Sura Karnawi – Unleaving

Every now and then, a true hidden gem emerges unexpectedly in the indie scene. Recently, we stumbled upon Unleaving, a game that thoroughly captivated us with its art, music, and puzzles. We had the opportunity to interview Sura Karnawi, the developer behind this remarkable game, where we delved into crucial aspects of its development process, including animation creation, sources of motivation, the studio’s objectives, and much more. Below, you’ll find the video interview, but for those who prefer reading, there’s also a written transcript available. The interview was held on Friday, 19th of April. You can also read our review of this game here.

Unleaving is a narrative-driven puzzle platformer where each challenge takes place within a hand-painted landscape, exploring the perception and meaning of the world. It’s full of symbols and everything is up for you to interpret. The game features very impressive graphics, sounds, and a variety of puzzles and platforming segments. It continuously revolves around solving these puzzles while enjoying beautiful colors, animations and a not-so-clear story. In case you get stuck on a certain part, help is offered, which will point you in the right direction, but will not provide a direct solution.

Sound and music during gameplay are kept to a minimum. They include sounds of water, wind, footsteps, underlining of objects, etc. that perfectly follow the flow of the game, that is, they do not disturb or distract. After solving the main segment of the game, each time there is a cut scene that opens the way forward and includes some of the most beautiful musical compositions. The game really impresses with a variety of styles that evoke different emotions and successfully manage the narrative with beautiful visuals.

Unleaving goes beyond traditional boundaries, brings something original and combines an impressive video game experience with attractive multimedia images and drawings, as elements of pencil and graphite are used to create puzzle elements. Each scene is new, there is no repetition. Also, each chapter is based on a certain theme that guides the mood, emotions, story and influences the colors and style.

If this title piqued your interest, you can find it on Steam.

I’d like to start with getting to know Oragutan Matter. What’s the idea behind the name, when was it established and what’s the main goal of this studio?

I’m Sura, representing our Toronto-based studio. Here is where we made most of the Unleaving. My husband and I co-founded the studio and it all started in Manchester, England, but we moved to make a living in Toronto. It started, I would say, in different phases, but it was officially registered when we started working full-time February 2021. It has been exactly three years. Before that, we went through various phases, including prototyping while working on the project from our home in England for about two to three years, just to kind of get the idea, get it together and everything.

As for our backgrounds, I worked as a Software Engineer for BBC, while my husband was a pharmacist. So completely different backgrounds but we share a common passion for art and games and we see video games as cultural medium. It’s a medium where we can express stories and each one of us brought something different, but I always wanted more art in games. Growing up, I loved games like Braid, Limbo, as well as classics like Sonic and Mario. I always imagined what if I can make a painting and play it. Obviously I brought this vision to life in Orangutan Matter, where we can make literal paintings into a video game.

Were you the artist and the developer? How was your husband involved?

We both worked from home throughout the project. Myself, because I’m software engineer, with all my training and studies in computer science, all my life I practied hard which prepared me for it. Both of us did both really. He did art direction with me and he did most of the development. I also did some of it, but I was involved in every engineering decision. So we both did almost everything together and mostly the art direction went to myself. I also had three other artist that collaborated with me on the project.

So how many people in total worked or contributed on the game? What about music?

On Unleaving, we collaborated with various individuals at different times. Core team were me and my husband, they were two us, but with collaborators, there were seven of them coming and going at different times. They contributed to creation of Unleaving, from the character art, environment art, level design, development, technical decision and also music. You asked about the music, we used music from musician Alicia Enstrom. There were different layers, but around seven people worked on it.

How long did it take you to create the game? What inspired the concept of Unleaving, the integration of poetry and visual art into a puzzle platformer game?

It really just came from love and passion for art and games; telling stories of vulnerability and the raw human emotions through the video game medium. I’m pushing it just to be more than cultural medium. There’s so many beautiful games that tell very powerful stories and I want to contribute more to that. The inspiration came from, for example, in England when I visited galleries and saw amazing paintings by [William] Turner as one of the inspiration for the art style. When you visit an art gallery, you have kind of the permission to make your own interpretation.

You can look at art with one sentence, one thing about the art piece itself, and then, as a visitor, you can just say: “Oh, I imagine this can be about this, or it can be about that.” We’re so open in the art world to talk about that meaning. But in games, I see you’re limited in a way because there is only one way to interpret things. We wanted to bring that experience of art gallery to video games. In Unleaving there is minimal storytelling and then the players are invited to give it its own meaning. So that’s one of the key inspiration of making Unleaving, that kind of feeling of inviting the player to make their own meaning and just to share it.

Limbo is the huge inspiration for the game mechanics and just the eerie style, it’s a game that really inspired us. The production itself took three years, but before that, there was a few years of prototyping and just researching. It was very intense, I have to admit. It was obsession. It was not normal because, when you’re so involved in something, some days you work ridiculous hours. I would paint, I’m not sure how many paintings. I would just create so many and then I would lose sense of time. I would wake up at 4 or 5 AM to paint or develop, doing things. So I would say it’s three years, but maybe if you expand it to normal people, how they work usually, it’d be maybe seven years.

I’m also kinda curious about the game’s name Unleaving, does it have some connection to the Hopkins’ poem “Spring and Fall: To a Young Child”?

Originally, the game was called Jack. We just wanted to give the character any name, really, any common name, because it’s a story of everyone. Anyone can be that child. But then as the story matured, as we were growing with development, we decided to change the name to be more reflective, as we didn’t want to give it a name just so it can be an extension of any player.

It cannot be like there’s no specific story behind it. It’s more like a self reflection and then when we came across the poem, it resonated with the story. It resonated with everything we wanted to do, because it’s talking about their transient meaning of life, and that’s kind of the story of Unleaving. You’re coming to face the transient meaning of life, the uncertainty and some questions about mortality and different things.

We took that part on Unleaving. That’s the most interesting for us about the game. And there’s the bit about the child in the poem called Margaret. So it felt like talking to a child or getting to understand things from a perspective of a child. It really resonated with Unleaving, As you see, the protagonist is a child, it can be a metaphor.

The game has a lot of symbols, but I’m kind of curious about the wolf. We can see it through the entire game. How did you come up with that idea?

My husband said he came across a book while he was visiting his cousin, and there was a painting by Francis Goya. If you’re familiar with Francis Goya, he’s a classic master of art, and the painting was very expressive itself. Wolf can be seen in so many different ways, and that was the inspiration of the wolf. It can be very deep and depends on everyone how they want to see it. Some people call it inner fear. Some just said, it’s my shadow. And everyone named it differently. We encourage that.

I’m very interested to know how did you incorporate everything in a game? How did you develop it to be exact? What engine did you use?

It was like a process of trials and errors. More as it is a process of trials and learning. Because the game is very atmospheric, there’s paintings and all of it, but at the same time, it’s a puzzle platformer with the pencil art that’s very detailed. So we wanted to marry the two. There is chaotic environment with a very precise details. They give emphasis on the elements of a puzzle platformer, because there’s that precise element, that kind of almost clear cut of the ground. We explored Unity.

Obviously, there’s so many engines out there, but we settled with Unity because there’s the C sharp element of it, where you can make things very precise. And it’s also a physics based, so it’s worked very well. Take the paintings and just kind of slice them in a way that it can. We make paintings, and then we go through a process of remaking them again for Unity.

The thing I liked the most about this game are the animations, I was stunned how well they were made and put into the game. How did you do it?

We call it painting animation, which can have different names in different places. Where you have moments when you have one background and then something happens, and then the background completely changed to something else, or moments where you have background and then you see subtle changes. So that’s called painting animation.

When you capture one frame of the painting, then you can capture other frames, like other versions of that painting. It really happened just by scanning number of versions of that painting. So I would, let’s say, make part of it; scan it, make some brushstroke, then scan it again. In the end, it was the accumulation of scanning of these images that made it the painting animation.

That’s mostly for the backgrounds, for the ground is the same thing. You would take a part of the ground and then take a scan and then add some brush strokes. By end of the day, you loop between these kind of different scans, which will make it feel alive and breathing. Almost like giving a breath to a painting in a way.

I’d like to know is how did you make the paint for a puzzle? Did you firstly had the puzzle in mind?

It leans a lot on art and painting, but it’s a video game first and video game rules dictated everything like the puzzle elements. We followed the principles of level design. Let’s say, having clear goal, having consistency, and making sure that all the interactive elements look the same that dictated anything else in the game, the art style, and it just limited us in a way. So the puzzle elements were there first. Everything started with the story, with the emotions; what emotions we want to capture.

For example, there is a scene the warmth of a sun where the character chases a cicada. We always had in mind what’s the feeling we want to capture and from that, then we started choosing the puzzle type. We also choose the colors or the painting. Then we’ll do the art, but emotions first. Basically, puzzles would dictate the art style and the art.

Did you also have in mind when you were creating puzzles that you wanted to have something specific for that theme? In sense if you wanted to have a specific puzzle just for that theme?

Yes and no, if it’s to capture certain emotions. Let’s say, about a certain theme, then we’ll definitely lean on certain kind of puzzles. And from that puzzle, we’ll pick the arts. Like, everything will come after that. It’s about the theme, but also at the same time, it’s about the overall game theme as well, and not just one specific theme. So you have to be specific about the certain place, but at the same time, you have to kind of go back and check if it’s going to work with everything else. And sometimes this sequence may not work.

What kind of impressions did you get from people and players in general when it comes to puzzles?

The aspect of trials came quickly, because it’s kind of a game about self reflection and just life in general. It is kind of a very known theme in life, just in the aspect of trying. We’ve seen it in Limbo as well, that we love so much, and we wanted to incorporate it. And I understand there’s the other layer of it, which is, timing and making things kind of come together in a certain sequence.

For example, the bison. You can approach it many ways, or you can approach it while coming with the expectation this game is going to be difficult. Maybe it would be a little bit less frustrating. But if you come from it, just looking at it as a pure game with no kind of story behind it, maybe you’ll find it a little bit more challenging. So it depends on the player and their experience. They’re free just to take it from whatever aspect they would like to take it.

I’m aware of it. We hear comments saying about the timing. The timing of the game is not that easy. It needs to be precise. We heard that the players were saying, coming from their expectation, they knew that it will be like that, then they felt not surprised and kind of almost ready for the experience. So, every player is different. They can approach it in however way they want it. It’s their own experience. We heard so many different things about the game and that what makes us as creators very happy, because there is no negative or positive way of looking at the game. Just sharing that experience is what excites us as creators, because people approaching it differently, seeing it differently from their own perspective without us as creators imposing any kind of interpretation.

So what were your expectations when you released the game on Steam? Did you expect to get some certain positive reviews or negative reviews?

I would say, just like any creator, you hope for the best, right? But just embracing the spirit of Unleaving, which is kind of letting go a little bit of control, letting go of expectations. I had to approach the release the same way. I think my biggest hope was just for people to connect on a deeper level and to make their own meaning out of the game. It helped me, but it’s just approaching reviews or approaching how people’s perception in a way that’s not associated in a negative or a positive way. There’s no negative or positive for me.

I know the way Steam works. There’s either positive or negative. And I know, even some people mentioned when they were leaving reviews, they didn’t want to leave one or the other. They just wanted to talk about their experience. We hope it will exist in Steam and other platforms in the future. Players can just share their own experience without kind of putting them all black or white, negative or positive. You experience something the way you see it and you just want to share that. And that’s really what the game is about, learning about approaching things from a different perspective and just being curious.

So as creators, I have to adapt kind of the same mentality. Actually it became more of my personal habit as I was developing the game. Just to always kind of detach from judging things, good or bad and just look at things as a learning experience. There’s a lot of different reviews, different opinions and that is what really makes me happy as a creator, just seeing how many different perceptions are there.

And that’s what we wanted as creators, just to see people connecting on a deeper level. That they are willing to say they enjoyed the art aspect. They were willing to say how they experience other parts and not labeling them as bad or good. It’s an experience and that’s it.

Can you maybe share how many people wishlisted it?

The whole theme of Unleaving is about just being open to and also there’s always the status quo with the expectation. The game is not about measurement. It’s not about fitting in a box. What is success? Is it black or white or what is negative or positive or this or that? Our aim is that people will take that from Unleaving, embracing the unknown. Not everything can be quantified and listed and known.

That’s what we always talk about; how much you sell, what’s the wishlist? But I did not even approach it as creator from that perspective. I wouldn’t keep checking it myself because I didn’t approach the game from perspective of quantifying success in any way. Quantifying failure. For me, there’s no failure or success. It’s all an experience. And we’re here not to label it, but to experience it.

How was the experience at PAX East?

It was an amazing experience. I had no expectation where I was going. It impacted us hugely because it was COVID and we were isolated. We were getting used to not seeing a lot of people, not seeing a lot of game developers, not seeing a lot of players. And then when we went to PAX East, it just impacted us a lot. I did the live painting and that was the first time anyone could do the live painting during the event.

It was another layer we wanted to just test and see how players respond to it. I went with the intention just to make live painting by myself. But then as players were approaching the booth, they were so interested just to be part of the experience. I had to kind of step back myself and open live painting for players themselves.

I gave them the same color palette, the same material that I would use to create Unleaving. I guided them with some principles on how I would make the game. They followed the same guidelines, but they added their own touch to it and we captured different frames from different players. By end of the day, it just looked like an animated painting done by players themselves, which was mind blowing just to see. Also, the players themselves, as they were live painting, they added some touches that confirmed what we want to do in the game itself.

Can we expect similar games from you, or are you going to try something else?

I’m still figuring out the answer to it, but I would say definitely it will be something artistic. It’ll be something about telling a story. I can’t say obviously tell if it’s going to be a puzzle platformer or not. For me, it’s my favorite kind of genres, but maybe there’s a room to experience as well and explore other things.

What kind of advices would you give to others based on your experience?

This question gives me shivers. Thank you for asking that. I would definitely say to lose the fear of judgment as soon as you can, because if you remove that, you’re so free to be creative. You’re so free to make amazing things and make your vision come into life, assuming that the others will also support you and help you and to find the believers.

I believe the gaming community has been a huge part of my journey myself. As I mentioned, PAX East was one of them. Also, COVID, being online, talking to other game devs and players. Personally, it felt very supportive and I encourage people just to trust more – their community because they’ll see wonderful things. Trust in the community, maybe. That’s what I would say.