Now, PS Blog readers, if you could just place both fingers lightly on the planchette of the spirit board in front of you, we can begin.
We’re very excited to reveal that there’s not long until you can join Vivian and Amy for a séance in Fear the Spotlight. But before you enter Sunnyside High, we wanted to dive into how we’ve been inspired by classic PlayStation experiences to bring our modern horror adventure to life. As you may have just seen in the recently released trailer, the aesthetic style, gameplay mechanics, and tone all come from a deep nostalgia over the games of the past.
Our studio name, Cozy Game Pals, actually came about long before we decided to make a horror game, but we do think there is something exceptionally comforting about the classic, original PlayStation art style. It’s nostalgic and reminds us of playing our first horror games, in bedrooms around the TV with siblings, daring to brave the original Silent Hill. We feel like Vivian’s journey in Fear the Spotlight is actually a welcoming one in a world of high fidelity horror graphics.
There might not be 4K gore running down the walls of Sunnyside’s halls, but that doesn’t mean you’re not going to be on edge. Another gift of this particular art style and the purposeful dithering (the name of that grainy retro look) is the fact that it gives you just enough to let your imagination run away with you. Was that a shape between the stacks in the library? Did a head just appear around the corner and disappear? Or are your eyes playing tricks on you?
In Fear the Spotlight, all of the above might be true but, like the best horror movie experiences, we want to make sure you paint horror pictures in your mind far scarier than anything we could ever show you.
Not only is the original PlayStation art style comforting, nostalgic, and allows for seriously atmospheric scares, but it also suits us on a practical level. Cozy Game Pals is just the two of us, Bryan and Crista (hi!). A lo-fi approach to visuals has meant that we can be efficient and really lean into crafting the atmosphere and pacing throughout the game. We love playing with your expectations and this art style fits that perfectly.
We understand that this look can be intense for some players, so we’ve even made sure you can choose just how ‘classic’ you want the visuals to be. We have sliding scales for the TV filter, polygon wobble, and ambient camera wobble to make sure players can feel as 90s as they want. Having a lava lamp next to your TV is entirely optional of course.
Fear the Spotlight takes many cues from classic survival horror experiences, but this is far more a scary teen adventure than something like Silent Hill or Resident Evil. You’ll want to make sure that Vivian has her asthma inhaler just in case, but we’re leaning into atmospheric puzzle solving as you uncover the history behind a tragic fire in the school decades before.
And here too, we’ve been inspired by classic experiences. We love the point and click style puzzles of OG survival horror so we have introduced tactile first person puzzle solving. Whether you’re dialing payphones number by number, or pulling open drawers, we wanted Fear the Spotlight to be a modern evolution of the puzzles of those classic horror experiences. We’re not here to replicate them – don’t mess with perfection! – but wanted to make sure that our love of these horror games made its way into our own unique mystery.
Our wish for Fear the Spotlight is that it would be a perfect game for those who love the genre and can spot the influences, but also players who are new to horror games. We want our scary movie loving friends to enter Sunnyside even if they have never been hands-on with the classics.
We can’t wait for you to experience Fear the Spotlight and hope you have as much fun playing it as we did working on it. Just don’t forget the candles on October 22…
