We recently heard that Daedalic Entertainment and Nexus Game Studios are teaming up to bring the upcoming point-and-click Randal’s Monday to gamers everywhere. It’s pretty obvious that the 1001-Up.com team love a good adventure – especially a humourous one – so we couldn’t help ourselves but reach out to the developers for details.
Randal’s Monday centers around geek and pop culture references from the 1990s and early 2000s, and gives a pretty authentic insight into how hard it is to overcome these stupid days of each week. Randal is the best main character one can ever imagine: he’s a kleptomaniac, a sociopath and an awful friend above all. After triggering a fatal curse and having his friend commit suicide, he’s now forced to live through the same fateful Monday again and again, doing whatever is needed in order to fix the horrible situation.
Nexus Game Studios is an indie team based in Alicante, Spain, and is run by a bunch of nerds, video game and subculture fanatics (their words, not ours!). Randal’s Monday is the this passionate group’s debut project, and they dedicate it to the true fans of retro and classic adventure games. Thank you to Toni Pascual and Juanan Pascual (no relation) for taking the time out of their busy schedules to answer our questions.
Can you tell us a little about Nexus Game Studios and how the partnership with Daedalic Entertainment came about?
“Sure. Nexus Game Studios is a rather small team of people, but everyone here knows his role really well and we work very hard. About Daedalic, we’ve always had a good relation. When we released Randal’s Monday’s first trailer, we contacted them to find out what they thought and they replied that the project looked very nice. Eventually we had the chance to meet with some of them during gamescom 2013 where they were able to try a demo. They told us that they found the project really interesting and that’s how the relationship begun.”
Where did the idea for Randal’s Monday come from?
“We spent a lot of time thinking about it… We love all those twisted stories that include puzzles that can mess the space-time continuum up. So one day we realized that we could create a game that was in part a parody of The Groundhog Day given that it’s a joke that has never been taken to the adventure video games before. And that’s how we started working on it.”
From all we’ve read about the game so far, it’s obvious that the team has a great sense of humour! How much influence has this had on the title?
“It’s no secret that we are big fans of the classic adventure games but what we loved most about them was how funny they were. The humour they had. Games like Sam & Max, Day of the Tentacle or the Monkey Island saga are genuine playable comedies.
“We think that there’s still a place for humour in this industry.”
The game centres around Randal: kleptomaniac, sociopath and awful friend. He doesn’t sounds like your usual hero; could you tell us a bit more about him and why he was designed in this way?
“Randal is a character that has many levels… But we could sum it up in two words. Not trustworthy. We really like those teaser characters from the adventure games and we had clear from the beginning that we didn’t want the classic ‘good citizen’ to be our main character. Heroes in these games do the most questionable things (poisoning dogs, pushing old ladies down the stairs, not to mention all the items they just ‘take’). We wanted something to justify all those actions so we decided that it was best to create it like that.”
Meet Toni Pascual and Juanan Pascual from Nexus Game Studios.
After selling his friend Matt’s engagement ring, Randal is forced to relive that fateful Monday over and over again in order to fix the horrible situation. It reminds us of the zany comedy seen in classics such as Day of the Tentacle; was the team influenced by any particular titles?
“Yes, of course. As we said before, we are big fans of Day of the Tentacle. Actually we believe that it is the best graphic adventure ever. Very original, kind of complex and yet really funny. People have compared Randal’s Monday with Day of the Tentacle before and we just keep saying that it’s an honour we do not deserve.”
It all sounds light-hearted but there’s darkness in the plot too: Matt shows his displeasure by committing suicide! Was it difficult to mix humour with such a serious event, and do you think you’ve managed to pull this off?
“Well, we believe it will work. Matt’s suicide is a delicate issue, but we always try to approach those situations with humour. There’s plenty of black humour in Randal’s Monday and maybe there are some people who wouldn’t find some of the jokes funny. But those ‘dark’ situations are never treated distastefully or with drama, on the contrary. We do everything we can so the humor never decreases. And even if the player feels sorry for what just happened, he will still get a good laugh.”
Randal’s Monday is described as a ‘point and geek classic adventure’. The adventure genre has seen a revival thanks to platforms such as Kickstarter; would you ever consider going down this route?
“We never say never. But thankfully, in this case we didn’t need to ask players for money. We believe that crowdfunding is definitely a great way to give ‘green light’ to some projects, but it’s a shame when you find a great looking game that fails to raise the money the creators needed just because nobody knew about it. Small studios are still in disadvantage even with these new technologies, just because they can’t promote their games the same way the big companies do.”
The graphics have a very cartoon-like style and are reminiscent of shows such as Family Guy and American Dad. Is the team a fan of these programmes and were you influenced by them?
“Futurama, Family Guy, American Dad, The Simpsons…
“We love cartoons and we follow several shows. We like drawing since we were kids but we didn’t have much experience creating characters so ‘cartoon’. So we worked very hard until we found the look we wanted. We believe it is the best style for a game like Randal’s Monday and people seem to really like it. So we are very happy about it.”
The visual style is reminiscent of shows such as Family Guy and American Dad.
Are any of the team gamers themselves? Do you have any preferred genres or favourite titles?
“Well we like variety when it comes to video games, so we don’t really care what genre a game is as long as it’s good.
“Our favorite video games?
“Well we asked the rest of the team and several different games came up: Super Mario Bros 3, Shenmue, Day of the Tentacle, Final Fantasy VIII, Little Big Adventure, Bubble Bobble and Resident Evil 2. So yeah, pretty varied.”
Is there any advice you’d give to someone who’s thinking of making an indie game?
“Well it’s not an easy industry, so you have to be ready to suffer a little. We always had this blind faith in our project and we worked really hard for a few years without even knowing if the game had any chances to ever be released. We don’t know if everybody would be willing to work so hard without making a penny. But anyway, thankfully we managed to make it through so the only thing we can say is that you have to believe in what you’re doing, otherwise you won’t be able to get anywhere.”
Can you tell us which component of Randal’s Monday is currently being worked on? How is the team feeling about its upcoming release?
“Well right now we’re working in many things at the same time. We are going through the script again, so there are no mistakes or incoherences. But we are also improving some designs, animations, interfaces, menus… And of course the programming, we still have many things to do left.”
What does the future hold for Nexus Game Studios and Daedalic Entertainment?
“Let’s hope it holds a long and productive relationship! Ha ha. And we have some ideas for the future as well. After four years of working on a video game it’s only normal that you come up with some new ideas. You obviously can’t include them all in the same project so we saved the others in a drawer in case they are needed tomorrow. And not just for graphic adventure games… But you know, time will tell. Today we are 100% focused in Randal’s Monday.”
Nexus Game Studios have a few other ideas up their sleeves.
Randal’s Monday is due to be released in Q3 of this year on ‘all major digital platforms’. If you like loads of references to geek culture and no zombies (well ok, some zombies), we suggest picking this game up – and we’ll be sure to bring you a review as soon as we’re able to get our hands on it.
