A week ago we reviewed Zeliria Sanctuary, a Visual Novel developed by Salangan Games. A fantastic and intense Visual Novel, with large amounts of content in a surprising emotional side, filled with unexpected adventures.
The game has already gathered a Very Positive status on Steam, and was all together very well received. We’re not really surprised by its success, considering we’ve really enjoyed the game, it was to be expected!
Our dear purple rat Humkey made this adventure incredibly fun and we just had to contact the developers and Interview them, to extract even more out of his world. Thankfully, they really are out of this planet, and with the permission of the entire Salangan civilization, they accepted our request!
Please, we ask our dear readers to check our Zeliria Sanctuary Review.
This is the interview conducted during the month of January, in 2019, and it’s a direct transcription of the conversation between myself representing Sinical Anime Network (SAN) and Salangan Games (S.G.).
SAN: First of all, I would like to thank you for your time in the name of our community for your availability, and granting us the pleasure of this interview.
Have you personally worked in gaming development in the past, or is this your first creation?
S.G: This is our first project. Nobody worked in game development before. We just wanted to try and we did it.
SAN: Is there any particular reason for Humkey being purple? Assuming him being a rat was based on the collective behavior of rats, mention in the game!
S.G: That's a funny story. Our script writer wanted to somehow explain why he is invisible. He thought like 'purple is the last color in the rainbow; Umari and Zelirians can see all colors except it'. When he told that to the others, we laughed and explained him some physics, but we liked the idea to make Humkey purple. It looked unusual. By the way, it is not the one such story about Humkey. Our translator once misprinted 'humster' instead of 'hamster'. Now we all call Humkey a humster and even put it like that in the trailer and some artworks.
SAN: With the recent full-nudity patch, do you think Visual Novels can benefit from adult content, or was that an idea you always wanted to have in Zeliria Sanctuary?
S.G: You see, when you say Visual Novel you mean nudity and sexual scenes. It may be sad, but it is so. When one thinks about visual novels, he usually thinks about some Japanese pieces of this genre (beautiful naked girls and not very complicated plot). We wanted to make a successful project, so we had to do some fancy footwork between the philosophy we wanted to include and half-naked girls the market demands.
SAN: Do you have plans for a DLC, or will the side quests be added in the future for free?
S.G: We plan to make a DLC, but the biggest part of the story will be told in the sequel. If the first is successful enough, of course.
SAN: Although you're still working on the game, would you like to have some sort of sequel or spin-off? Or do you feel this is the final step of the story of our little Humkey?
S.G: We have a lot to tell you. Zeliria is big and it hides a lot of mysteries.
SAN: We know the translation to English was a huge effort, and we're all very pleased to have it launched on Steam with full English. We also know Russian support from the fans is pretty huge right now, do you feel having English language is important when launching a game on Steam?
S.G: English is not just important, it is essential. We'd like to make some other translations (Spanish and Chinese, e.g), but English is a must.
SAN: If possible, would you have liked to use RPG elements in the game? There are so much context and items, it almost feels like everything has to be an RPG now a days, did you ever felt that pressure?
S.G: RPG demands more money and efforts. We have two coders in our team who work with Ren'py, but for RPG you'll need something more complex. We thought about it and understood, we can't afford it now.
SAN: Will Itch get the full version of the game as well? Did you ponder other platforms like GOG? If you did, was their responsive positive? Or do you feel Steam is really becoming a niche for Visual Novel fans?
S.G: No, Steam is not a niche for this kind of games. But it is the biggest platform for now. I'm not sure that GOG accepts visual novels; we'll check it. As for the other platforms - the bad thing is that they don't have any piracy defense. And piracy is a problem in our country.
SAN: We take it that you're a video-game fan, and we always ask; what are your favorite games?
S.G: We have four people in our team now and each of us has his own favourite games :) WOW for scriptwriter, The Witcher for PR manager, a big number of visual novels for coder (he couldn't choose one), Heroes 3 and 4 for the sound designer.
SAN: To wrap up, thank you very much for your time and availability. Please feel free to leave any message for our readers.
S.G: Thank you for your interest. It was a pleasure to communicate with you. May the humster be ever in your favor.
Sinical Anime Network would like to thank Salangan Games for the time, availability, and for providing us with details and extra info on Zeliria Sanctuary.
We recommend our readers to visit Salangan Games Official Website and learn more about the game, and its concept.
Don't lose a single update;
Buy it now and enjoy a fantastic and unique Visual Novel.