A 15-year-old from the United States is on the cusp of releasing his first videogame on the popular Steam platform.
Anthony, known as AGW, working with his team from Black Fire Studios, is self-taught having had a passion for level creating and modding since the age of 11.
His first fully realised game is titled Creej’s Corruption, a stealth horror inspired by the Hello Neighbor series, which sees players searching for a missing friend across the realistic open world of Forenious.
AGW Interview – Creej’s Corruption
PlayStation Universe caught up with AGW to discover more:
Thanks for speaking with us during this busy time in your development schedule. When did you first get into video games? We’d love to hear all about your first gaming experience!
I first got into video games a LONG time ago. I remember playing on a Nintendo 3DS and Wii before I could fluently read. A few years later, my parents bought me an Xbox 360 that I absolutely loved. I also remember getting an Xbox One back in 2017. I find it kind of ironic, but the first game I actually played on it was Hello Neighbor.
You created your own YouTube channel approximately three years ago around the age of 12. Even then, you were already releasing videos showcasing level designs you had created in games like Geometry Dash. What motivated you to transition from designing levels to creating a full game?
I was actually 11 when I started my channel. I was always very into Rhythm Games, and I still am to this day. The Geometry Dash Editor was the closest thing to making a video game that I had access to. However, I started growing out of Geometry Dash due to the game not receiving updates. This is when I began to think about making my own game, but being 12 at this time, I had no idea where to start.I remembered playing and watching videos on Hello Neighbor back in the day and thought it would be fun to make something like that, although it was only a thought at the time. Eventually, I started playing Minecraft again, and then I realized that Minecraft allows you to create a lot of stuff. With certain commands built into Minecraft, you could actually make functional games with them. So, I decided to make a puzzle game in Minecraft called ‘Hello Creej’.
Around this time, the Hello Neighbor 2 beta was the most hyped thing for me. When it came out, it was a big disappointment, as the game was falsely advertised and heavily downgraded. I found this ridiculous, so I decided that I would attempt to turn my small project ‘Hello Creej’ into a fully-fledged game using Unreal Engine. Fast forward a couple of years of learning the engine, and that is where we are today.
It must have been quite an intensive learning experience, moving from basic level creating tools to working with Unreal engine over the space of a couple of years. During that time, you must have encountered many frustrating moments. Are there any tips that you would give budding young game developers based on your own experiences?
The biggest tip I have for anyone wanting to start developing their own game is to not be afraid to restart their project a couple of times. The project of Creej’s Corruption has been restarted over 20 times. This was my first project ever in the Unreal Engine, and it took a lot of learning to understand game development as a whole. It was devastating to have to restart each time; however, with each fresh start, I gained more knowledge of the engine, and each project was remarkably better than the last.
Creej’s Corruption will be your first major project to launch on Steam this year under the banner of Black Fire Studios. Tell us about the concept and backstory of the game and your inspiration for creating a title within the stealth/horror genre.
I have always been a fan of stealth horror; the feeling of having to be quiet and hidden in order to stay safe from danger in games has always intrigued me. Knowing that someone or something is actively looking for you can be quite scary.
In Creej’s Corruption, your main goal is to break into a character’s house powered by an AI that learns from your actions and movements.
My main inspiration for the game was the false advertisement from Hello Neighbor 2, which had a main selling point of AI that constantly evolved from all the players and got smarter as time progressed.
The Steam description for the game was changed a few days before release, removing any past knowledge of this AI, and when the game launched, the AI could barely even walk towards you. It got better in future updates, but there was none of the ‘AI Evolving’ that was advertised.
At the time of its release, I was planning on making a game. Since Hello Neighbor 2 was my most hyped game ever, I thought I would make a similar game. However, I would do things right this time and deliver on the Artificial Intelligence aspect of the game that was missed in Hello Neighbor 2.
As you’ve mentioned, Creej’s Corruption takes some inspiration from the Hello Neighbor franchise. Arguably, one of the frustrating features of Tiny Build’s series is its overchallenging puzzles. Could you provide some insight into the puzzle mechanics featured in Creej’s Corruption?
We plan to make Creej’s Corruption’s puzzle mechanics easy but rewarding. There will be an objective system, similar to those you see in Triple-A games. This will mostly consist of hints and guiding the player on what to do. Overly challenging puzzles are one of my biggest gripes with Hello Neighbor and most stealth games, so I will do my best to avoid making the player feel stuck. Puzzle-solving in Creej’s Corruption will be relatively easy, with difficulty arising more from AI mechanics than puzzles. We also plan to make some puzzles change as you play, with codes being randomized and keys spawning in different locations each time you play the game.
What other gameplay mechanics can players expect?
Creej’s Corruption’s gameplay is mostly focused on AI in order to create a more enjoyable game. The characters and enemies you will meet will all be different; you could enter a house and have somebody run away and call the police, or maybe they would grab a gun and chase you out.
Perhaps multiple people will live in the same house and work together to hunt you down, or you could possibly befriend some characters and have them help you throughout the game. There will be a vast open world that the player will be free to explore for over half of the main story. There will be different biomes you can explore and different areas of the town; for instance, you can head into the countryside with huge houses and beautiful grass fields, or head to the suburbs with small houses crowded next to each other, or maybe head downtown, which has many buildings cramped in a small area. The choice is yours.
When the game launches in Early Access, we plan to have over half the builds enterable. Major updates will be added to expand the map and locations, as well as AI mechanics.
What motivated the decision to pursue a more realistic graphical style for the outdoor locations of Forenious, as opposed to opting for stylized aesthetics?
I have always loved realistic art styles in games. In Creej’s Corruption, having realistic graphics improves the game’s atmosphere and scariness. We want the players to be able to immerse themselves in the game, as I feel it is very important for horror games. In the timeline from the Demo to the Full game, we plan to heavily improve the graphics and change a lot of the style. The Demo was made in an older version of Unreal Engine, which limits some of the realism, and of course, optimization is always a concern. We have to ensure everyone can have a smooth experience, as a bad framerate can be just as immersion-breaking as a poorly designed game.
How long do you expect it will take players to beat the game?
We are aiming for the final release of the game to take an average player about 10-20 hours to complete. The actual main story will be about 7-12 hours; however, there will be a lot of side content available for the player, as well as many secrets the player can discover.
Can you tell us the system requirements for Creej’s Corruption?
For the bare minimum, Creej’s Corruption will require at least an NVIDIA GTX 1060 6GB or AMD RX 5600-XT, Intel Core i3 10100F or AMD Ryzen 5 5600x, 8GB of DDR4 RAM, and about 50GB of storage. HDDs are supported, but SSDs will be recommended | To experience Creej’s Corruption in its full capacity, we recommend an NVIDIA RTX 3060 Ti or AMD RX 6800-XT, Intel Core i5 12600K or AMD Ryzen 5 7600, 16GB DDR4 RAM, and 50GB of SSD storage.
Creej’s Corruption demo is due to launch on March 8. What can players expect and what’s your roadmap over the coming months in the lead-up to full release?
Originally, we had a roadmap covering updates regarding the Creej’s Corruption Demo. This was before the delay from December to March. We have not released any roadmap for Demo Updates yet, but we still plan to update the Demo until it is in a perfect state. Besides updates to fix bugs, we are planning many quality-of-life improvements and AI improvements, which will be further explained in Devlog 2. After fixing what the game is missing, we will resort to player feedback for future Demo updates. I have said the full game will get weekly updates; however, we plan the same thing for the Demo for a few months. Updates will eventually die down as the full game becomes the priority; however, we will most definitely make a 2.0 update a few months down the line adding lots of new player-requested features and locations.
It is a significant concern of mine how well the game is received. Many people criticize the game for its similarity to Hello Neighbor, while others appreciate our efforts to create a similar game with enhanced AI features. I hope the game performs relatively well, but I recognize that I will need a lot of player feedback to further improve the game after launch. Another focus of mine is increasing the game’s popularity. We don’t have many people who know about the game, so we are hoping that some big YouTubers will play the demo and full game. This is one of my biggest dreams for Creej’s Corruption.
If you could work for any game studio in the world, who would it be and why?
The only studio I’ve ever actually thought about working for was Tinybuild, largely due to my immeasurable hype from Hello Neighbor 2. However, because of Tinybuild consistently losing money and laying off a lot of people, I have put that thought on hold. If Creej’s Corruption takes off, I will most likely continue with Black Fire Studios.
What are your future plans for Black Fire Studios after Creej’s Corruption?
If Creej’s Corruption takes off, I plan to continue Black Fire Studios and create many more games. These could include games from different genres or another game directly related to Creej’s Corruption. The future of Black Fire Games largely revolves around the overall popularity of Creej’s Corruption. I would love to make more games, and I definitely plan to do so if Creej’s Corruption is received relatively well.
Creej’s Corruption is due to launch in early access in 2024 with a game demo launching on March 8 on Steam.
For more information, you can:
- Check out Creej’s Corruption on Steam
- Follow the AGW YouTube Channel
- Join the AGW Discord