Murder Mystery meets farming sim in Perfect Garbage’s upcoming title,Grave Seasons.The game has seen a lot of traction since its reveal on Twitter, and Game Rant recently had the opportunity to sit down with studio co-founders Son M. and Emmett Nahil to talk about theindie game’s development.
Grave Seasonsis a farming simulator in the vein ofHarvest MoonorStardew Valley, but with a key twist: one of the villagers is secretly a serial killer, and it’s up to players to uncover their identity before it’s too late. Because of this truly unique approach, the developers had much to say about the process behind its development.The following transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.
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Q: Could we start with both of you giving us a quick introduction?
Son: Sure! I’m Son M., co-founder with Emmet Nahil of our studio, Perfect Garbage. We started our studio in 2018 and kick-started Love Shore in 2019, which we’re debuting this May with Xbox. We’re also working on our upcoming projectGrave Seasons. I act as the studio director as well as the creative director.
Emmett: And I’m Emmett, co-founder as Son said, and I act as narrative director.
Q: What originally inspired you all to makeGrave Seasons?
Son: I have a very specific answer -Harvest Moon: Save the Homelandfor the PS2. I love farming sims and life sims, but I’m also a writer and I care about plotlines. I think with life sims in general, there is often too much focus on the management sim aspect and not enough focus on the narrative aspect. Something we really wanted to do with Perfect Garbage was make a game where we could have this life and management sim aspect but also cater to something that has a definitive end.
Emmett and I are both horror writers, and we’re both really inspired by horror tropes. We wanted to find a way to bring the elements we liked, these spooky, unsettling, even horrifying things, and bring them into a space that doesn’t swallow the aesthetic of the genre but can also play really well to its strengths. Finding out who’s the killer while also giving flowers to a shopkeeper you think is cute, as an example.
One thing I really want to add quickly is we really wanted to make a game where we didn’t have to add a ‘hot mod.’ We wanted everyone to be kind of hot by default.
GR:Hadesstyle.
Emmett: Pretty much. As Son mentioned, we both come from more horror, and on the other side of things, I was not a huge farming sim person growing up. I brushed over a lot of it because I am such a narrative-focused person. I’m excited about the opportunity to make these kinds of more thorough narrative storylines in the genre because I feel like that would draw in players like me who don’t automatically gravitate toward farming sims.
Q: Would you say it’s accurate that you’re trying to give a kind of purpose, or narrative through-line, to this traditionally open-ended kind of game?
Son: Yeah! We like to say that our motto here at Perfect Garbage is “We bring the bash in genre mash.” We really try to see how we can fit different game structures within each other. I think the farming sim is actually really strongly organized to cater to the narrative because infarming simseverything you do has a purpose, whether you’re farming, making money, developing relationships, or whatever. So the only thing we’re trying to do is bring a kind of intensity to that purpose. It’s been really cool to see people craving that kind of excitement in a genre that doesn’t usually carry that kind of stress.
Q: Perfect Garbage seems to have a penchant for blending genres, as you said - specifically romance and horror. What interests you about these elements in particular?
Emmett: For me personally, I see romance and horror, and to some extent comedy - which is definitely in our games as well - as very gut-reaction elements to bring into any game. As much as we like to say there is such a thing as ‘elevated’ horror or romance, they’re very raw emotions that are easy to pull from in terms of human experience. Everyone’s had a moment of real fear or genuine love. You can pull on those emotional strings and know that they will resonate, at least to some degree, with everyone. In our games, we find that it’s easy to sort of combine those two elements specifically in a way that comes up with something new.
Son: To add to that, I thinkLove Shorereally caters to this. We wanted to bring elements that we knew existed in the genre prior and bring a new perspective to them. I think dating systems are some of the most compelling features in games. I’m using the term ‘dating’ loosely, it doesn’t have to be romantic, but building relationships with characters is deeply compelling. They’re great vehicles for telling stories. So when we did Love Shore, for example, we really wanted to make a dating sim and honor that genre, while at the same time talking about really horrifying relationships to capitalism, cyberpunk, and nature. I think dating sims are cool vehicles to tell genre-specific stories that sometimes get ignored in that space. We naturally always want to include some kind of relationship dynamics in our work.
Emmett: Also, the spectrum betweenlove and horror is often more a horseshoethan a straight line. There’s more emotional interplay between those two things than people traditionally expect.
Q: How doesGrave Seasonsseek to balance the cozy atmosphere of the life sim with the thrilling tension of a murder mystery?
Son: In the best way possible - answer done, mission accomplished! [laughs]. I don’t want to reveal too much, we’re pretty early in development. We’ve been really excited about the reception because it’s allowed us to kick development into a more vigorous approach. But for us, there are a lot of cool elements that we’re utilizing that blend the genres while still playing to the strengths of both. There will be plenty of horrifying moments, but there will be cozy elements as well, and neither will detract from the other. We saw someone call it “cozy chaos” once, and I think that’s been a touchstone of ours since. I think there’s a really pleasant blend of enjoyable, softer content with these extreme feelings and emotions that players are going to find really fun.
Emmett: It’s one of those things I think about in terms of balance a lot. I think you’re able to better appreciate the more cozy or wholesome moments when you have something stressful to compare them to. We want to give a lot of tonal difference in an interesting and story-driven way. That balance is going to be highly tuned, but also will be what makes the gameplay loop interesting, and will give that kind ofreplay valuethat everyone’s looking for.
Q: You spoke aboutLove Shorebefore. I wanted to ask what you have learned from the development ofLove Shorethat has translated to the development ofGrave Seasons.
Both: So much.
Son: Something we really latched onto withLove Shorewas the stat system. Maintaining statistics in relation to what you do is actually one of the foundations ofGrave Seasons. We keep records of what you plant, what you sell, and who you give a gift to. We had a rudimentary version of that inLove Shore. Furthermore, something elseLove Shorehad that helps is a day and night cycle. We toyed with that feature inLove Shoreand will be exploring it much more inGrave Seasons.
Emmett: We learned to have a much stricter attitude toward pre-production and towards scope. We weren’t total novices in any way, butLove Shorewas our debut title. Because we’re self-publishing it with some assistance from Xbox, who we have a good relationship with, we learned exactly what our capacity is as a studio and how to work with that and to better communicate as a fully remote team.
Q: Speaking of indie development - What has been the most unexpected or surprising aspect of indie development?
Son: I have two: first, the business development aspect. I’m always fascinated by how people run their indie studios, specifically how the business structure works. It was honestly surprising just how much business management knowledge you need. Tax law, legalese, structure, how funding works, how you distribute that, how milestones work - you really need somebody on the team who spends a lot of time doing that. It’s not talked about as much as it should be.
Second, you’re able to never actually dictate when something ‘explodes’ or not. I know we’re in the hype stage ofGrave Seasons, but Emmett and I are really into understanding marketing. We often talk about what things we see do really well, either through luck or by taking advantage of an algorithm. I think that’s something really fascinating and something that I think indie studios need to be hyper-aware of, especially withTwitter’s current state.
Emmett: It’s been most surprising for me just how generous other indie devs are with sharing their processes. Assets, elements, scriptwriting - it’s very easy to talk to other developers. There’s not a lot of caginess about that, which is really great and helps you grow the way you need to in the indie space.
Q: What do you think are challenges unique to indie development? As opposed to a large studio under a major publisher.
Both: Funding.
Son: Funding just works differently in indie, and that includes tiers of indie as well. If you’re a new studio with nobody veteran on your team, then it’s going to be a different experience from a group that is veteran and has pre-established connections. Team size matters, too - a 25-person studio is going to have a much different experience than a team of three. We’re in the middle range - I think there are about 8 of us who are constantly around, but we’re not a large enough team to justify asking for more advanced forms of support or infrastructure. I think funding and business finance in general is something indies should be more aware of.
Emmett: There’s a lot of unspoken flow betweenAAA to indie, and vice versa, and that can be challenging as a newcomer because, at least from the outside looking in, it can seem as if these people are just getting funding and connections out of nowhere. But really it’s all about those networking skills that can be harder to develop, especially if you’re fresh out of school, new on the scene, or don’t have an immediately hot game demo or concept that can do the talking for you. It can take a long time to cultivate those relationships, so I think time and the investment of your labor is something that doesn’t get talked about a lot, but should in indie.
Q: What are you most excited for fans to experience inGrave Seasons?
Emmett: I think I’m most excited for fans to experience that first replay. I know it can be a tall order to expect people to replay a game. But for those who do, I’m really excited for fans to experience the differences in subsequent playthroughs. We’re looking to create a depth that can’t just be seen in one playthrough. That’s on purpose.
Son: Romance - I know what I’m about. We posted a little snippet, and people were like, “you can romance the priest?” The answer is yes. I’m excited for dynamics - something we’ve been working hard on is developing characters that we feel are fleshed out, and who engage with the player and the town in a way that is fun and interesting. I’m also very excited for players to experience their first death, because who knows? Maybe you’re romancing someone you really love, and then… something happens…
Q: As for the core gameplay loop ofGrave Seasons,you’ve talked about the balance between life sim and murder mystery. What do you expect the ratio of that to be?
Son: 50-50 for sure. We want themurder mystery to be an aspectthat pushes you forward to keep playing, but we also don’t want to deter you from enjoying the aspects of life and management sim. We want everything to work together - farming should advance the story in the same way that engaging with a character does. Everything feeds into each other.
Q: What were you all hoping to see with the reveal ofGrave Seasons,and was there anything surprising or unexpected about its reception?
Son: We were surprised it took off because it was something we were just working on as a quiet side project. The reception has been wonderful, and I think we’re really excited that people are honing in on the fact that we’re offering something unconventional in this space. We’re naturally inclined to more horror and unsettling elements, and the fact that the community that might normally cater to more cozy games is digging into what we’re doing is really thrilling. The amount of people who want to romance a serial killer is pretty wild [laughs].
Emmett: What was great to see with the reveal is that it seems people are ‘getting it’ immediately. By and large, people understand the general path forward and that’s been really fun and encouraging to see.
Q: Thanks again so much for taking the time, and congratulations on your upcoming releases. Is there anything else you’d like to shout out or mention?
Son: We’ll be sharing our work via our Twitter@perfectgarbo, and we hope to have some sort of mailing service soon. And definitely stay tuned for a Steam page which is absolutely in the works! But yeah, follow us on Twitter where we will be updating our dev log, and also look out for Love Shore launching this May. It’s a cyberpunk visual novel thriller, it’s a noir, and it comes out on both PC and Xbox. Please wishlist it on Steam!
Emmett: For folks who are not big on Twitter, our TikTok,@perfectgarbage, is also going to be a great resource for keeping up with us.
[END]
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