Interview with Aaron Foster on Routine

Dennis caught up with Aaron Foster from Lunar Software to talk about their debut game, Routine.

1) Hello there, first off congratulations on getting ‘greenlit’ on Steam – Greenlight! How do you guys feel?
Being greenlit was an extremely positive experience for us! There was minimum effort submitting your game through greenlight but HUGE returns, knowing that we can distribute our game via Steam is a huge weight off our shoulders throughout development, we can all just concentrate on making an awesome game and not worry about distribution!

2) For the people that haven’t heard of Routine before, can you explain to them what it is?
Routine is an first person horror exploration game set in an 80′s vision of the future, it features Perma-Death, Randomized elements, full body awareness, dead-zone aiming, fully explore able moonbase, Multiple endings! and of course FLOPPY DISKS!

3) Survival-Horror games have become pretty popular lately, was this a reason to create such game,or do you guys love the genre itself?
Absolutely not, horror movies have been an inspiration to me ever since I was a kid and its always been a dream of mine to create my own Horror Sci-Fi experience.

4) When did it come to mind to create a survival-horror game on the moon?
I think the moon is such a lonely place even though we can see it almost every night, It’s without colour, sound, atmosphere, life? Heh….I think it’s a great canvas to create a new horror experience!

5) “A non linear experience and with multiple endings” So the game has a high replay value, can you explain how you can have a different ending to one of your friends?
Throughout the game you can find clues, information, codes and also completely different places based on that, so ultimately the outcome you reach will be tied in with your play through and while there won’t be an infinite number of endings we want to make sure each ending is quite different!

6) What do you think is the most important factor when it comes to creating survival-horror games, the part that makes the game ‘scary’?
It’s a really hard question as everyone finds different things scary, what I would say though is that for a person to be scared they need to at least be open to it! Put yourself in a good situation, Lights off, Headphones on, don’t play with your phone or keep stopping to have conversations with people! GET ENGROSSED and give the game the best chance it has.

7) This game will be released on PC&MAC, are there plans to release this on a console?
We will not be doing a console release, There are only four of us and we have no budget, it will be a PC and MAC game only.

8) You guys didn’t used Kickstarters for the Routine, did you feel it wasn’t necessary?
Well if we chose to do Kickstarter, I would never do it until we had a gameplay trailer, I think far too many people start up a Kickstarter without having something really solid to show first! Funding is something we will be looking into, whether it be Kickstarter or Indie Fund, it is something we will probably discuss soon.

9) As this is a survival-horror game, I’m sure you guys played survival-horror games yourself for research. Can you tell us what games you found the most scary?
I can’t speak for the other members, but I would say that when I first played Silent Hill, System Shock 2, Amnesia and Doom 3 (before the crazy chainsaw action) But honestly I find movies a lot scarier!

10) How can people stay up-to-date with Routine

Twitter: @LunarSoftware.
Facebook: www.facebook.com/lunarsoftware.
Website: www.lunar-software.com & www.routinegame.com.

11) Any final words?
Routine is not a game for everyone, it will be hard, brutal, more of an experience rather than a game and we do expect people to either Love or just completely Hate it. I also just want to say thanks for the interview!

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