We were surprised and satisfied about how people became interested in our game and said they wanted to see more of it. We met tonnes of publishers and journalists. We got covered by IGN and we were of course thrilled and so happy about it. We showed we can deliver a strong image of our game. It was really nice, we had tonnes of views on our video and loads of people were saying it looks like BioShock, but other people were saying we didn't show much of the game and that people should give us time. From your end, what's the reception been like? We want to have our own identity to our own game. There are tonnes of stories with this kind of archetypes, so it's easy to maybe be mistaken for one of them. This steampunk theme can be reminiscent of BioShock, but it's something we want to bring out on our own. Rose is called Rose because of Rosaline, one of our scientists, but we were thinking about Titanic.
We love BioShock, but we never talked about BioShock creating and building this. The game has a similar art deco theme to BioShock, while the notion of a dystopian city filled with talented, but uninhibited, people is rather similar to Irrational's title. There's no restriction, not even morale ones, and that's a problem. It's what our Tesla is creating here - an environment where all the biggest minds from the world are gathered and they are free. We wanted to go into fringe science and what the human mind can reach if it is set in a specific environment with no specific limits. We wanted to explore the human mind, which most of the time is scarier than anything. When you think of Tesla you think of electricity, you think of science, and we wanted to get into that. It's an era that used to be more interesting. We thought this was an interesting idea that was worth exploring further. You always need to find some excuse to justify why you can't go to other environments - here it's because you're surrounded by ocean.
We had the chance to create a big environment, but one that's also in the middle of nowhere. We wanted to get away from the classical haunted house, haunted mansion and stuff like that. We'd have this dystopian, Victorian age, and it would be a lot of fun. so we thought we'd give a new perspective. Our boss Carlo is a big fan of horror games and movies, we caught up and were all throwing ideas around. So, what was the idea behind Close to the Sun? We caught up with PR and marketing manager Eleonora Lucheroni to find out more. This horror game certainly drew a lot of attention for the Rome-based studio.
Expressed more simply, our challenges generally come down to: there are many ways to die, but only one way to escape.At Gamescom last year, Italian developer Storm in a Teacup announced its next big project, Close to the Sun. Our challenges vary throughout the game but are all built around the general themes of survival and progress towards a promised salvation. In building the ship, we’ve been inspired by art deco, art nouveau and steampunk, since visuals for us is as important as the experience itself. As always, we aim for a peculiar art style which is STC’s trademark. We want to tell you stories, and this time we’re going to tell you about a man who dared to defy the Sun, between horror and survival. “After the first three games, we came back bigger and stronger than ever.
“This project is crucial for Storm in a Teacup,” said studio founder and creative director Carlo Ivo Alimo Bianchi. You’re Rose, a young journalist looking for your sister and, as you approach this enormous and glorious complex for the first time, you quickly realize that something there has gone horribly wrong…