SAFA Dev Interview: A Pakistani Indie Developer’s Journey into Survival Horror
Safa is an indie horror game set in Pakistan, following the story of Mina, a single mother searching through the town for her missing son.
We don’t see many Indie games from third-world countries like Pakistan or at least indie games that look good, so I was surprised, to say the least when I saw a few clips of Safa, an upcoming indie game made by a 26-year-old Pakistani developer who goes by the name of Clara. In this exclusive interview, we’ll delve into Safa and Clara’s challenges during its production.
Tell us about yourself and your team.
Hi, I’m Clara, the developer of Safa. I’m 26 years old and have spent around 3-4 years working on different projects in Unreal Engine. I’m mainly a creature/environmental artist. Regarding the team, it’s just me, with a few friends and family offering help with music, voice acting, etc., and moral support.
How did you get into game development, and how long have you been making games?
I have always enjoyed playing games, especially the horror genre, so I figured it would be interesting to try to make my own. I started with a few Game Maker and Unity projects and then moved on to Unreal Engine when I could afford a machine with the specs to run it.
Is Safa your first game, or have you worked on other games in the past
Safa isn’t my first game. I have made smaller games in the past, but those were just a level or two, so it’s my first ‘real’ game.
Tell us about Safa. How did you develop the idea, and how long have you worked on it?
I got the inspiration for it around 2019 when I was playing the remake of Resident Evil 2, and then I went back to older horror games on the PS1 and PS2 like the Silent Hill series, Siren, Obscure, and Kuon. Pre-production started in Safa around 2021 and is currently in the production stages. The idea started as a third-person shooter with zombies, but then I decided on cannibal terrorists and had a random idea for how fun it might be to combat folklore creatures. Since it was always set in Pakistan and you were supposed to play as a woman lost in this strange town for a single night, showcasing creatures from our folklore might be fun. The zombies and cannibal terrorist ideas got abandoned, but who knows, I might use them later.
As an Indie developer from a country like Pakistan, what challenges did you face in developing Safa?
The main challenge was the learning environment and access to resources. For example, setting a game in Pakistan around stories from Pakistani culture is tricky because there’s barely any reading on this. I spent much time looking up books and articles, talking to people, asking them what they knew about these stories, and understanding how and why they came about. My goal with Safa is to highlight our culture and the role of community, so I want to present an overall picture of these stories that anyone, regardless of familiarity with them, can understand.
Looking at the clips you have uploaded online, the game looks like a resident evil-inspired walking simulator. So, what makes your game different from any other walking simulator game?
Haha, it is inspired by Resident Evil, Silent Hill, and a bit of Bloodborne. What sets Safa apart from those games is the focus on interacting with other people in the game and the Pokemon GO style of collecting information on creatures. You encounter a creature, and Mina enters her compendium based on what she knows about the beast. These can also be updated by talking to people in the town and helping them out. I have that part planned for the full release, where you’ll be able to help the townspeople escape this place, and they’ll help you in return. While it is a third-person survival horror game, those are generally known for stringing you along a path and placing enemies so that you can decide between clearing an area or saving your ammo and moving around the enemy. In Safa, you don’t get that decision. Fights are head-on, and you are fighting for your life. You’re a mother looking for her son with a gun that has limited ammo and possibly a hammer. The fights are challenging, and each enemy has a smaller puzzle incorporated into their design, such as how to encounter them and understand their tactics while engaged in combat.
Safa is a horror game, so can you tell what kind of horror it is? Is it just a bunch of cheap jump scares, or does it have a psychological theme?
It’s neither. While it does have some jump scares, much of the horror is atmospheric and Lovecraftian, the sounds, the environment design, the creatures, the story, etc. You don’t know what you’re going to encounter next. You don’t know who is helpful and who will try to kill you. You’re in unfamiliar territory, and it’s open-ended in terms of how you approach the game.
What are your future plans for Safa?
My future plans are to complete this game. The demo has a few weeks of work left, from some animation polishing to fixing up some models and voice acting. Once the demo is out on Steam, I plan to find funding, as I am having difficulty balancing my career, personal life, and independent game dev.
Is there going to be a multiplayer mod?
No, Safa is a single-player experience. Multiplayer would take away a lot of the value it has. However, I would love to add community mod support later on.
You Said that the game features local folklore. Tell me more about that
Yes, there is a lot of focus on folklore stories. From them being the monsters you combat against to them being the people you interact with. You’ll have a handy little compendium to help you better understand who is who and encounter creatures you probably never heard of!
Indie games are somewhat unheard of in Pakistan, so where do you see the Pakistani indie game development community in the next five years?
As someone who is a part of the indie game dev scene in Pakistan, I see many more people pivoting away from ad-based revenues and more so toward games as an experience and product on their own. I know other devs making excellent stuff in similar situations, like Adeel Tariq, who makes a small monthly game. There are a lot of other promising projects like The Void Project, Liminal Core, Lost Twins II, and so on. Tariq went so far as to make a Steam Curator for the project ‘Made in Pakistan,’ which I think is an excellent initiative to help support the many people putting their hearts and souls into their art. I hope this community grows even more in the next five years.
Where do you plan to release your game?
My current plan for Safa is to release it on Steam. If I get the funding, I’ll happily get development kits for consoles like the PlayStation and Xbox to release it there, too!
What are the system requirements for Safa?
I can’t say much about system requirements at the moment because I still have a lot of testing and polishing to do, but the lowest compatible specs thus far are 4GB VRAM. Mine is 6GB on an i7-8, and it gives 60 FPS on medium settings.
You can learn more about SAFA at https://linktr.ee/safagamedev
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