For fans of horror point and click adventures is studio Harvester Games very well known. Since 2009 it delivers very interesting, intense and strong games, that can always surprise. In close future we should expect their new game Trainwatch, so we decided to talk a bit with the founder Rem Michalski, who found a bit of time and answered a few of our questions. We therefore bring yoy some interresting news about the upcoming game as well as about the history of the studio.
Thank you for agreeing on the interview. Could you maybe first tell us where the story of Harvester Games began?
Harvester Games began with me, young Rem, arriving in England with his girlfriend, now wife, in the early 2000’s. I’d work any job I could get - from hotel kitchens to cleaning toilets. At some point I even worked on a horse farm! I eventually landed a job in a nursing home for old people and I actually enjoyed working there. There was a really friendly vibe there and I felt accepted and needed and made lots of friends among the staff. At night, when everyone was asleep, my job was to just be there in case anything happened. So instead of watching TV all night or snoozing in the chair like most of my colleagues, I bought a second hand laptop and worked on my first game to the sound of people snoring. My working hours were mostly midnight till 6 AM. And... that’s how I made Downfall - a really gory horror point & click adventure game! The problem was, I didn’t really know what to do with it (it was shortly before Steam blew up)... so I made a list of all the websites that sold games and I emailed everyone on that list. And man, was that a long list! At first there was just silence or rejection. Then one guy simply said: ok, we’ll publish it. His name was Mike and the website was called Direct2Drive. It was 2009. I sold 67 copies in the first month. But that’s how it all started...
How did the name of the studio came to life?
Well, Mike from Direct2Drive said I needed a name and I had like 5 minutes to think of something... So, in my head I went back to my childhood, remembered the classic ultra-violent game Harvester that inspired me as a kid just by the way it looked on the screenshots (I’d actually never played it at that point). I remembered Dune 2 (I played it on Amiga 500 when I was like 10) - which had Harvesters - vehicles that extracted Spice from under the sand... And of course the rock band I had when I was 18 - we were called Harvester also! (for the same reasons) I guess that’s a tradition for me now to use this name, like Witcher Geralt always calling his horses „Roach”!
As far as I know you are a solo developer of your games, but still wanted to ask, whether someone else worked also on your games?
Sometimes I hire people to do a specific job, like create characters and animations for them (Downfall Remake and Lorelai), write some code that’s too difficult for me to write myself (The Cat Lady’s interface) or make music (with a couple of exceptions, I do not make my own music). And while it’s super useful to sometimes ask for help, I really prefer to work alone. The only game I made in a team was Burnhouse Lane but that was a little different - there was only 2 of us and the other person was my brother who was actually my next door neighbour at the time. I really enjoyed the experience and I think the game turned out insanely good but after completing it I went back to being a lone wolf. The process of making my games is deeply personal. It really involves a dash of insanity and obsession that you can only achieve by living this thing 24/7... and that’s what I do. Call me crazy, but there’s never a moment in my day that I don’t think about what I’ll do next in my game. These games are part of me and it’s hard to share this level of passion with someone else.
Which game of the ones you have released would you call your personal favorite? Or do you not make favorites between your projects?
When people ask this, sometimes I say Downfall (2016 remake) is my favourite... But I’m not really sure. I think I always love the most the game I’m currently working on. I play it a lot and I’m so hyped and I always think: this is the one. The greatest game ever made! Haha! As a disclaimer, I have NOT made the greatest game in the world YET... but I feel it’s just around the corner so be ready for it!
The games I have played from you always feel very dark and focus on very serious topics, which I very much enjoy. What is the source of inspiration for these heroes?
I was born in the 80’s and grew up watching horror films, reading horror novels (to this day I’ve read every book Stephen King has written) and playing violent video games. What genre other than horror could I do? I was shaped by this stuff, it’s changed me to my core... You know, I’m the kind of guy who watched all the Saw movies at least 3 times! I adore Freddy Krueger! Huge fan of Michael Myers! And somehow consuming this sort of content didn’t turn me into a deranged psychopath (like some people claim it does...) - I’m still a nice sensitive guy, a dad of 2 and a loving husband. Cos on top of all that stuff, I’m also the kind of person who cried watching Adolescence, smoked cigarettes with old ladies in the nursing home’s garden (while listening to their stories for the 10th time), read books to his kids every night for years and years and sat with dying people in the last minutes of their lives holding their hand and watching them go... So I guess I’ve absorbed a lot of different experiences and they all come through in what I create. And my games might not always be perfect, but they are always honest.
Do you have a favorite character of your games?
Hmm... I don’t know. I really like Joe Davis (from Downfall), as he is basically me (not 100% of course, I don’t even have an axe!). But I guess Susan Ashworth aka The Cat Lady will always be my number 1 - it was her that people massively fell in love with and it’s because of her that I was able to move back to Poland and start making games full-time. For all I know, I might never create a character as great as her... Which is odd, because I clearly remember how she came to be: I played Metal Gear Solid 4 and I thought: wow, that’s a bold move to make the main character an older guy with a moustache (who looks like my dad). So I made Susan - a 40 year old depressed cat lady, curious how people would react to her... and everyone suddenly identified with her so strongly! So yes, if there’s a lesson for the gaming industry to learn here, it’s to include more real flawed human beings and less gigantic boobs and laser guns (though to be fair, there’s time and place for boobs and lasers in videogames too, just not in every single game!).
Let´s move to your upcoming project "Trainwatch". What can we expect this time?
Trainwatch is a shift towards something new. I felt like I needed to do something different... I don’t wanna end up like Ubisoft, making sequel after sequel. I’d suffocate... To be an artist is to explore, to discover, to find exciting new ways of expressing whatever’s important to me at this point of my life.
To be fair, when I started Trainwatch, I was just experimenting. Imagine a lump of clay and a guy sitting in front of it, looking at it and rubbing his chin... I had this free 3D model of a Banana Man from Unity Asset Store running around an empty environment. Then I added the building. Then the railway tracks. And the trees and fog... Then Banana Man was replaced by my own model... And it grew, day after day, into something truly amazing, I think!
It’s not a good idea for a game developer to abandon his heritage and do something completely different but Trainwatch isn’t really completely different - it has all the elements of my previous games (the branching dialogues, inventory puzzles, horror aesthetic etc) but it adds some stuff that flips everything upside down - the 3D world and a ticking clock and a gameplay loop that could turn out to be one of the greatest metaphors of modern life.
From the first trailer it seems that this game will combine the 2D and 3D art styles. Is the step into a new era for Harvester Games?
It’s mostly 3D now. The 2D stuff I initially put in there has been slowly replaced by 3D models as I gradually got better at making it. I thought I’d mix two different styles - like in Octopath Traveller, where you have flat sprites that cast shadows inside a 3D environment - but I didn’t like the way that turned out so I changed it. It was a bit of a blow having to go back and redo things... but I believe it was worth it. Not because I don’t enjoy 2D graphics - I just... have a clear vision of what I wanna achieve and I follow it without compromising anything. It’s not of course The Last Of Us level of videogame graphics! Trainwatch is very much an indie stylized game made by one guy! There might be some rough edges here and there... but it’s cohesive and one of a kind really. A new era for sure! But the general idea behind my game making remains the same as always - first and foremost I have to make a game that I will enjoy playing myself. A game I will be excited about. One that’ll make me laugh, that’ll scare me, entertain me, make me emotional and won’t treat me like an idiot... And then I can only hope everyone else playing it will feel the same!
Is this game also put in the same universe as the previous ones? Can we expect to meet some characters from the past?
Yes and no... The game takes place in a fictional universe at the end of the 90’s in a country that’s more reminiscent of USA than England... but there are definitely nods to my previous games every now and then that only the most hardcore fans will get. This universe is pretty much our world but without mobile phones and modern technology. And, obviously, without automated railway crossings! I try not to reference any real media, events or places - all locations mentioned in Trainwatch are made up. It’s been more than 10 years since I left England so I decided not to force the British vibe onto it as I’m very much out of the loop here... Making it more neutral in that way seemed like the right choice.
What can you tell us about the main character Troy?
Ah, Troy... I’ve spent the last 3 years with him! I look at Troy every day... and I’ve still not had enough of this guy. I wanted to make a male protagonist this time. Someone closer to who I am... but not really me. It’s someone I could have been if my life suddenly went wrong. It’s also someone I think a lot of people could identify with - a guy who tasted success and almost made it... but then everything went wrong and he’d lost everything he’d worked for, let people down and found himself hitting rock bottom. Troy makes one final attempt to fix everything by spending one month away from his regular life, so he can rediscover who he is and how to fall in love with life again and learn that sometimes to make things right, you have to let go of whatever’s holding you back.
Can we also expect multiple endings for the game?
Yes, of course!
It also looks like that the game will have a lot of activities. Would you say it´s possible to experience all of it on the first time?
To get the good ending - yes, you’ll have to experience them all to some degree. The presence of time in Trainwatch might seem at first like a pressing force rushing us to do things quickly... but this isn’t a race. It’s more about finding your own pace, making peace with the idea that sometimes in life you can’t do everything right but you’ll be okay as long as you follow that inner feeling, that hunch, guiding you towards what’s best for you. I know this sounds really cryptic... I’m just trying not to spoil anything. But I’ll say this: early in the game we are presented with the main task that’s not really related to our job as a Gatekeeper opening and closing the gates of a railway crossing. It’s about collecting 12 special items that we’ll spend the majority of the story looking for. But it’s not an Easter egg hunt or „Slender: the eight pages” kind of thing where we just have to wander around and hope to get lucky... It’s a giant puzzle where every little detail leads to something else and all elements intertwine and blend and sometimes they take us to some really crazy out-of-this-world places and sometimes they revolve around simple human problems like an existential breakdown or trust issues. But they all have one thing in common - they’re making us come out of our shell and bring us closer to happiness.
Can we also expect some easter eggs or subtle references to other projects? Like f.e. meeting Georgie in Burnhouse Lane.
Yes. Nothing big (cos I don’t wanna get sued!)... but when you see them, they’ll definitely make you smile, like that little Georgie reference in Burnhouse Lane!
Do you already have an idea about the release date? When can we expect the game?
There are too many unknowns... but I’m definitely getting closer so hopefully this year!
One last question, to satisfy my own personal curiosity. Would you tell that George almost feels like a father for Angie in Burnhouse Lane? The relationship between them was one of the highlights for me, and would like to know what was your vision behind the old man.
Yeah, their relationship really turned out better than I’d initially hoped for... In the beginning, I wasn’t even planning to have George speak at all - I thought he’s just grunt and mumble and that would be enough! But as is often the case with my games, things took their own course and I just followed along with it! He might be like a father to her, you’re not wrong about that. He’s clearly had a strained relationship with his own daughter, who chose career in the city over life on the farm, and his son, who ended up committing some crime and eventually dying away from home, never making peace with his dad... Having Angie around was something he didn’t even know he needed. It makes me think, there aren’t enough old men in videogames cos everyone really loved George... He wasn’t a silly old fart, as they’re often portrayed. He was kind, quiet, kinda ordinary but also brave and thoughtful. Whenever I write characters like him I tap into my own experiences with people and there’s some of my dad in George for sure... (fun fact - my own dad is the guy on the painting that falls down from the wall when Jenny starts banging the secret door in the basement!)
Thank you very much for your time. Could you maybe share also a picture of your studio for our readers in Slovakia?
Thank you for having me! And sure, here’s my studio (a single desk in a small room inside my apartment) :)
For the press of SomGeek we can say, that we are very excited about Trainwatch and believe, it will be another great adventure game as we´ve had in the past.