busy couple of days for us but yielded many interesting discussions and opportunities to catch up with new and old friends. We had to rush back for what is one of the most important days of the year at Feardemic. H A L L O W E E N !
Halloween is not just an excuse for us to scare children. It’s the time of year we get to host our annual conference to share with the world’s media the exclusive announcements and exciting things on the horizon of Feardemic. We also get to do it in our physical and spiritual home, the beautiful city of Krakow here in Poland. City of ghosts, churches and millennia of ghouls. This year’s conference was so exciting the audience almost literally raised the dead.
November kicked off with the Ritual: Crown of Horns coming out of early access and releasing on Switch to some well-deserved critical reviews. Rock Paper Shotgun summed it up most eloquently, writing “Ritual is metal as hell, but it’s doing it with carefully directed shots, not just generic excess.” That was the only accolade heaped upon the game.
Nintendo life gave the game 7/10 saying “Ritual: Crown of Horns is a challenging yet hugely rewarding western-horror themed action game which will go down well with veterans of the ‘horde’ genre.”
Ritual: Crown of Horns also featured a phenomenal soundtrack composed by the hyper talented Brunon Lubas. Given that it has been on high rotation of the office stereo since August we had to take this opportunity to share it with you!
For the team at Feardemic 2019 was an interesting year, one we see as foundational to the future evolution of the label. The things we unveiled this year will set the corner stone for all the comes in 2020 and we have big plans to provide more horror, shock, plague like pestilence and darkness in the aptly named year of the rat!