Interview with José Antonio Gutiérrez, founder of Teku Studios

Today in one of our favorite sections we again have an independent study of the video game scene in our country. In 2012, a project led by two good friends was born in the Kingdom of Aragon. José Antonio Gutierrez, and his partner Miguel Valles, founded at that time a project born from the enthusiasm of the two to give free rein to their favorite pastime. Teku Studios was born almost unexpectedly, and the studio succeeded in making its first project. A young studio, but with a very promising future.

Candle Assumed a most unique and attractive artistic proposal. In general, the result could not be better, and thanks to its success, the studio is now able to develop its second video game. We are lucky to have had José Antonio Gutierrez for this interview, one of the co-founders of Teku Studios. The union between this fine arts student and his engineer colleague promises to give us many other joys, Candle It was just the beginning. Without further ado, we leave the interview to you.

The unexpected birth of Teku Studios

Before we get into other topics, we like to ask the developers how their journey has been so far. How were Teku Studios started and what prompted a humble studio in Teruel to bring their first video game to life?

Teku Studios really came out as a college project, almost like a hobby. A colleague from my student residence (Miguel Vallés, who would later become the co-founder of Teku) and I shared a passion for video games. At that time he was studying computer engineering and I was studying fine art, so we had what we needed (our innocents thought) enough knowledge to take on a little hobbyist project.

In principle, it was not planned to market or publish, but as a result of a competition from the University of Zaragoza, we obtained a small financial prize for the project (an original Candle). And that allowed us to buy our first real PCs. After that, they offered us advice in a business incubator here in Teruel, and the possibility of obtaining more funding and to professionalize the whole process a bit more. It all happened quite quickly, and within a few months we had founded the company and had a small office to work on. All of this happened in the already distant summer of 2012.

Candle it was your first project, launched in 2016 if I’m not mistaken. The game, apart from being a great puzzle platformer, has a unique artistic section. How did the idea of ​​capturing your decors in the form of handmade paintings come about?

At that time, we were very new to the development world. But personally, I have already felt the bubble that is forming around indie games and the fierce competition that we would face once the game goes on sale.

The choice to make the game’s graphics with real watercolors was one method of standing out in such a large market. A very direct development detail that would instantly interest the public and the press. If only out of curiosity, without even needing to read a synopsis about the game.

The candle challenge

Being a game made literally by hand, what complications have you encountered in the process of adapting to the digital world?

In the technical part, it was a very laborious process, at times seemingly overwhelming. In the artistic part, that meant spending a lot of time practicing watercolor. It is a difficult technique to master and also hardly allows for mistakes as it is really difficult to make corrections on what has already been painted. The hardest part was the animation part anyway. We decided to do it frame by frame, on a light table. I had no experience with animation and had to spend several months learning and practicing until I felt comfortable enough to work on the final animations for the game.

Another problem is that of integration. Many hours were spent digitizing all of the watercolors and frames. Some of them were so large that even with an A3 scanner we had to scan them in several parts. After that, we had to find a suitable compression method so that everything could work individually. But without a doubt, the most negative part is the enormous consumption of time (and therefore money) that all this entails. Today we couldn’t afford something like this financially.

Several years have passed and we are now 100% dependent on the company’s revenue. These are crazy things that you can afford at first. When you have less to lose and can “afford” not to charge (to take the clearest example) until you release your first game. However, personally, I don’t regret having took this route, because in the long term, we achieved the goal we set for ourselves.

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Without going into spoilers, and for players who don’t yet know, how would you describe the world of Candle?

Candle it is located in a fictitious prehistoric world, very inspired by Mayan and Aztec mythologies. The “people” are represented by cloth dolls, like those used in vodoo, all with masks. Despite its precious and almost childish appearance, it is a very cruel and harsh world. It is strongly marked by religion, where societies depend entirely on the dictates of shamans.

From the candle to 18th century Europe

After the indisputable success of Candle you are immersed in a new project, called The stone of madness. It’s a whole different game, with what feels like a much deeper storytelling adventure, what can players expect in this section and in terms of gameplay?

In reality TSoM breaks the linearity of the traditional adventure that marked Candle. On a narrative level, it’s a more open and subtle game, where it depends more on the player how deep they dive into the story. Plus, it doesn’t feature a single story, but it’s something we’ll be digging into in the future.

The stone of madness transports us to one of the emblematic monasteries of 18th century Europe, to what extent does this title immerse us in the Spanish folklore of the time?

Historically, the Spanish 18th century is a difficult period to study and cover, as significant changes occur every few years. Not just politically: customs, fashions and even costumes have changed much more often than in previous centuries.

At TSoM we focus on the end of this century: a particular Europe, between the French Revolution and on the verge of the war of independence against the French. Illustration began to permeate the thinking of a certain part of society, but in turn, the Inquisition continued to exist. Avant-garde minds joined the oldest superstitions. Witches were no longer persecuted, but people continued to believe in their existence. It is a Europe of contrasts and contradictions, in essence, the one that Goya captured in his famous “Caprichos”.

In the game we can find a lot of these two Europe. The game monastery is also a “madhouse”. The player will be able to find the greatest misery, the isolation of the mentally ill, caused precisely by the theoretically the most progressive, the enlightened.

A new artistic challenge

With Candle we saw a very spectacular artistic section made entirely by hand, and The stone of madness It is also not left out in terms of the attractiveness of its sets and characters, did you choose to follow the same line or was a different methodology used? What challenges did you face when making a game so different from Candle?

Now we only use digital techniques because we can achieve great results in less than half the time. However, we continue to paint the graphics by hand.

For the animations, this time we used the rotoscoping technique, which has already been seen in other titles such as “The banner saga“. Animations are recorded with a multicamera, first with actors. Then we paint and reinterpret the images from these recordings to our liking. This saves us a lot of hours of drawing and planning the animations, and allows us to focus on the final aesthetic. Also, since this is an isometric game, each animation can have up to 5 different versions (depending on which direction the character is looking). So going with this method was one of the best decisions we could have made, being such a small team.

However, I must point out that we had the pleasure of having in this section the work of the animation studio The Glow. A studio known for having won a Goya for its film “Buñuel in the turtle labyrinth”. Without their work, it would have been impossible to cover the enormous amount of animation that we had to make.

We understand it’s still early days to give a specific launch date, but could you provide us with an approximate launch window?

Unfortunately, at the moment, I cannot give a precise date. At the end of 2020, there was a turning point in our study and more particularly with The stone of madness. There are a lot of announcements to be made and all good ones, but I don’t have the power to make them. It will take a little more patience!

Candle 2 in the future?

With The stone of madness just around the corner, and the great success of CandleIt appears that Teku Studios is consolidating in the video game industry, both internationally and nationally. How do you rate the road to this stage and what do you hope to accomplish in the future? Is there already a project on the table?

The world of development is a constant learning process. I feel that each time we move away from this little amateur studio almost entirely moved by illusion, to become more professional every day. It goes beyond its current development. We made a lot of mistakes and maybe we risked too much. Now favorable winds are blowing for us and of course we are going to give our all to be able to continue to live from video game development.

You should always have a new project in your room, and in our case we are already considering a few possibilities that we have already described. But I would be lying if you didn’t tell yourself that almost 100% of our efforts are focused on TSoM. What I can confirm is that we will continue to develop 2D games, with differentiated artistic sections. And that we will try to vary as much as possible between project and project (although I know some members of the team who are willing to do it “Candle 2”).

From the Xbox zone, we thank you again Teku Studios, and more precisely to José Antonio Gutiérrez for his time. We know that we are only in their infancy, but we can not wait to get lost in the halls of The stone of madness. If you enjoyed it as much as we did, follow us on our website for future interviews like these.