Deep Sleep: Labyrinth of the Forsaken - An interview with Scriptwelder
Developer scriptwelder provides insight into his must-play survival horror adventure Deep Sleep: Labyrinth of the Forsaken.
Deep Sleep: Labyrinth of the Forsaken. Credit: scriptwelder / Armor Games
Deep Sleep: Labyrinth of the Forsaken is a point-and-click survival horror adventure game developed by scriptwelder. In this sequel to his earlier Deep Sleep games, players take on the role of Amy, a woman whose brother, Thomas, recently died under mysterious circumstances. When Amy begins to investigate her brother’s obsession with lucid dreaming and other worlds, she starts to think he might still be alive, somehow, and dives into the realm of dreams herself. It turns out dark things live in this other place, and now they’re looking for Amy.
Soon after starting the game with my partner, Tina Marcroft, we both became completely enthralled by both its story and game design. The game combines a spooky point-and-click adventure with survival horror driven by harrowing turn-based combat that works as a puzzle in itself. A novel inventory system, a skill tree, and light crafting round out the experience. The game also has wonderful pixel art graphics with impressive lighting, excellent sound design, and a killer score from composer Christopher Carlone.
I’ll admit we toned down the difficulty just a little bit using the accessibility settings because we were getting ruined by the combat encounters. We didn’t discover some of the combat-related skills until it was too late; perhaps we would have done better had we taken advantage of stat resets. Regardless, Deep Sleep: Labyrinth of the Forsaken is a 10/10, must-play game.
Tina and I crafted interview questions for developer scriptwelder because we were eager to learn more about his process and ideas behind the game. His answers were thoughtful and fascinating. I’ve made minor edits for clarity.
Deep Sleep: Labyrinth of the Forsaken is available now on Steam.
Deep Sleep: Labyrinth of the Forsaken. Credit: scriptwelder / Armor Games
Tina Marcroft + Sam Kahn, for the Geekly Grind: Could you please tell us about yourself? How did you get into game development? What led you to found your studio?
scriptwelder: My name is Mateusz, I'm from Poland. I always wanted to create video games since I played my first one on a NES knock-off console. This dream wasn't really fulfilled until Flash came along and allowed thousands of creators all over the world, myself included, to express ourselves and share our work online.
GG: Can you describe how you arrived at the central conceit of Deep Sleep: Labyrinth of the Forsaken and how it connects thematically or mechanically to the earlier entries in the Deep Sleep series?
SW: At the core of the whole idea was obviously the original Deep Sleep Trilogy, a collection of Flash horror point-and-click games made by me in 2012-2014. I knew the new game had to connect with the old ones, but in a way that wouldn't exclude the players who were unfamiliar with the trilogy. In Deep Sleep: Labyrinth of the Forsaken, you play as the sister of the protagonist of the trilogy; since his fate was never completely explored before, this gave an opportunity to not only give him closure but also served as an entry point to this new story. As we explore the terrifying world of nightmares as Amy, we will often walk in our brother's footsteps—returning players will notice numerous nods to the old games, recurring locations and themes, while the new players will be able to discover the past themselves, even if this is their first time playing anything from the franchise.
Deep Sleep: Labyrinth of the Forsaken. Credit: scriptwelder / Armor Games
GG: When playing, we noticed echoes of several games across the survival horror and point-and-click spectrum—Fatal Frame, The Dream Machine, Resident Evil, and Silent Hill, among others. You seem to have an erudite grasp of the genre’s history and conventions. What were your key inspirations for Labyrinth of the Forsaken, and how consciously did you incorporate or reinterpret those influences?
SW: Inspirations are all around us, all the time. The game is being compared to both Resident Evil and Silent Hill, which I find to be extremely flattering—and I will admit, those titles had some influence on how the game looks and plays. I was also inspired by Amnesia: The Dark Descent and its predecessor, the Penumbra series, both of which I studied closely to learn how to properly administer tension and scares in a horror game. I also can't forget about the Submachine series: Flash point-and-click games by Mateusz Skutnik, which actually made me want to try making my own point-and-click games back in 2012.
Deep Sleep: Labyrinth of the Forsaken. Credit: scriptwelder / Armor Games
GG: In the game, you allow players to have only one copy of any weapon or item, and picking up another adds its durability to the version in your inventory. We don’t think we’ve seen this approach to durability in other games. How did you arrive at this design, and what balance considerations did it address?
SW: Short answer: It's a part of the experience. When playing Deep Sleep: Labyrinth of the Forsaken, you'll often face the problem of scarce resources. You need to manage your inventory, while your capability to restore your items by imagining them is limited.
The fact that you can use each weapon around 4 times is not a coincidence. I didn't want players to stack their inventory full of copies of one item that they decided was best. Part of the tactical puzzle that is combat is the ability to pick an item to attack when you know it's the right time. Sometimes you want to save it for later, but without the classic symptom of ending your game with 99 health potions in your bag. Having just several uses of each weapon also forces you to utilize the imagination skill more often—sometimes even mid-combat, which makes some abilities related to item imagination more useful.
Deep Sleep: Labyrinth of the Forsaken. Credit: scriptwelder / Armor Games
GG: We were struck by certain elements in the game that seem to engage with ideas often associated with the New Age movement. Were there particular concepts, symbols, or authors from that tradition that influenced your work?
SW: Not really; it's more of a natural consequence of the game's theme. Spirituality and almost occult-like concepts that can't be fully explored or rationalized fit well within the horror genre.
GG: Were there any other influences you drew upon besides video games, such as music, film, art, etc.?
SW: Definitely. Paintings by Zdzisław Beksiński, full of dread and eeriness, are one example. Books by Stephen King. Probably much more than I don't even realize.
GG: Despite these many influences, Labyrinth of the Forsaken feels remarkably cohesive and distinct. How did you establish such a unified tone and identity?
SW: I don't know how to answer this question precisely. I always knew my games had to be unique in some way. Even back in Flash days, and it remains true now. The game has to stand out to be noticed. It can be graphics style, it can be gameplay, it can be story—but there has to be something that separates one game from hundreds that are being released only in the same month.
For me, it's mostly my own style, my own process, and my own way of creating things. I guess it’s partially also due to attention to detail, which can be both a blessing and a curse sometimes. Cohesiveness comes with a price of long years put into the development.
Deep Sleep: Labyrinth of the Forsaken. Credit: scriptwelder / Armor Games
GG: The world you’ve built feels incredibly rich and tangible, like it really exists beyond what we see on screen. How do you go about creating a world that feels so lived-in?
SW: The world needs to feel real, even if it isn't, and if it is a part of a sci-fi or a horror story. It would be easier to make a game about dreams that is set in purely dream-like surroundings—I've actually seen some criticism that many of the dreams/levels in Deep Sleep are not fantastical enough. I believe dreams have to be rooted in reality; they are a mirror of our own world, and they have to share elements with it. Horror is also much more effective if you put a familiar world around it.
Another completely separate element to this equation is that I try to make the created world exist beyond the game. For example, if there is a website mentioned somewhere in the game, chances are the address is real and you can visit it.
GG: How has your approach to puzzle and environmental design evolved from your earlier games to Labyrinth of the Forsaken? Were there lessons from your previous games that directly shaped this one?
SW: Some obvious stuff—like pixel hunting is bad—but also less obvious: how sometimes subtle hints can guide players towards solutions, and the other way around. If I coincidentally use a specific word in an object's description, it can put players' thinking process on a railroad, hindering the solving process. It's a delicate matter! I always try to create my puzzles in a way that makes sense. And if there is an obvious solution that I don't want to work, I try to include a special response—players feel validated knowing WHY they can't use a crowbar on the door. This is also a first game where I tried making turn-based combat; it plays an important role, but in my head, those encounters were always supposed to be puzzles within themselves. Limited items, each weapon has a slightly different effect, enemies have various attacks and speeds; all of that was meant to compose a completely new type of puzzle experience in a point-and-click game.
Deep Sleep: Labyrinth of the Forsaken. Credit: scriptwelder / Armor Games
GG: We were really struck by the sound design in this game—the interplay between music and effects feels deliberate and deeply atmospheric. The audio and visual elements seem to work hand-in-hand to evoke a kind of existential dread. Could you talk about your process for building that atmosphere through sound?
SW: A big part of the game's mood is thanks to the composer, Chris Carlone, who created almost 50 tracks of various styles. It wouldn't be the same without them!
Definitely one portion of the equation is knowing when to play that music - I try to be very deliberate with the soundtrack, especially in establishing scenes and during important moments. Background music, in my opinion, should only play sparingly. There is a system in place that will add random pauses, moments of silence between loops of the current level's exploration tracks. Usually, we can have anything from 30 seconds to over a minute of NOT hearing the music. I think it prevents looped tracks from getting repetitive while we're stuck on a puzzle and helps drive some attention to the ambient sounds.
The sounds themselves are also insanely important. I don't have much experience in sound effects creation, the truth is most of the sounds from the game are either freely available or pre-purchased files. It still takes some effort to pick the right ones for the right moment - ambience has to fit the scene, not be too distractive but still noticeable. One of fun tricks I did in one of the levels that takes place in the attic was to make a playlist of various noises - cloth rustles, whispers, quiet laughter, wood creaking and so on - and play those sounds randomly while the player explores the interiors. It added more depth to the whole area, instead of just having deafening silence of an abandoned, discarded furniture and appliances, there is this extra layer that makes you constantly think that you are not alone there, which is not good news for you!
Deep Sleep: Labyrinth of the Forsaken. Credit: scriptwelder / Armor Games
GG: The game seems interested in exploring consciousness, control, and the boundaries between dreams and nightmares. Would you agree with that assessment, and how have those themes evolved for you over time to bring you to this fourth game in your Deep Sleep series?
SW: I agree. The theme of nightmares was obviously present in the previous titles. It became an underlying theme for other series of games I've made, too!
But in Deep Sleep: Labyrinth of the Forsaken, it has evolved. We are not just exploring dreams that are scary for the sake of being scary; I tried to give them all some meaning, a reason to exist. The game is about loss, about dealing with grief. There is one layer of the story, which is literal, and where we just experience the events as they unfold. But there is also another layer, some things that are just hinted at, that deliberately don't have confirmations. I want to believe the game's story is as deep as the game's title suggests.
GG: As a largely solo creator, how did you manage the scope of this project compared to previous entries? Were there particular technical or artistic challenges that felt new?
SW: I learned to make games by myself in the Flash games era, and I just prefer it this way. Having full control over every aspect, having no liabilities or obligations to anyone (except maybe to my publisher), and having only myself to blame if things go wrong is just the way I like to work. It's not the best or most efficient way, but it works for me.
This lifestyle has a downside, namely, because it becomes a LIFESTYLE. It's no longer just a job; it's not work you go to. It's just a part of your life, every day, weekend or not. You have a game to make, and nobody will do it for you.
Some things I can't do by myself; I wouldn't be able to make music, for example. Also, while my pixel art might have gotten a bit better, I still can't draw nice human faces, which is why the dialogue portraits had to be commissioned; they have been done by the wonderful Leonor Parra. That being said, the scope of the project definitely got a bit out of hand! I didn't think it would take me almost 5 years to create this title. I don't regret it, it's my biggest game to date, and I'm really proud of it.
Deep Sleep: Labyrinth of the Forsaken. Credit: scriptwelder / Armor Games
GG: We saw on your website bio that you found freedom with Flash. What tools did you use to develop Deep Sleep: Labyrinth of the Forsaken? How does it compare with Flash development, and what other stepping stones did you take since the Flash days to using the tools you have now?
SW: That's correct. Flash allowed me and many, many other people to finally make games and share them with the world. After Flash games were killed off, like many others, I have moved to making games in Unity. It was a good choice back when I started, although currently I'd probably want to try something new with my next project.
When it comes to other tools, for pixel art character art and animations, I use Aseprite. For backgrounds, I use Paint.NET. This game was also my first title where I incorporated 3D models. I used a program called Picocad, which is dedicated to low-poly models. Its simplicity allowed me to quickly learn everything I had to know!
GG: It is often said that “limitation breeds creativity.” Were there any constraints or concessions you had to make when making the game that ended up being a blessing in disguise?
SW: I face many limitations when I work. Mostly technical things, which I don't really want to bore the readers with here. Just to give one quick example, because I was working with 2D lights in Unity, all the shadows that are being casted are technically infinite in length and only limited by the light source; Because my game is more of a “2.5D” with isometric view, I had to cheat a lot with layered sprites and other means to limit the shadows so they look more natural.
Generally speaking, I think the idea for the game was tailored to my capabilities. But I didn't go for an immersive first-person game because I thought I couldn't do it, but because it wasn't the game I wanted to make. The game, in its current shape, is as close to the vision I had as possible. Granted, some things have changed during the process, but mostly alterations were dictated by playtesting and aiming for a better experience, not because of limitations.
Deep Sleep: Labyrinth of the Forsaken. Credit: scriptwelder / Armor Games
GG: Is there anything else you’d like players to know about Deep Sleep: Labyrinth of the Forsaken?
SW: There are many things I could talk about when it comes to my games. Sometimes too many! I really want people to enjoy the game, to explore all the environments and locations I've prepared, face the foes I put in their way, and solve the puzzles I've created. And the creator-consumer contact goes both ways: I'm excited to see people's playthroughs and their fan art. But most of all, I just wish to know someone out there had a blast playing my game.
