Good sound design is a sign of a good video game, and in the gothic gloom of Crisol: Theater of Idolsenemies are heard before they are seen. The painted, repainted and semi-rotten wood of the splintered (the basic enemy of this game), creaks and creaks, as these polychrome, religious-looking wooden carvings rise from the shadows to chase the player. Sound also matters when it depends on not being found and torn to pieces by Dolores, an imposing monstrosity of bones and heavy armor that seems to have come from the cross between the relic of Mary Magdalene’s skull and something from the universe of Warhammer 40.000. Everything lurks in the darkness of Tormentosa (the island where the story takes place).
David Tornero, the creative director behind the virtual world of Crucibleremembers how on a walk through Granada during Holy Week he saw in the iconography of Catholicism, in the golden reliquaries that hide the bones of saints and in the large carvings of the processions, something that scared and inspired him: “If these statues come to life, I will die here,” he thought. “In the end, all that realism, that polychrome, those hairs that are real and always with torture and suffering… well, it generates a disturbing sensation,” explains Tornero. This game comes from that concern.
Created by the young Madrid studio Vermila Studios, Crisol: Theater of Idols It is its first title (it arrives in the Steam digital store and on consoles on February 10), which also arrives protected by the development arm of the great American film horror house, Blumhouse. The American studio has extended its successful financing and creative freedom model—investing in horror projects indie with relatively low budgets and collect ample dividends, in the best style of the king of B-movie horror. Roger Corman— to the field of video games through Blumhouse Games, a project created in February 2023 and with Crucible among his most notable titles.
Mechanics made in blood
Terror is not only the theme, but also the way of playing within the game: the weapons used by Gabriel, the protagonist on this journey through Stormy, have his own blood as ammunition. David Carrasco, CEO of Vermila, argues that “the enemies are inorganic, since the organic passes through the protagonist; the enemies are never going to give you blood, they are never going to give you ammunition”, which reinforces the identity of survival horror of the video game, and forces the player not to advance like crazy as in other games of the style Doom (although Gabriel’s shotgun honors Doomguy’s). It is better to wait a moment, analyze the space and see where you can advance without having to face all the enemies or where it is best to use the knife – which in an inspired touch must be sharpened periodically in one of the typical sharpeners that are found in Spanish cities and towns. Everything is to conserve some of the few blood bullets.
Regarding weapons, it is worth highlighting for lovers of gore and the discomfort that even the act of reloading is bloody and reinforces the idea of force of martyrdom that runs throughout the game. As David Tornero reflects, they sought to achieve a “sense of pain and sacrifice.” The gun, for example, pricks the hand holding it with several needles to extract bullets. But the prize for the discomfort goes to the rifle, because to reload it Gabriel reaches his hand against the bolt on the side and pulls it. “It is one of the weapons that I believe reflects that feeling of pain the most,” Tornero says proudly.
The creative act
Upon entering Hispania (a disrupted and timeless version of Spain, where the story takes place) of Crisol: Theater of Idolsclues may emerge to the player as to which games have inspired and given their DNA to this creation. Helena Sánchez, the team’s Senior 3D Lead, remembers how, when people started playing the prototype, they began to hear that it was defined Crucible like a Bioshock Spanish. “The entire art team commented, ‘My goodness, what nerves,’” he explains. Tornero echoes this sentiment: “Bioshock It is one of my favorite sagas par excellence, so clearly the influence is there, I am not going to deny it. In the end the fun is in taking those influences, and making something your own and unique.” The influence of the iconic shooter The horror can be seen in the designs of the store mascots, in the style of the posters and in the black humor that has been healthily spread over the island of Tormentosa by the Vermila Studios team. Which, with only 25 developers, is a real project indie in the same vein as the French studio behind the highly acclaimed Chiaroscuro: Expedition 33last year’s sensation.
With the protection of Blumhouse, the Spaniards have made full use of their creative muscles, by making all the assets —3D resources used as elements in a video game— Cruciblewhich has allowed them not simply to fill the screen, but to cook the folklore created by Tornero within each room that the player finds. Since the presence of leitmotif maritime on the enemies – when the splintered They are not chasing the player, you can see in them the presence of scales, hooks and other thematic pieces that encapsulate the beliefs of these monsters, worthy of HP Lovecraft’s oceanic Innsmouth, even the houses themselves that seek to evoke the Spanish essence.
As Carrasco explains: “Many times I have seen projects that say, ‘Yes, this is Spanish, but it is a Spanish thing’. We wanted to escape from that parody aspect of Spain. We wanted to create a tribute to a very long history, with many artistic components, but avoiding stereotypes.” For example, with the architecture of Hispania, “it will remind you of things that exist, but nothing is real: we have created everything from scratch thinking about that identity of Crucible”, he points out.
A song plays among the Vermila Studios computers: it is a version made for the game in the key of epic folklore, whose lyrics come from a 16th century poem, which prays and crystallizes the adventure of Crucible: “Oh death so rigorous, let me live one day / One day cannot be, you have one hour of life…”. From his office, the creative soul of the game, David Tornero, meditates on the final nature of the work: “It is not just a horror game, it is an adventure where there is terror, joy, sadness, humor… because at the end of the day, when you go through the crucible, I think it will be a roller coaster of emotions. That you say: ‘I have experienced many things.’