Whenever the team would meet to work, I joined them and sat in to gain an understanding of the team themselves wanted the game to be. The obvious answer was horror, but the more time I spent with them the more I was able to understand their own interpretations. Each person had their own ideas of how things in the game worked, so I attempted to take all their ideas and put them into one clear cut story.

After working with the artists, seeing all their wicked and wonderful creature combinations, I knew I had to include the idea of genetics and mad science into the story. According to them, these weren’t just simple evil creatures lurking in the dark, they were the creations that the scientists had raised from birth. From that point on the narrative took a clear focus on the creatures themselves, and what they were feeling internally.

Interacting with the designers it became clear that Its Dark was also a period piece, set in the 1970s involving secret government experiments hidden away from the public eye. These elements became a cornerstone of explaining the scientists and what they were doing, why they were trying their best to bring the creature down instead of just running.

Finally, with the coders I learned how the creature was not only a hunter, but also incredibly smart, a personality they tried to express in the way the beast was coded but wished to be explored in more detail. Taking their ideas I fully fleshed out ECHO, the monster in the game, from a mere beast to a sympathetic entity that the players could connect with.

By the time my work was finished, the Its Dark team was incredibly satisfied with the finished project, bringing new life to their project. While most of the writing never made it into the final game, working with the team was a real pleasure and an experience I’ll never forget.