At this year’s PAX East convention we got to see and interview a number of games and game developers across PC and consoles. One such game we got to check out is Endless Night: The Darkness Within, a new and psychological metroidvania game by Little Guy Games.

Without further ado, get our interview with Little Guy Games below:

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Can you introduce yourself and tell us about Endless Night: The Darkness Within?

So, my name is Tom Franczel. I’m CEO of Little Guy Games and creative director on Endless Night: The Darkness Within. The game is about Jake, the main character, who is haunted by his childhood trauma and is trapped in a nightmare’s dream world that is shaped by his subconscious mind. And to escape, he has to face his fears, battle inner demons, and piece together the fragments of who he once was. And this is wrapped up in this dreamlike, metroidvania-style, 2.5D platformer that’s heavy on story, combat.

So you basically are this martial artist in this dream, so you can, like, learn combat. There are some RPG elements. You can equip your character with different gear that will change his move sets and the way that you would play him. You have to kind of find your reason why you’re there. Why you’re in this dream?

Now, what kind of directed you to go this pathway and this style of game, or what was the inspiration behind the actual game itself?

Yeah. That’s a great question. So, childhood trauma and overcoming that in my own life has been an interesting path. And, I’ve researched a lot of things as a result, you know, of that condition, you could say. I wanted to make a game about it ’cause it’s… I think it’s interesting. The recovery from trauma is very interesting, what kind of things it can open up in your life, what kind of growth you can experience. It’s crappy, but it’s also beautiful at the same time; there’s this duality to it. That’s kinda what the game explores. Duality is a central theme in Endless Night.

So, can you tell me about your previous history in the industry, what you worked on, and how that has kind of flown into the game that you’re making now?

Cool. Yeah. So, I started my journey with video games. I was one of the co-founders of Capybara Games, which is a local indie dev studio from Toronto as well. We started the company together. That was sometime in the early 2000s. I think 2003. And then, left Capy and started LGG in 2009. And, you know, I’ve worked in the industry for a long time. Started with cellphone gaming, did work with a lot of different companies and brands. Did some stuff, did a mobile game for Pixar’s Cars when the film, the animated film, was coming out. Worked on some original IP games as well. And about 10 years ago, I started developing this story for Endless Night. It’s been a long journey. Three years ago, we started making this game.

So, you said you started it 10 years ago. Was it just like the idea and getting the story components where you’re like, “I wanna take it this way,”? Or just like storyboarding, or in what manner? Obviously with three years ago, was that where you just wanted to seek funding and other people to publish it, or was there?

Well, 10 years ago, I was basically conceptualizing the story. There was a game from the same universe called The Last Sky that we made. We released it on Steam, it was a massive failure, and it was the first incarnation of the story, but then it didn’t do well. Microsoft wanted us to port that game onto the Xbox. We didn’t want to port something that we thought was bad, basically, so we started from scratch. 

Developed the game and started to kinda zone in and hone in on that, on that story. Yeah, it’s a personal story, but it’s also a universal story, and, you know, there are other stories that are not personal. But the main thrust of the story is personal, and it took a while for me to hone in on exactly what that story is going to be, if that makes sense.

Now, obviously with you saying it’s more of a personal story, is it something you wanna share directly with our audience, or kind of have them infer or? Everyone has their own childhood trauma a and obviously, sharing isn’t always what everyone wants to do. So, how do you/ what are your ways of delivering it without maybe oversharing or keeping some secrets to yourself?

Yeah, definitely keeping things to myself as well, but also sharing. I wanted to share one, you know, one of the main things in the game, because that’s been the cause for his trauma, or one of the causes. I guess, as a form of catharsis, as a form of healing, as a form of homage.  There are many reasons why I wanted to share that, that particular trauma. And I can’t really fully rationalize them, but yeah.I mean, a lot of our traumas are something that we’ve forgotten, but it still linger with us.

Do you know what EMDR is?

Isn’t it a form of therapy?

Yeah, it’s a form of therapy, yeah. They do like emotional, mental deconstructing and remembering. Basically try to put yourself back into a scenario where, “Oh, I have a fear of snakes.” Okay, can you remember when you started to develop that feeling? How do you feel? What happens through your body/like psychologically? Then, they try to recreate that to help you remember and then deconstruct why you felt that way. Then you try to figure how to process it into possible positive feelings or manners that aren’t as destructive. So I don’t like heights. So obviously, they’re not gonna put me up in a scaffolding first and be like, “Okay. Deal with it.”

They could, they could in virtual reality.

Yeah. [laughs] I still will be like, “Nope, I’m sitting on the ground-“

But actually, you know, you could for those phobia types of things, exposure is the only way, right? To treat them. But VR could be applicable. I was thinking about that a lot. Like, would… Because I also don’t like heights.

Would training in VR prepare you at all for going up? I don’t know.

I don’t know either.

I know that when I was playing it, I was scared. Like, in VR, balancing on these beams. I felt that fear. So, it does trigger some of it, but it’s an interesting topic, like fear in general, right?

where does it come from? So we all have kind of instinctive fears as well, through I wanna say evolution in a way. Because we all like, as you… Other generations, obviously, “Don’t put your hand in a fire.” But you teach children things are hot, it’ll hurt at a very young age. But imagine the first person at a bonfire. He’s like, “Ow.”

Like, fear is an interesting thing from an evolutionary standpoint, but also the psychological fear, right? The physical fear is something that we experience. The psychological fear is the stuff that we put on ourselves that’s kind of phantom.

I saw the airplanes referenced. Do you just have a fear of heights or a fear of flying?

I used to have a massive fear of flying. But I also tried this game in virtual reality once, where there was a paraglider. You were suspended. So my brain thought I was really flying. And at that moment, I was in love with it. I was like, “Wow, I need to, I need to do some paragliding.” 

Before that, I got into meditation and was able to overcome it through meditation. But the reference in the game is that Jake, there’s like the dream content and the latent content in dreams, right? So the game is about dreams. So the dream content is that he’s a pilot. Planes are very symbolic in the game, but the latent content is, it’s a metaphor for like the fear, basically, the fear of flying.

Now, what made you decide to go for like a metrovania style versus a first-person, third-person, or any other kind of 3D style for telling your narrative experience?

That’s a great question, because when we started developing the concept, which was
about a decade ago, and we conceptualized it out. Our capabilities as a studio were that we could make a platformer, but doing, trying to do something bigger than that at that time would’ve been maybe scary. And when our concept artist drew out the character and the world, it was kind of drawn from a side perspective. That was like a natural transition from the picture, the concept, to the game.

It seemed at that point like a good thing. But our first game, The Last Sky, which has has been discontinued. It has a third-person component. So you walk around the house solving puzzles, and you’re an old Jake. So you’re aging and you go to sleep and stuff. Like, it’s kind of like this old age, but we didn’t put the old age Jake in this version.

So in the background, I see a Shaman. What is his rule in the game?

So, shaman is interesting because the shamans came from Siberia. The original shamans. The word shaman. The medicine men are the Native Americans. And with their spirituality and their mythology and stuff,  it’s really dope too. But this shaman is like your sherpa through this dream world. And sort of your guide in it. Like Morpheus in The Matrix.

So, is there a red pill, blue pill scenario?

There is. There’s a red dot and, purple dot.

Now that brings up the accessibility aspect because some people can’t see red, some people can’t see purple because of the variation of red, and you have that blue background. How do you kind of tackle that with the accessibility aspect? Because if I’m looking at a blue background and I can see blue, that purple dot’s gonna be a different variation of blue or, even a bluish gray.

I think we probably will have to do it through a menu setting, flip the color palette somehow. Shift it into the safe zone. That’s a great point.

Even when you look at, like, God of War, how they tackle it with the multiple colorblindness.

Definitely for QA and community feedback as well, is what it’s gonna be, giving the information needed to the devs, and we’re super involved with getting feedback here. And also, just once the demo goes up on Steam, as will be very open to community feedback.

Now, I heard the previous guy talking about how he didn’t like you going forward when punching. And I’m like, most martial arts teach you to go forward because you lead with momentum. Now with karate, you can do back punches, but it’s more of a defensive maneuver. But in this game, it’s more about facing your fears and facing those interactions. So obviously, a defensive maneuver, you don’t want to have those in, even with psychology.

So was that kind of like the mentality with the combat, or was it just how the combat worked out?

Well, no. It was because he does three hits. Like, the first one is with the lanterns. He goes like this, and if you were to do those hits, it is better to do them in motion because you are getting that momentum.

So that was the decision. That was the reason why. But because he brought it up, I wanna take a look at it and see, because I think the previous guy also said, “I don’t like combat.” And he left abruptly. And so we get a look at it because maybe there’s a way to reduce the momentum.

Happy medium. Now, for those who don’t like combat at all in games, obviously, the story is about facing the fear/it feels like it could be more of a narrative aspect. Have there been any thoughts about removing the combat for those who want to play on a different mode? For those who don’t want to participate in combat but still want to experience the story like with QTE.

So, spoiler alert. But there is some, because, you know, there’s some Buddhism in the game too. And, you know, obviously combat… You have Shaolin monks, I guess. But combat is generally not something that you’re taught to do in Buddhism. It’s always like finding a peaceful way. Peaceful conflict resolution. So, there is a world in the game called Transcendence. And in Transcendence, some stuff goes down. And maybe stuff happens.

With it being in development for 10 years since the original storyboarding idea. Now, three years with the actual development cycle. How close would you say it is to the actual release versus open beta? 

There goes the plane. The demo of it will be launching in a few days. So in about a week we’ll launch the demo. And then hopefully we can start to build a little community around it and get some feedback going. That’s the plan.

Now the game banner says it is coming to Xbox as well. When do you expect that will be?

At the moment, we will be focusing on how it does on Steam and the community’s take on it. In fact, it is mostly thanks to Microsoft that the game is being made. A woman at Microsoft named Sarita discovered us, and it is because of her that this game is being made, because there was no way this game would have been born without her. So I wanna thank her and give her a special shout out for that. She’s been instrumental in getting this game made. And now we’re here. We’re here at PAX. It’s awesome. It’s amazing.

Now, is there anything else you’d like to share with our audience that I might not have asked?

You asked amazing questions. You really sniped a lot of really good questions. I guess the one thing that I want to mention is we wanted to create an environment that is conducive to feeling, getting into a sense of flow, and feeling those kinds of vibes.

So that’s why when you’re like hovering/gliding, it is about that like resonance or like how can you move in a manner? Even the movement is very floaty. So I think there’s a lot of that in our lives, there’s a lot of very discreet, fast kind of patterns. And so we’re like breaking it up into like more of flowy pattern. 

So, how did you meet Sarita?

I met Sarita in a very funny way. We had a meeting scheduled at GDC, and I was late for the meeting. I was running late. And,I finally found the location, go inside, checked in, go inside the room. Like super tired with my laptop bag, ready to show her the game. And, you know, she’s not amused that I’m late. But I plugged everything in, showed her the game, and it was very early on, but it was a platform. She saw it and she came over to the TV screen so she could hear the music and she was like, “Wow, this sounds… This sounds, it sounds interesting.” And from that moment on, we’ve always had meetings with Microsoft basically because of that meeting.

Now you brought up a good point with music. Because sometimes music makes or breaks platformers or Metroidvanias. What inspired the music or are you doing musical direction? Did you bring somebody else in? 

Yeah, music is a huge part of the game. And it’s kind of similar to the rest of the game, what feels good, what kind of music feels good to particular scenes. But there’s gonna be different genres of music. Because I like different genres of music, and I would love to be able to convey that. My girlfriend, who’s a musician, will also have a few tracks, and there’s going to be another guest track from another partner that we’re working with. And there will be some hip hop, maybe just a couple of tracks, because I love hip hop.

So it’s more like sampling, or you’re actually gonna have to reach out to these studios? Because that’s a whole headache.

I would much rather work with like a young hip hop up-and-coming artist, you know, that wants to showcase their music. One of the things in this game, we’re gonna do some things that you haven’t seen in video games before. 

Like, I know it sounds cliche, but- but for real, we’re- we’re gonna redefine in some ways what a game is and communicate with the player beyond just the frame of the game. So one of the ideas is, how can we share music from up-and-coming artists? So maybe there will be an area where that kind of thing can happen, you know? And we’re thinking about it. But yeah, that would be one way in which we get to showcase people’s music.

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Endless Night: The Darkness Within is in development for Windows PC (via Steam) and Xbox consoles sometime in Q3 of 2025.