Playstation 4-exklusiva Rime blev en stor snackis efter dess avtäckning på Gamescom förra året. Skaparen Raúl Rubio Munárriz på Tequila Works (Deadlight) har spridit lite ljus på hur spelet kom till i en intervju med Polygon.
Det var i samband med en nära-döden-upplevelse som idén kom till honom. Rubio och hans flickvän var på semester och utmanade varandra att simma ut till en boj runt två och en halv kilometer ut i medelhavet. När de anlände var han helt utmattad och uppmanade sin flickvän att börja simma tillbaka medan han andades ut. Men även om han försökte simma tillbaka lugnt så orkade hans kropp inte med.
Han säger: "I thought, I will try to get back to the beach slowly and calmly. That lasted for 30 seconds. I had a panic attack. I tried to swim and I remember that my body said, it is over, and I started to drown."
Lyckligtvis lyckades hans svåger rädda honom men det överraskade honom hur lätt det var att acceptera döden och kanske ännu mer vad han började tänka på i vad han trodde skulle vara hans sista minuter i livet. Detta ville han utforska i ett spel.
"When you are drowning it is not a pleasant experience. When you are drowning it is really weird."
"It tells you a lot about how you face loss, and in this case, the loss of your life. It was really strange. I accepted death quite easily, but I was not really thinking about death. I started to think about what I was leaving behind, like family."
Han betonar att det var en väldigt surrealistisk upplevelse och att just surrealism kommer vara en del av paketet i Rime som ju handlar om förlust.
"Probably the silliest memory I have is that I left my car in the garage in a really tight spot and I knew it would be difficult to take the car out. Nobody would know where the keys were. I was thinking, haha, they will have a really hard time taking the car out of the garage. Good luck with that!"
"I don't want to trivialize [death] but it is really personal. Loss and acceptance of loss, everyone is different. At the same time everyone is the same."
I samma veva går Rubio inte lite mer på vad Rime kommer erbjuda äventyrssugna Playstation 4-ägare rent spelmässigt.
"The pillars of the game are exploration, interaction and discovery. There is a lot of exploration and finding things but that is not the only thing that you do."
"I can tell you that there is no combat. That was something that was intentional from the beginning. Your avatar is a little child. It makes so no sense for you to find a legendary sword or whatever and then start killing monsters. There are very good games that do that but Rime is not one of those. We wanted to make Rime more personal. Something that is general enough that anyone can enjoy it as a tale, a fable or a rhyme but is also deep enough that it can be personal and can touch you deep inside you."
Rime är under utveckling till Playstation 4. Något releasedatum har vi inte fått reda på än men vi hoppas såklart på ett släpp i år.
