unsigned
Unsigned is MCV/DEVELOP’s monthly initiative to bring the best upcoming indie titles to broader industry awareness. We aim to help them find the support and partners they need to reach the best and biggest possible audience.
HINGE
Hinge is a psychological horror VR adventure. You suddenly find yourself in an abandoned skyscraper, deprived of all your senses and memories. The laws of physics are broken and time is collapsed. The only way to get out is to step into the frightening unknown putting all the pieces together. Tell us about your game and why you decided to develop it? Hinge is an experimental VR horror game inspired by Lovecraft. We discovered the capabilities of Unity’s HDRP and then realized that we have to use this technology in an atmospheric game. Then we combined it with the idea that the atmosphere always matters in horror games. Who do you think the audience is? The audience is H.P. Lovecraft and horror fans. Also, those who love puzzle games like The Room VR: A Dark Matter. What experience does the team have? Hinge is our first PC VR game, but as a game dev studio we’ve existed for over three years. In the beginning we were developing games for locationbased VR. Arcadia has three LBE venues in Russia. Two venues in London and Paris were in the opening stage just before COVID-19 pandemic. So as you can see COVID-19 affected our plans regarding developing games for VR LBE. We’d been planning to develop games for Steam VR a long time ago, but the pandemic forced us to start developing VR games for Steam and Oculus platforms. Why did you decide to use Unity to create this game, can you tell us anything about using the engine on this project? That’s an easy question. First of all, Unity has a friendly interface (especially for artists). Secondly, Unity has excellent documentation and great support from the community. Also there is a great asset store which significantly accelerates our work. Besides, Unity has attractive license terms for indie devs. How long has the title been in development, how long will it likely take to complete? We started developing Hinge in spring of 2020. We released it on Steam nine months ago and now we are working on porting it to PlayStation VR. We estimate that the porting process will take six to ten months. What kind of support are you looking for from a potential partner? We are looking for marketing/PR support and development funding.
52 | MCV/DEVELOP October 2021
Developer: Arcadia VR Location: Moscow, Russia / London, UK Team size: 22 Progress: Released on Steam Contact details: info@arcadia-vr.com
Oleg Smirnov, executive producer
