PAX AUS Indie Showcase 2024 - Ascending Inferno
The PAX AUS Indie Showcase is a chance to see some of the best new and upcoming titles from the ANZ digital and tabletop development scene, with past winners including such celebrated games as Unpacking, Copycat, Yum Cha, Kingless and many more. The 2024 Indie Showcase is shaping up to be another highlight of the event and Player2 encourages visitors to PAX AUS to make their way to the PAX Rising area and check out the following title, as well as the many other excellent indies on display.
Inspired by the works of Bennett Foddy alongside Celeste and Jump King, Oppolyon Studios’ Ascending Inferno is the end result of tireless experimentation from a group of friends who took the plunge into game development. Player2 spoke to Isaac, Rebecca, Ben and Bas about the development of Ascending Inferno and the challenges of finding your feet in the industry
Player2: Hi Isaac, thanks for talking to Player2! Can you tell us about the founding of Oppolyon Studios – how did it come about?
Isaac: Honestly it was quite a gamble. Myself (Isaac), my partner (Rebecca) and my 2 best friends (Ben & Bas) all knew we wanted to make games, we just didn’t know where to start. We heard of a coworking space called GamePlus and decided to rent an office for 3 months just to see what would happen. During the first month we did a Game Jam every weekend (pretty much trying to make a game start to finish) with a different genre being the prompt. First one was Platformer, second was Horror, third was Roguelike, fourth was RTS. Ascending Inferno was the first game we made (during the platformer Game Jam) and not only did we love the game we also loved working together and the process of game dev as a whole!
P2: Aside from the obvious Dante influence, what else is Ascending Inferno drawing upon to create such a distinct mechanical and aesthetic experience?
Isaac: Mechanically, we’re pretty heavily inspired by Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy as well as Jump King for the Foddian aspects of the game. Whilst our difficulty/skill-expression as well as our narrative storytelling is influenced quite a bit by Celeste. All 3 of those games the Oppolyon founders have played a lot and enjoyed a ton!
Aesthetically, The Last Night blew us away with its reveal trailer. Absolutely gorgeous looking game that blends 2D and 3D elements to create a stunning experience, we’re pretty sad that the game got cancelled.
P2: What were the teams’ reactions upon learning you’d won a spot in the 2024 Indie Showcase?
Isaac: We were absolutely stoked about it! It’s such a great honour and we weren’t expecting to be selected at all as it’s our first game we’re making as a studio. I remember we were all attending PAX the year before (2023) as a part of PAX Rising, and the Indie Showcase Section seemed like such a dream goal for us!
P2: How much has the Screen Australia Production Fund aided development of Ascending Inferno?
Isaac: Honestly, it’s helped us so much. Before this grant, we as a studio were entirely self-funded. With a majority of people working part time or full-time jobs to support themselves, whilst work on Ascending Inferno progressed as a “Passion Project”. The Screen Australia Grant came through to us just as we entered our polish stage which is awesome timing, as we’re pretty much able to take time off from work to focus on making Ascending Inferno the best game it possibly can be.
P2: What advice would you give aspiring designers looking to get their first big project up and running?
Isaac: Stick with it! Game development is hard. Thankfully there’s now lots of online free learning resources that people can use to help guide them on their journey into the field of game dev. It can be scary at first, but I think it’s super important to get your name/work out there and gather feedback/thoughts from your peers so you can continually improve. It’s also super helpful to have some sort of safety net around you whilst you’re working on your first title! It’s quite unlikely that you’ll be able to make a living off of your first project (if at all!) so make sure you look after yourself and chip away at it at your own pace.
Rebecca: I heard some really good advice for when I was thinking about doing some of the art for the game. Don’t compare your work to others when you are developing your skills, but compare your work to the work you did 4 weeks ago. It’s not a competition, your own skillset is what’s important, so strive to improve it.
Ben: My advice would be to get involved in the Australian Game Dev community! It’s a great way to make connections, get playtesting feedback, find teams, stay motivated & learn a ton! We have an awesome (and friendly!) community here in Canberra where we meet up every month for Pizza and Pixels. I cannot say just how helpful the Canberra community has been for getting Ascending Inferno to the state it is at now, we would not be here without them!
Bas: My advice is to stop thinking about the big picture and just get started. If you have spare time, use it to learn something new in an engine, build a new mechanic, practice modelling something. Don’t be afraid to start your project because you aren’t skilled enough, you’ll learn as you go. Also, make sure you meet others and make connections as you’ll help each other out and grow together 🙂
P2: What is it that you think sets Ascending Inferno apart from some of its influences and contemporaries?
Isaac: I’d say there’s three pillars here that we’ve really focused on to set us apart from other games within the genre. Those are:
– Tight and satisfying player controls
– Aesthetically beautiful art style
– Deep Narrative
The player control point mainly comes from our thoughts around the “source of difficulty” within the genre. It’s pretty common for Foddian games to mostly get their difficulty from how ‘janky’ the controls can feel at times, but we’ve put in a ton of work to make the controls and player movement to resemble something more akin to Celeste i.e. snappy, precise, and most importantly, satisfying to engage with. We want the player to be frustrated with other aspects of the game as they progress and not feel like the character (Dani) has “betrayed them” in the moment they make a mistake and lose progress.
Our art style is a meticulous mix of pixel and voxel art. Creating a unique blend of 2D and 3D that hasn’t been done before within the (Foddian) space. There’s quite a lot of asset flip Foddian games being pumped out, whilst comparatively Ascending Inferno has 1800+ custom art assets.
The narrative story has also had a ton of work put into it, and functions almost entirely through secret rooms that can be found throughout each layer of Inferno. This creates a nice “opt in” system for us as players who want to engage with the story have to consciously look for it, while players who don’t care about it can just play it like a regular Foddian game.
P2: Does the team have any sort of message or idea you’re working on embedding into the game? Obviously Getting over it and Celeste communicate theme strongly throughout play, is this something Oppolyon is looking to do as well?
Isaac: Foddian/Rage games in general have a moment to moment theme of “Determination and effort triumphs all” as the player strives to reach new heights all the while whilst losing vast amounts of progress in a blink of an eye.
Whilst narratively, the story between Dani (the player character) and Vincent (the soul you’re kicking) is one about siblings that have mostly grown up heavily relying on each other facing a moment in their lives that causes them to slowly drift apart. A story that I hope is relatable for people who had siblings they were responsible for. To truly understand and peel back the dynamics between these 2 characters, the player will have to engage with the secret rooms mentioned before (you even get an alternative ending if you find all!). However, the theme around siblings caring for each other and scaling new heights is present throughout all of normal gameplay.
P2: Are there plans to get Ascending Inferno on to other platforms after the Steam launch? Speaking of, is there a rough launch window you have in mind?
Isaac: Potentially, it really depends on how well the PC release does! We’re still fundamentally a new studio with limited resources, and none of us have developed for consoles before. So it’s a bit of uncharted waters for us and would be a new experience for sure. In terms of release, I can’t give a specific date, but I can say that it will be this year so keep an eye out for a release date trailer soon!!!
P2: What can PAX AUS attendees look forward to at the Ascending Inferno booth?
Isaac: Attendees can look forward to a life-sized model of Vincent (no kicking please!), a special demo that will have a speed-running contest attached to it, some very cool augmented-reality flyers and a whole lot of fun!
P2: Finally, which of the team is the best player of Ascending Inferno?
Isaac: Ben… It’s just Ben. No questions about it. He’s our programmer and the guy who literally made the physics of the game (it’s unfair!)
PAX AUS Attendees can find the Ascending Inferno booth in the PAX AUS Indie Showcase section of PAX AUS from October 10-13. The game can be Wishlisted on Steam right now!
