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3 weeks ago
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It’s important to note that you should probably keep your controller at the level of your eyes or hands when playing Fear the Spotlight, the latest game from indie studio Cozy Game Pals. Published by horror movie studio Blumhouse as their first-ever video game launch title under the newly minted Blumhouse Games moniker, Fear the Spotlight is best described as an atmospheric horror adventure that serves as a twisted and loving homage to classic ’90s teen horror stories. The game centers around two young women named Vivian (Khaya Fraites) and Amy (Maganda Marie) as they sneak into a school after hours to solve a disturbing mystery behind a school tragedy that occurred decades before.
Bryan Singh and Crista Castro, the husband-and-wife team behind Cozy Game Pals, were inspired by iconic horror video game franchises such as Resident Evil and Silent Hill alongside cinematic classics such as Phantom of the Opera, The Ring and frequent Blumhouse productions collaborator James Wan’s The Conjuring. Though the pair pulled from some of the most spine-tingling spooks, they wanted to make a game that was more goosebumps adjacent than terrifying. “In many ways, we thought of this game as an invitation for our friends who don’t play a ton of horror to get a sense of what horror has to offer,” Singh said. Castro added, “Maybe this is the first horror game they’ve ever played, and I hope people play our game and realize that if they let themselves have fun with it, we’re willing to pull you along for the ride. If you’ll play with us, we’ll play with you. You can have fun with horror.”
Here, the developers discuss the game’s plot points, drawing inspiration from challenging real-life experiences and media that inspire them.
DEADLINE: Fear the Spotlight was released before Blumhouse’s involvement. Then pulled when Blumhouse became involved, and recently re-released. How did this partnership come about?
CRISTA CASTRO: It was like the stars aligned, to be honest. We released our game, which was only out for a few weeks. Then, someone shared it on Twitter, saying it was a new indie horror game they enjoyed. It then got onto the feed of Zach Wood, the President of Blumhouse Games, and he played our demo and then the whole game. Louise Blain, the Creative Lead, sat down and played with him. They were so excited that they said, “This is exactly what we want for a Blumhouse game. The characters, the dark story, the creeps, and fun gameplay.” They told us the game aligned with what they were looking for and asked if there was any way they could help us.
BRYAN SINGH: Yeah, we had just released it. We developed it on our own, and it was just the two of us with our own savings. For two years, we thought, what could we do with the time we had? We were really proud of it; some people found it and said good things about it, but we weren’t finding an especially big audience. We just didn’t know how to reach people. So, we eventually got to the point where we were like, “I guess we should go find real jobs again.” At that time, Zach and Louise talked about how they wished there was horror for everyone—this phrase they use a lot. And I think they saw that in our game when they asked us how they could help, our first thought was, “Well, how can we get it to more people? Can you help us find more people and get it on all the different gaming consoles or in other languages?” In response, they said, “Absolutely, but also, what would you do if you had more time [to create the game]?”
That got us thinking a lot because we hadn’t even considered it before. Originally, we knew how much time and money we had, and we were always steering towards that initial deadline. So, we started milling about ideas for expanding the game. So, we explored the characters more, explored more of Amy’s story, and added a new chapter to the game.
DEADLINE: The original Fear the Spotlight you released remained relatively unchanged from the current iteration. Was it just Amy’s story you added?
SINGH: Right. What we had released initially was Vivian’s story. The only thing that has changed are some usability fixes, but it’s pretty much the same in terms of story and content.
CASTRO: When we released it, we had a small but very passionate fan base that was like, “Why are you taking it down? What do you mean you need to improve it and update it? It’s already a perfect game.”
SINGH: We also had to sit on the news that we would be working with Blumhouse as our publishers.
CASTRO: And knowing that we made people happy on the initial release let us know that we didn’t want to redo or remix it too much because we knew that there were fans who really enjoyed that story as it was.
SINGH: It was really scary trying to find that balance of how did we add to the game without losing the things that fans really liked.
DEADLINE: Talk to me about the title, Fear the Spotlight. How did this idea come about?
CASTRO: When we did the After School demo, we had the story roughly [plotted] out. We knew all of this was in an old high school that had burned down and that this kind of drama happened with the theater kids while they were putting on this production of Phantom of the Opera. We had this enemy prototyped with a light coming out of [their] head, so it was a really easy way for players to understand detection. Then, having both the idea of the production and the spotlights, it all came together and felt right [laughs].
SINGH: When we design, we think holistically. Games are so complicated in the way that you have to [deal with] technology, gameplay, story and visuals. There’s so many different creative elements that have to come together. We care so much that even though it’s a somewhat simple game, we care so much about all the elements feeling like they actually belong together. We feel like the title ended up fitting so well because of this element with the spotlight, which was interesting gameplay-wise and visually, and it fit the story of the characters. The backstory is that you’re learning about the characters in the theater class, what happened in the school fire 20 years ago, and that so many of those elements were coming together and revolving around the theater and the spotlight. We were throwing out a bunch of titles, but that’s the one that ended up sticking the hardest.
DEADLINE: Crista, you came from Nickelodeon animation, and Bryan, you came from Naughty Dog. I’m curious about how you used your background to create the storyboards and concepts for this. What did that process look like?
CASTRO: It’s really such a collaboration between us both. I do the initial designs of what the world will look like and the characters. I’ve done most of the writing for the game, but once we have the script, Bryan will direct and animate the cutscenes.
SINGH: Because of our backgrounds, we had preconceived notions of our roles because I worked in games and was very technical with code. Crista’s background is in art and art direction. So, the fact that two people did this project is pretty ambitious. When I worked at Naughty Dog, we had a hundred times the team size. There’s literally 1% the amount of people working on this game [laughs]. We took on anything we possibly could. Crista did many scenarios, levels, and puzzle designs, even though she’s never been a professional game designer. And I ended up doing a lot of the cutscenes and camera work.
DEADLINE: Fear the Spotlight pulls from Silent Hill and Resident Evil, but I am more so fascinated by the heavy influence of Phantom of the Opera. How did both of you decide to incorporate this age-old tale into this teen adventure-horror?
CASTRO: I grew up watching that early 200s Phantom of the Opera movie. I remember going to the theater and watching it, but always feeling like the Phantom was such a creep. In trying to find a story that worked well in the school and finding a villain, it felt that type of story made sense.
SINGH: We had nuggets of our version of the story for a while, and as the game was coming together, Crista brought up the film.
CASTRO: I had to think of a horrific event that could happen at a school. Then I thought of this fire masking up another tragedy that had happened, along with some other details that lined up. Then I thought, this sounds very Phantom of the Opera.
SINGH: So, we rewatched the movie [laughs].
CASTRO: We leaned into that because it felt so similar, and it’s obviously a reference that’s just in the back of my mind. I was just like, “OK, let’s just wholeheartedly go with it.”
SINGH: We embraced it. And once we realized, it was so funny. There’s so many inspirations in horror movies and games that are just kind of finding their way into the game, and we might not even realize it until it’s already in progress. We were like, “Oh right, that’s what this is. Let’s go look at that again.”
DEADLINE: The second part of the game, Amy’s story, is the complete opposite in influence. While Vivian’s story is based on atmospheric creeps and chills, Amy’s story is straight-up jump-scary and based on The Ring. Why?
SINGH: Part of our intent was that we had Vivian’s story locked in for the most part. [Working with Blumhouse] we had a chance to come back and work on this game. In many ways, we thought of this game as an invitation for our friends who don’t play a ton of horror to get a sense of what horror has to offer. And so, Vivian’s story was a little bit like being on baby mode, and we’re like, “OK, if you play through Vivian’s story, let’s see if we can ratchet it up a little bit.” So, controls-wise, Amy’s story is a little more complicated; there’s a cellphone and lock picks. Some of the puzzles are also a little more complicated. Crista is the real horror fan between the two of us, and her childhood trauma is straight up The Ring and The Grudge, so we were like, “OK, let’s go deep and really share our fears.”
DEADLINE: Amy’s story is much more tragic than Vivian’s. Can you give more insight into other things that inspired parsing her story this way?
CASTRO: When we finished Vivian’s story, we still wanted the player as they continued on to still have suspense. Once you finish Spotlight, it’s like, “Oh, that’s not scary anymore.” Because you’ve already seen the villain and defeated him, what would be scarier than that to keep you on your toes? Bryan then suggested that we dig deep. So, I thought, when I was 13, what was the scariest thing that I could think of? And haunted house movies were really the thing that I constantly watched and that I am afraid of. That includes a lot of J Horror movies like The Ring, Dark Water, anything featuring long hair that was freaky [laugh].
SINGH: Taking on Amy’s story and revisiting the game was this whole adventure of figuring out that OK, so you have Vivian’s story where it’s the backstory of what happened in the school. Then we wanted to keep that format of, OK, now you’ve got to see what Amy was going through, but what backstory do we tell that isn’t a rehash? So, we ended up settling on her family life as the backstory you explored. From there, the game just got so personal, I think because we saw people react well to the first chapter, it gave us a lot of confidence that people cared about what we had to share and the way we shared it. So, Amy’s story and her backstory is so much of ourselves in there. For example, Amy’s experience being a child of immigrants and being this kid who feels like an outcast who finally finds her people was relatable. She finds comfort in Vivian. She also has an absent father and tragedy in her family. A lot of things were straight pulled from our lives and our experiences as well. Crista really wrote 90% plus of what goes into the game, so I feel a little bit fake taking credit for it [laughs]. But it just feels like a lot of us is in there. It’s just been so amazing to finally have people start to play it and still resonate with it because, for me, Amy’s story lands harder. Her story is a lot sadder. It’s so much more tragic than the first half of the game, and it’s very validating that it’s being received so well because I feel super proud of it. I feel like it brings the whole story together, and it really adds a lot to Amy and Vivian’s relationship. So, the inspiration is not just the media we like but also our own lives.
DEADLINE: What was it like working with Khaya Fraites and Maganda Marie?
CASTRO: They’re amazing. We just got incredibly lucky. This is our first real big project together, so we’re doing everything for the first time. We’d never worked with voice actors before, so we were like, “What do people do? They put casting calls on Twitter. Let’s do that then.” So, they just applied via Twitter, and we happened to like them the most, they were incredible. So kind and professional.
SINGH: They had to walk us through the process. We’ve never directed actors before, so they’re like, “Oh, this is how you do this. You give us direction; you do three takes.” And for us, it was like, “Oh, OK, sure.” [laughs].
DEADLINE: As creators, what are some things you’re consuming right now in media and pop culture that inspire you?
CASTRO: I like revisiting The Haunting of Hill House. Mike Flanagan’s stuff is really great. It ticks a lot of boxes for us both, where it feels like a big adventure, and there’s a lot of emotion and ghosts. Also, we were just talking about Doctor Sleep the other day.
SINGH: While we were making our game this year, a couple of similar games came out: Crow Country and Signalis, which were also inspired by old PlayStation horror games. Because they came out while we were still working on our game, we didn’t want to play them yet, so that way we weren’t influenced by them. But now that we’re fully wrapped with our game, we’ve had a chance to play those games, and we loved them. It’s interesting to see how they took the same kinds of inspirations, but because their tastes and sensibilities are so different, they ended up in a completely different spot. Their games are so different from ours, and it’s just been really fun to feel like we’re part of a conversation in a way of like, “Oh, remember these old games that we really liked? This is what we liked about them,” and it feels like they’re doing the same thing. So, we get to see a little bit of insight into their taste and their preferences. It’s been cool.
DEADLINE: Is there anything you’d like audiences to take away from Fear the Spotlight?
CASTRO: We intended to make this game an invitation to horror for people who might not think they’re brave enough to play a horror game. Maybe this is the first horror game they’ve ever played.
SINGH: Yeah, maybe you watch horror movies but don’t really play games, or you play games but aren’t really into horror stuff.
CASTRO: I think once you play it, you’re like, “Oh, there’s something here for me that there is a kind of horror that I could play through,” or “That it’s a fun adventure and that horror is fun.”
SINGH: Crista introduced me to horror movies, and the first one that clicked for me was The Conjuring. It was super scary and fun.
CASTRO: It’s super scary, like a roller coaster ride. I think that’s when I first realized that horror can be a lot of fun if you let yourself play along with it. And I hope people play our game that way and realize that if they let themselves have fun with it, we’re willing to pull you along for the ride. If you’ll play with us, we’ll play with you, and you can have fun with horror.
DEADLINE: What’s next for Cozy Game Pals?
SINGH: We know that our taste is very varied. We don’t just like horror. We like a lot of different kinds of games and media. So, we want to ensure we’re open to any genre that appeals to us.
CASTRO: It’s funny because when we were making this game, we realized at some point that this would have been perfect for a 13-year-old me growing up. So, we kind of said that maybe the next game would be for 13-year-old Bryan. He was into games that he played with his brothers growing up, which were very fun, Mario-esque kinds of games. So that’s a starting point, but we have many things we’re playing with right now.
Fear the Spotlight is now available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S.
[This interview has been edited for length and clarity]
