The art of pacifist game design with Fullbright and Frictional

Sup Holmes every Sunday at 2:30pm EST!

_{[Sup Holmes is a we🦹ekly talk show for people that make great videogames. It airs live every Sunday at 4pm ওEST on , and can be found in Podcast form on  and .]}

Did you know that the protoype for the snoop-to-win exploration adventure Gone Home was built in the same engine Amnesia, one of the games credited for bring the Survival Horror genre back from the brink of obscurity? That’s just one of the many parallels that popped up between the design sensibilities of Thomas Grip of Frictional Games and Steve Gaynor of Fullbright during their respective Sup Holmes episodes. 

It wasn’t surprising to hear that Thomas was heavily inspired by other Horror titles in creating Penumbra, Amnesia, and Soma, but I didn’t expect to hear from Steve that the opening area of the original Resident Evil was one of the inspirations for Gone Home. From the sounds of it, Fullbright’s upcoming title Tacoma may venture even further into intentionally taught territory. We also got a little hint of what Thomas’s next title at Frictional may be, but he wasn’t ready to spill the beans quite yet. 

Regardless of beans, it’s undeniable that these two developers have done something that many didn’t think was possible. If games were pop music, then physical conflict would play the role of the lead singer. These managed to create highly engaging, successful radio hits using only drums, bass and keyboards.That’s no small feat. We were lucky to have them on the show, and greatly look forward to what they may do next.