The Inner World: The Last Wind Monk - An Interview With Studio Fizbin's Sebastian Mittag [E3 2017]

Point-and-click adventure games aren’t nearly as prevalent as they used to be in gaming. Gone are the days when companies like Sierra littered the shelves with adventures that catered to every taste. That said, it’s not a dead genre. Occasionally, you get a developer with a penchant for good art, old school inventory hunts, and fun puzzle-solving. Studio Fizbin certainly has an interest in that style of game with their Inner World series, and with the help of Headup Games and Kalypso Media, they’re looking to bring another enjoyable point-and-click adventure to new audiences and old fans alike with The Inner World: The Last Wind Monk.

The Inner World’s land of Asposia is a quirky planet sitting inside another world like a core. Subterranean monsters lurk in the outer crust, the wind threatens to cease to move, and an entire group of people are made out to be the enemies. That’s why it’s up to an unlikely band of a unwilling hero, a thief, and a pigeon to find the true reason behind the troubles and put a stop to the problem. We caught up to Game Director and Studio Fizbin Co-Founder Sebastian Mittag at E3 and he was kind enough to sit down with us and talk about what we’ll face in The Last Wind Monk. Mittag opened up about what’s going on in Asposia, how you’ll guide the heroes along, and how Studio Fizbin plans to make sure players will continue the journey no matter what.

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GameWatcher: The Inner World: The Last Wind Monk is the second game in the Inner World series. Do we need to play the first game to be here? Where do players find themselves in The Last Wind Monk?

Sebastian Mittag: You won’t need to play the first game to play The Last Wind Monk, but there is some connection. We find ourselves in Asposia, which is a round world inside of a larger world known as the Infinite Soil. It’s connected to an outer world through wind fountains and these wind fountains give life and light to Asposia. Robert is one of a group of people known as the Flute Noses. Many people have stripes around their noses in Asposia, but Robert and people like him have solid colored noses with holes in them. There’s a dynasty of these people and when they play together on their noses, they summon the wind through the wind fountains for the world. At the beginning of The Last Wind Monk, the Flute Noses are in danger. They are being persecuted and imprisoned because they are considered responsible for summoning gods and making those gods angry. They’re made out to be scapegoats or witches and they’re hunted and demonized by political figures in Asposia.

GameWatcher: And Robert is returning from the first game? Where is he in all of this?

Mittag: Robert is one of a few main characters and unfortunately at the start of The Last Wind Monk, we find him in the woods turned to stone because he made a clumsy mistake three years before. The game starts with another character, Peck the pigeon, having to find a way to de-petrify Robert and together, they have to find a way to save the Flute Noses. Robert has a vision of a woman who tells him he must find the last Wind Monk and that’s where our story kicks off, but of course doing so won’t be so easy.

GameWatcher: So right off the bat, we have two main characters that can be controlled. What’s the difference between what they can do?

Mittag: There’s a third character as well. Laura is returning and these three are all quite different. Obviously one of Peck’s benefits is that he can fly, reach higher levels, and get into spaces others can’t, but he can’t carry really heavy stuff. He can push something within reach of Laura or Robert though. Meanwhile, Laura is very strong. She can handle heavy lifting and pushing that Robert and Peck cannot. Finally, Robert is the only Flute Nose of the crew and the only one that can play Flute Nose songs, which are critical at various spots of the game. There are a few different songs throughout the game that control the wind and various other artifacts to interesting effect.

GameWatcher: And often times, based on who is present and what the situation dictates, you can switch through these three characters as you please?

Mittag: Yeah, so not quite at any given time. You start off with Peck, then you get Robert. Then at another chapter you’ll be in control solely of Laura because she’s imprisoned, and at some point, all three of them come together. Things will happen and they’ll get separated as well, so the flow of the story sort of defines who you’ll have access to at any given point. There’s also a multitude of situations that will create a web of puzzles to solve based on who you have as well. Sometimes it’s just three screens, sometimes you’ll be working between seven or more different areas.

GameWatcher: Tell me a little bit about the interaction between characters. Would it be safe to say that when you’ve got two or three of these characters present, there will be situations that call for you to switch characters frequently?

Mittag: Yeah. When you’ve got a place where the characters are near each other, you have to find ways to help them support one another. For instance, you might have a spot where Peck and Robert are in a place and Laura is another nearby spot that’s cut off from them. So you have to use their abilities and what they have available in the environment, such as Laura using an air vent to send tools to Robert that he can use to fix a machine or distract someone from an item. Moreover, even if they are in the same place and can talk to the same people, each of them have different goals and therefore different tasks to accomplish in the same area. Laura and Robert’s beliefs and procedures aren’t always on the same page with one another and it makes for some interesting variation even when they’re together.

GameWatcher: Does The Last Wind Monk cater to different player skills at all? Point-and-click adventures can be tricky when you don’t know where to find an item or when the solution doesn’t jump out at you. Is there a way to keep players from getting stuck or caught in a particular scenario?

Mittag Yes, we have a rather comprehensive hint system in the game. It’s built towards helping those who get frustrated or just want to see the story unfold and it’s easy to access. It’s one button to access the hint screen, much like a pause screen. The system always keeps track of what situation you’re in, what items you have in your inventory, to whom you talked, what you’ve looked at, and so on. In that way, it’s pretty dynamic and flexible about knowing what you need to do next. You might have a situation where you’re repairing a cable car and if you need a hint, it might say to go have a look at a spot on the left of it. Some people might have missed something there among the background and it will let them know. It’s mostly just small sentences that let you know what to try and will be there to guide you when you need them or when you’ve run out of patience.

GameWatcher: So it’s not quite a hand-holding walkthrough that will do things for you so much as let you have an idea you may not have thought of?

Mittag: Right. When it comes to myself as a player, I never liked being stuck for minutes on end not knowing what to do. I always wanted to have the game flow and when I’d get stuck, I wanted to have a hint, but I didn’t want to look it up on the internet and risk reading too far and spoiling something for myself. It was that consideration that pushed us towards creating this system that reveals a little, but not too much. Moreover, you can tailor your experience around it. You can take on a full 10-hour adventure of nail-biting puzzle solving as you push your way through the game or you can make it a three to four hour interactive story, having it tell you what to do next whenever you feel like it. And you can do everything in between, The hint system is simple to access, so you can use it or leave it alone and figure puzzles out for yourself as you please.

GameWatcher: Is this going to be the end of The Inner World? Will we see more of these characters and this universe in the future?

Mittag: We’ll see. I can’t tell you yet and there’s a lot to think about when it comes to what happens next. We’ve been developing the universe of Asposia since 2011 and it’s so full of ideas and quirks. We have a bit of an encyclopedia related to everything in this world and we’ve got plenty of thoughts and content that we could easily do something more in the series. Don’t get me wrong. When you play The Last Wind Monk, you’ll have a complete story. It’s not something with open ends where we’ll see what happens. This story really ends at the end of this game, but the world of Asposia is open to other possibilities.

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Robert, Laura, and Peck certainly are a ragtag band of heroes to say the least, but when they’re what you got, good times are sure to follow. The Inner World: The Last Wind Monk is set to include Studio Fizbin’s lush cartoonish style and amusing sense of humor as players take on this journey. What’s more, it’s good to know that with a solid hint system in hand, everyone will be able to enjoy everything The Last Wind Monk has to offer, whether they take a helping hand or not. The Last Wind Monk is slated for release in mid-September 2017 and we can’t wait to see where the story of Asposia goes next.

To learn more about The Inner World: The Last Wind Monk, be sure to check out the game’s Steam page.

To stay up on the latest news and information for the game, be sure to follow Studio Fizbin on Twitter and Facebook.