The Outerhaven got the luxury to interview one of the minds behind the game of Confidential Killings. Confidential Killings is a point-and-click adventure game where you are trying to solve a string of seemingly unrelated murders. Examine the crime scene, find clues, piece together what happened, and find the culprit! Reveal what’s the true reason behind these Confidential Killings.
“BRANE is the online pseudonym of Miloš, a game developer from Bosnia and Herzegovina, now living in Germany. After winning a few game jams and failing at many more, he developed a chess career simulation game – Master of Chess.
While working on that project, he teamed up with Lorenzo Boni, a game developer from Italy. Both share a love for point-and-click adventures and hardboiled detective novels, inspiring them to collaborate on their next project: the detective game Confidential Killings.” (From the imBRANE website)
Outerhaven: How did you choose the name of your Studios?
BRANE: “I needed a pseudonym for my budding rap career in high school. I ended up with this short name, and it stuck with me even with the career switch. I’ve also decided to write it in ALL CAPS due to MF DOOM influence. It has nothing to do with “brain”, which is how I hear it read the most – it’s just a name.”
Outerhaven: What projects have both of you worked on before Confidential Killings?
BRANE: “We worked on numerous projects both independently and together. Our itch.io profiles are full of game jams and shorter experiences, but the games that transformed us from hobbyists to slightly more ambitious game devs are these two:
- Master of Chess, a chess career simulation game I developed and sold on Steam.
- Stranger in Utopia, which Lorenzo developed to great acclaim.” (BRANE’s itch.io, Lorenzo Boni’s Itch.io)
Outerhaven: Is Confidential Killings the first project that both of you have worked together on?
BRANE: “Not at all! Our working relationship is now about 10 years old. It started on the small engine-led AGS Forums, where both of us showed interest and developed point-and-click adventures. It’s a very lively and active site where devs big and small kept the genre alive for decades, with plenty of discussions on design, writing, and graphics.
Since then, we’ve worked together on at least 5-6 projects!”
Outerhaven: What have you learned from your previous games that helped you during the making of Confidential Killings?
BRANE: “Confidential Killings is quite similar to the genre we had the most experience with: point-and-click adventures. For those who haven’t played them, point-and-clicks (also known as adventure games) are usually story-based games, where you progress through exploration of the environment, dialogue, and puzzle-solving. Learning how players interact with adventure games, what is fun about them, what works and what doesn’t, and how to elicit the most satisfying emotions helped us a lot.
Then, my firsthand experience releasing a commercial game with Master of Chess gave us all the tools and knowledge needed to give Confidential Killings the right treatment.”
Outerhaven: How did you both decide to make Confidential Killings a Detective Adventure game/Point & Click adventure game over other categories?
BRANE: “It was an easy choice due to our shared love for detective games and literature! Other than that, we enjoy completely different genres. While you’ll find Lorenzo playing racing games and shooters, I’ll usually spend my time looking at screens full of stats and sheets of titles such as Crusader Kings or Football Manager.” (Getselious is right there with you on the stats and sheets type games.)
Outerhaven: Confidential Killings has a lot of similarities to classic Detective/Adventures of games like Broken Sword Shadows Of The Templars. Which games from that genre or other games you’ve played that inspired both of you?
BRANE: “We obviously liked the mechanics of The Case of the Golden Idol, but the overall flow of the game was more influenced by games that ask less of the player in terms of puzzle difficulty. A recent title like The Operator comes to mind. We wanted the game to have a certain flow and rhythm, so we didn’t want the players to be stuck for ages or to have to resort to walkthroughs.”
Outerhaven: Have you had a chance to play any games after Confidential Killings was released?
BRANE: “Of course! I’ve gone on a stroll down memory lane and finished the Half-Life 2 campaign a couple of weeks ago. Right now, I’m trying my hand at an idle game: Digseum. In general, I’m trying to play some indie games I had no time to check during the crunch we had to release the game in January.”
Outerhaven: What games would both of you make if you couldn’t make Detective/Adventures of games?
BRANE: “I’m always thinking about making some deep, systemic managerial experiences I could make next. So I’ll definitely go in that direction when the time is right.”
Outerhaven: Thank you for taking the time to talk with us! What Video Game is the one you consider the reason that brought you into the industry?
BRANE: “I remember when my friend who lived across the street called me in to check out the games he had. He was the only one in the street to own a PC (this was in a small town in post-war Bosnia). I enjoyed everything I saw there, but when he showed me GTA 2… I was floored! All the time, all that I wanted was for him to call me in to his house again, so I could see it again.
Thanks for the interview!”
Confidential Killings is available to purchase on PC. If you enjoyed this interview, check out some of the other interviews we have on the site.
