Things to Do in 1998 When You’re Not Dead

The “classic” era of survival horror gaming is generally agreed to be 1996 to 2005, dating from the release of the original Resident Evil to the first version of Resident Evil 4. That first RE both named and defined the subgenre, which is traditionally characterized by exploration, puzzles, resource conservation, and awkward combat.

RE4 was a watershed moment for video games in general, and led to a redefinition of survival horror. In the original genre formula, the fighting was often clunky, due to technical limitations and/or to convey the player character’s relative inexperience. It took RE4 to ask the question, “Hey, what if the action in these games didn’t kind of suck?”

As a result, many subsequent “AAA” survival horror games – Dead Space, The Last of Us – put more emphasis on combat, often at the expense of survival, horror, or both at once. That isn’t to say these are necessarily bad games, but some of the strongest design elements in classic survival horror got lost or left behind as the subgenre made its transition.

Vincent Adinoffi’s Heartworm is the latest indie game that tries to recapture that original ‘90s feeling. It’s a nearly bloodless psychological horror experience that’s made to look like a lost PlayStation game, complete with a special pixel filter and old-school fixed camera angles.

Heartworm is set in the late ‘90s. You play as Sam, a young photographer whose grandfather has recently died. In her grief, she decides to track down an Internet legend about an abandoned house in the middle of nowhere, which has a room in it that connects to the other side. No one who’s gone in search of that room has ever come back to tell the rest of the story.

When Sam finds the room, it leads her to a seemingly deserted suburb in winter. Its houses are full of strange lights, TVs tuned to dead channels, and her own off-kilter memories. She’s alone here, aside from hostile electronic ghosts.

I got the chance to interview Adinoffi about Heartworm, its aesthetic inspirations, and the game’s Steam demo. This interview has been edited for clarity and to excise the occasional nerd rant about random horror media.

Thomas Wilde, Skybox: What I’m most curious about is the role that the visuals of ‘90s video plays in the game. The enemies are made out of “snow,” and you consistently find videotapes lying around. What influenced that?

Vincent Adinoffi, Heartworm creator: A lot of the game is about how media can be used to chronicle our memories. The camera as the weapon plays into that, too. The tapes don’t really serve a purpose functionally in the demo, but that’s something I’m working on in the full version of the game. They’re used to further your understanding of why you’re here and what’s happening in the story. I’m using a variety of different physical mediums to represent these memories that are being explored by the main character.

It seems a little cliché in retrospect, but I didn’t really think about it too hard when I first started planning the story for this. I think the inspirations are pretty strong and obvious. Part of it was that I wanted to imagine I was creating a game at the same time as the giants of the genre were being created. I have a lot more respect for media in general of that era, to go back to all the physical-media stuff.

I feel like cell phones have made capturing photos, videos, and memories less meaningful to me now. It felt more impactful to me to have the ability to stick to that era and the tools that were available, whether it be film, videotapes, or a cassette recorder. That era made the most sense story-wise in the context of the genre.

Wilde: Can you talk about some of your creative influences on the project?

Adinoffi: There are a lot of personal elements I’m drawing from, like people I know. As far as setting and visuals, a lot of it’s movies, obviously other games, TV shows. Photography’s a big one. A lot of the original visual design that I was trying to emulate was this photographer I really like, Gregory Crewdson. He does really bizarre still images of suburbia.

I really like those Are You Afraid of the Dark? and Goosebumps anthologies for kids. They terrified me when I was younger, and stuck with me. I’m pulling from that constantly, but obviously with a more serious tone now. I could probably go on and on.

Wilde: It’s always an interesting question, to ask developers what they were thinking of or influenced by. Heartworm made me think about the early Halloween movies, for example.

Adinoffi: I avoided that series for a really long time. I like horror, but the imagery and the way it’s used everywhere in horror made me think it could not be good. I was so wrong. Say what you will about the rest of the series, but the first one’s pacing, cinematography, and especially the music are definitely an influence.

Wilde: Speaking of cinematography: the way that time and space break down in Heartworm is interesting. I guess the term “liminal space” is a cliché now, but it feels like you’re slipping around behind the scenes, so to speak.

Adinoffi: These things are clichés for a reason. [laughter]

I wanted a way to connect areas in the game in ways that are aesthetically interesting. There’s something about that liminality, that feeling of being in a bizarre infinite room with weird imagery. Obviously the surreal nature of that stuff is visually interesting to me, and I hope to other people.

As far as using it in the game as a tool, I think a lot of the reason I used it was to be able to connect to these areas that might not otherwise make sense to be connected. I don’t have to stick to the rules like Resident Evil, for example. “Does this make sense to have inside of a house?”

It would restrict what I want to do, because this place that [Sam] is in doesn’t exist in reality. I want to lean into that, and hopefully open up some more interesting opportunities for environments. The demo had some examples of this, but the following chapters that we’re working on right now are leaning into it more.

As the game progresses, it becomes more surreal and a bit more interesting. I don’t want to sound pretentious [laughter], but the idea [is that] these areas are a glimpse into the main character’s psyche: representative of her, what she’s thinking, and trying to use it as a tool for environmental storytelling as well.

Wilde: How long have you been working on this?

Adinoffi: I started a really, really early prototype in maybe late 2019. I worked on it very sparingly over the next couple of years, and at the end of 2020, I had the original demo. Using air quotes because it was very short and light on content. I guess about 5-ish years.

Wilde: I like to ask that question, to convey just how long it takes to make games, and how difficult it is.

Adinoffi: I’d never made a game before, so this is my first foray into that. I had an assumption that it would be significantly more difficult than I expected it would be, but I even underestimated that.

If you had asked most people, I think they would say that I should’ve scoped smaller for my first project. I feel like I have a strong enough direction that I can make it work… I’ve definitely learned a lot about what it takes to make these happen, and pulled back accordingly. So much goes into it, and I really don’t think that the average person generally appreciates how much.

Wilde: How many people are working on this with you?

Adinoffi: I have 4 people who are helping me with various aspects, mostly in the art side of things. I think my art skills are not as developed, so obviously, I want a certain level. The game is a retro-inspired game, but I’d like to elevate the quality of some things from what I had in the demo. I had a number of people who are on the team now helping me, not all necessarily full time, but on a fairly regular schedule to do art, animation, code. Still a small team, but it would be really hard to do what I want to do by myself.

Wilde: I know a few horror fans who’ll talk until they’re blue in the face about how much they love pre-rendered camera angles in games, and that’s a big part of Heartworm. What motivated your decision to go for that slightly out-of-style presentation?

Adinoffi: Aside from really overplaying Resident Evil for years when I was a kid, and wanting to make my own version of that… It could be a detrimental design decision, but I think I found a compromise there, in a third-person camera for action sequences. I think that’ll bridge the gap for some people, who might be turned off by the fixed cameras.

In general, I like how [fixed camera angles] allow me to frame a lot of the interactions that the player is going to have. I almost think about it like setting up a photoshoot or filming a scene for a movie. In any of those situations, the placement of the camera is so intentional.

I like how I can translate that to a game and also focus the viewer’s attention. Or misdirect the viewer’s attention. You don’t have that when the player is controlling the camera at all times, because they could easily miss something. They could still miss something, but if they do, it’s kind of my fault now, more than anything. It really helps me direct the focus of the game better.

Wilde: I’m trying to figure out how to describe what’s happened to Sam once she’s gotten out of the house. Is it a memory palace, another dimension…?

Adinoffi: In trying to figure out how to tell the story, I’ve gone back and forth a lot on how explicitly to explain some things. In the past, when I was putting that demo together, I was at a point where I was a lot more vague and not really explaining what this place was or why she’s there.

Obviously, I always planned on explaining some of that, but one of my biggest pet peeves when I’m watching or experiencing any media is when they over-explain. It really kills it for me. I was watching something the other day and at the end, there was this 10-minute recap just in case you didn’t get it. They absolutely drilled it into you, and I was so mad afterwards. I watched the movie. I understand what happened.

Wilde: That’s what ruined the first Silent Hill movie for me.

Adinoffi: Yeah. Exactly. The audience, they’re playing or watching it because they enjoy it. They have an expectation going in. It feels like you’re making negative assumptions about the audience if you feel the need to lay it all out for them.

To answer the question, though, there’s some more explanation in the current version [of Heartworm] as to what this place is. It is unique to Sam in a lot of ways. Her experience here is shaped by her memories and existence. It would look different to someone else if they were there, but there are areas that are shared between people who may have gone through there.

I don’t want to give a ton away, but the idea is that, yeah, this place exists for everyone but might look different depending on who’s in there. I’m not trying to hide the Silent Hill inspiration by any means [laughter], but I’ve got some ideas to make it different enough that it’s not a total rip.

Wilde: That’s something I took away from the demo, is that the house is your version of that part of Silent Hill 2 where you’re just walking for 15 minutes.

Adinoffi: Yeah. Exactly.

Wilde: I wasn’t trying to wheedle spoilers out of you. I was looking for terminology, not plot structure, if that makes sense.

Adinoffi: There’s kind of a skip in the demo. There’s a hub area in the final game, called the Archive. I won’t explain anything further, but before you go from the abandoned house to the neighborhood, you will go [to the Archive]. There’s some more understanding of the world to be gained in that area.

Wilde: Heartworm’s drawing from such a different aesthetic pool from a lot of indie survival horror games. Games where everything’s bloody, rusty, and black are a dime a dozen. You’ve made a virtually bloodless survival horror game, and the “snow” guys alone made me want to have this conversation.

Adinoffi: That was intentional, and maybe not even for the best reasons. I felt like there are so many other aesthetics to explore, and that’s really why I made a lot of these decisions. I really didn’t want to use gore because I feel like gore is kind of over. I like gore, don’t get me wrong–

Wilde: [laughter] “I love disembowelment!”

Adinoffi: [laughter] I just feel like it’s overdone in horror games. There are a lot of them, and that’s cool. Some of them do it very well. It just doesn’t resonate with me personally for the story I’m trying to tell.

I really wanted to try doing something different by not using guns. There were guns in the initial version of Heartworm. I don’t know how common that knowledge is. It just didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.

Wilde: I am very much trusting you that the secret of Heartworm will not turn out to be, “Oh, there’s a really bad carbon monoxide leak in the house.”

Adinoffi: [laughter] Listen, I’m not going to give it away.

But it could be.