I've been following Tunic for a long time and reading about its influences from The Legend of Zelda for perhaps just as long. What were some of the key design philosophies you took away from the series? Was there anything in the series in particular that inspired or informed the process for Tunic?
Shouldice: Since the very beginning there's been this really particular, highly-specific feeling that I got playing the old Zelda games, this feeling of genuine discovery and mystery, and knowing that there are things about this world that you don't quite understand.
The example in Zelda is the bombable wall. Imagine you've never seen a bombable wall before in your life. And suddenly, you discover one accidentally. You haven't just found a bombable wall. The piece of information that has been added to your understanding of this world is not, "there is a wall right there that I can bomb, and there's a door behind it". It's that there are vulnerable walls in this world. Any wall that I looked at previously, and thought "that's a wall, I know, everything there is to know about it", is now a question mark, how big this world is suddenly just got a little bit bigger. It's that particular feeling that comes from a lot of different games, especially old games, not necessarily because they're old, but because we were young when we played them so that feeling of wonderment was maybe a little bit stronger.
So that was the goal. I hope we hit that. All signs are pointing to "yes". When people play the game, they say that they get that feeling, which is heartening.
Let's talk about the design around the game's secrets. Andrew in another interview, you summarized Tunic’s gameplay as, "exploring the countryside, fighting monsters and finding secrets". I like the idea that there are all these secrets hidden in the game; I think it's a great way to reinvent a repetitive space and make it seem very exciting and new again. I also noticed on the [in-game] signs, you have a glyph made-up language. According to some of the chatter online, that's something that people can actually translate and figure out through other context clues in the game. Is there anything you can share with me about developing that glyph language?
Shouldice: The glyphs are really there to help evoke this feeling of being in a place where you don't belong. So, if anyone's had the experience of either reading an instruction manual, from a game that's in a language that you don't speak, or even reading an instruction manual, when you're like three years old, and being like, I don't know any of these words...you automatically get that sense of wonderment like, what does this mean? It could mean anything! And having people feel like they're a stranger in a strange land, they don't know everything that's going on--that was sort of the key idea behind not only the glyph language, but the instruction manual in general, you know, it's just bursting with secrets and mysteries for you to to find.
As for people chattering online about [the glyphs] meaning anything…I don't think it means anything.