Senscape is an indie studio with immense talent. Boasting part of the team behind Scratches, the incredibly atmospheric point-and-click horror adventure, they're more than capable of creating oppressive, dark and tense games that fill players with dread. Recently, their project Asylum was funded on Kickstarter, and they released the free-to-play Serena. Their most recent game, H. P. Lovecraft's The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward, has been generating tons of excitement but struggling a bit in its crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter. We were able to catch up with the Argentinian studios' designer Augustín Cordes to talk about these projects and some of the issues facing video game crowdfunding campaigns.

Did you run into any issues acquiring the license to create a game with the Lovecraft name, as opposed to a game inspired by or invoking the mythos?

It wasn't a straightforward process at all. The Lovecraft Estate, with which we have this agreement, are accustomed to sign [sic] deals with movie studios, for example. It's not very common, in fact this is the first game that secured a license of the sort. It took many, many months of negotiation because this was a first for them as well, but eventually we made it work.

Did examples of your past work (Scratches, Asylum, Serena) and your experience designing well-received, atmospheric games help?

Our background work definitely helped in securing the license, particularly Scratches which was a particularly well-received horror game reminiscent of the Lovecraft works. Then, the success of Asylum on Kickstarter was a good sign for them. Even more important is taht we brought S. T. Joshi on board the project, which is the most renowned Lovecraftian guru in the world. He's the scholar that produces the definitive edition of Lovecraft stories, and he was the one that actually put me in touch with the Lovecraft Estate. I think all those factors worked in favor towards securing the license.

What went into the pre-production of Charles Dexter Ward before the Kickstarter went live?

We took about two to three months to produce the assets for the Kickstarter and ran a pre-launch campaign with teaser videos. Resurrection is the main theme of the novel, so we included that. We had a huge launch and an overwhelmingly positive response to the game.

What differentiates The Case of Charles Dexter Ward from your past work? What similarities will there be?

Scratches and Charles Dexter Ward have many things in common, but Charles is a third-person adventure and won't play the same. We are bringing the same type of cerebral or supernatural horror to the game, but Scratches was a game that relied more on exploration of a seemingly solitary environment, Asylum is precisely like that as well. But Charles Dexter Ward puts more emphasis on a protagonist that travels across many different places and interacts with many different characters, and it will play a little differently. It's more a classic adventure than Asylum, but the core ideas remain the same: a game with no action, no jumpscares, just a very brooding, cerebral type of horror.

Is there anything about the project specifically that has you particularly excited or that you can reveal to us?

I've just been very happy with the way the project has turned [out]. It took a lot of testing to find the right style and feel for the game. For example, we weren't sure if we would do 2D or real-time 3D and in the end it's a combination of both. The game looks like a classic adventure but because the scenes are in real-time 3D it allows us to have some very cinematic camera motion and very striking visual angles. Charles Dexter Ward himself is sort of Lovecraft's alter ego, and I'm very happy with the way the character looks. Monday, we released a video to our backers with the voice actor we choosed from Charles Dexter Ward speaking a few words and I'm really really happy. He's the Charles Dexter Ward I always imagined.

Could you tell us a little more about Charles Dexter Ward as a character or his grandfather, Joseph Curwens? The inspirations and background for their models?

Both Joseph Curwen and Charles are fictional characters from the Charles Dexter Ward story. However it is generally accepted that Lovecraft based Charles on himself. The way he describes Charles you can almost imagine Lovecraft describing himself. Joseph Curwen is a sort of evil ancestor and to Charles and is supposed to look exactly like him. So they have to look the same, but one has to give players a sense of familiarity and innocence and the other has to have this evil, menacing look. I'm very happy with the way both of them turned out.

What is the plan from this point on given the state of the Kickstarter?

I don't know at this point. I don't know what's going on with Kickstarter. We aren't the only project doing badly right now, there are other campaigns with way more modest goals that aren't going to make it. I'm not sure what's the deal. I will consider other options. I would have to say that we will likely put Charles Dexter Ward to rest for a while, concentrate on Asylum, maybe release a smaller project and attempt to self-fund the game. I don't think crowdfunding is going to be the right course of action for this project.

How did the Greenlight campaign go?

We uploaded the game to Greenlight hoping to bring some more traffic to the Kickstarter. It was a huge success - it was greenlit in just nine days. Reception everywhere has been great for Charles Dexter Ward,  it just hasn't translated into enough money.

It seems like more crowdfunding campaigns recently have been suffering. Is there anything you'd attribute that to?

Maybe a series of things. Delays and fake projects may have spoiled the enthusiasm of people. At the same time, there have been way too many games on Kickstarter, so in a way it may have been a bubble that wasn't going to grow any more. I'm noticing even general attitude towards the platform isn't great. Many websites won't even cover games on Kickstarter even if they are just announcements of great looking games since there's always the risk that it may be a scam. It's hard to tell, but you can sense that enthusiasm is waning on Kickstarter. It would seem like video games in particular are taking the biggest blow on Kickstarter compared to tabletop games or others. You can see there are almost no games in the top 10 on Kicktraq anymore.

You're currently working on Asylum still. Could you tell us a little more about that?

We're working nonstop on the game and will be sending a demo to our backers soon. It's going very, very well. For fans of Scratches, it's going to be a game they're going to love to no end. It's the spiritual successor to Scratches but still very modern. In parts it feels like a console games, and is a little more modern than Charles Dexter Ward. We are tentatively shipping the demo to our backers within the next couple of months. The game is in Alpha right now and I expect to reach Beta around March 2015. But because it's a very big game, we're going to need at least a couple of months to do a proper beta testing.

What about your recent project, Serena?

We released Serena earlier this year for free. It was an amazingly successful title for us. We released it without any sort of promotion or press release on Steam, and today it has had about 160,000 unique downloads. It was quite an unexpected hit. It's only about one hour long, but people have really enjoyed the game. It's very reminiscent of Scratches, it has the same vibe and the same sort of strange ending that keeps you thinking about it. Players are still discussing it on the Steam forums. We are very happy because it helped us test the waters for Asylum with that game since it will share a very similar type of gameplay and narrative approach.

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Since the interview, the team has posted a farewell and thank you update on the campaign. The Kickstarter ended $110,000 short of the funding goal. Part of the team behind Charles Dexter Ward has been disbanded, and the team will continue to focus on developing Asylum. Augustin clarifies that the team wants to give Charles Dexter Ward the time and attention they feel it deserves, and are putting the project aside with the hope of one day returning to it. A detailed miniature post-mortem is available here.

It's unfortunate to see Charles Dexter Ward go down this road, but the studio's Asylum is immensely promising and coming along nicely. Hopefully Lovecraft junkies will be able to experience the digitized adaptation of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward before the old ones return and claim us all.