First of all a big thank you to everyone for the follows and comments! We really appreciate it!

While we continue working on the game, I thought it might be fun to look back how Arietta of Spirits (AoS) got started and what inspired me to start working on it.

I began working on Arietta of Spirits as a solo effort at the end of 2016. It was very ON/OFF type of progress and it wasn't until second half of 2018 that I've had scraped together a prototype of the game. It was around that time the rest of our three-member team joined in, and we began working on the actual game, completely from scratch.

Starting the project back in 2016, my initial idea was to make a more visual novel type of game, with no combat mechanics whatsoever. Trying things out, I very soon gave up on that idea and decided the game should have real-time combat instead, while still keeping the story as the main focus.

One of the early influences when thinking about what the game should be like, was a PS2 classic called Ico. In Ico, a young boy guides a girl through a castle in an attempt to escape from it. The game has very simple combat and puzzle mechanics, basically no dialogue, but places a heavy emphasis on atmosphere and immersion. Ico is definitely something I can suggest everyone in trying out, if you haven't already.

Even though AoS ended up becoming a completely different kind of game from Ico, I still think it as an important influence, it's at least something that got me started.

Another big influence for AoS has been horror films. I'm a huge horror fan and when it comes to movies, it's definitely my favourite genre. Yet, Arietta of Spirits is not a horror game, it just has similar elements to the genre; spirits, old cabin in the woods, that sort of thing. And while the story has dark themes, like death and mourning, I have tried to keep a lighthearted tone throughout.

Some have regarded Arietta of Spirits as a Zelda-like, and while Zelda-series have also influenced the game quite clearly, with the topdown view and similarly styled combat, the game will actually be quite different in general mechanics. Arietta of Spirits will be a more linear experience, placing much more emphasis on story telling, rather than exploration.

We wanted the game to be easily approachable and thus decided to keep the game mechanics simple. It was clear from the start we wanted the combat to be skill and reaction based, rather than relying on character levels or stat boosting items.

Easily approachable could easily translate to easy overall, but we want to make sure the game offers enough challenge for everyone, and that's something we are working very hard on. All in all we would love to make a game that most players would play all the way through.

Samppa, 

Writer, Composer and Sound Designer