KeokeN talks Deliver Us Home’s successful funding, Game Pass, and much more

Nicole Rodrigues-Galdo: Deliver Us The Moon was originally kickstarted back in 2016 with 2,840 backers and €103,770 made; this time Deliver Us Home has been backed by 2,394 backers and €114,278 made. It seems that fans who have been here since the start have returned to support you through your third installment. How does this make you feel?

KeokeN Interactive: It is incredible to have yet another Deliver Us title successfully crowdfunded. Taking into consideration the platform changed a lot over time and still returns successful (eight years since our first Kickstarter in 2016). That means our gut-feeling was right and our community would show up to help us out. It makes you feel proud and immensely grateful how many people showed up and put in their efforts to make this campaign succeed with us.

NRG: Deliver Us The Moon was eventually released on Game Pass, why was it removed and why didn’t Deliver Us Mars receive the same treatment?

KN: It takes some effort to negotiate yourself for a spot on Game Pass in the first place, its carefully curated by Microsoft Xbox, so in the end its always a combined effort of developer and publisher when the stars align. Since we have two different publishers for both games, strategies also differ. If it’s granted, we’d love to see Deliver Us Mars on Game Pass one day (as we know a lot of fans are on the platform), but for now you can access the game through the Xbox Store.

NRG: Do you believe Game Pass helped to drive Deliver Us The Moon’s success?

KN: Absolutely, as an indie it’s very important to be discovered and Gamepass is a great place to do so. I’ve tried out many new indie-games myself on the platform and was surprised by a lot of them. Games I would otherwise not have on my radar immediately. I think for Deliver Us The Moon it was one of the catalysts that helped spread the word more out there.

NRG: Deliver Us Mars was not Kickstarted, why was that?

KN: True, although it was on the verge of releasing on there (the project still exists on Kickstarter in draft). After we’ve set the bar of our ambition in the studio and an opportunity arose for us to get the game funded and published, we took the chance immediately as these things are not guaranteed easily in the games industry.

NRG: The intro to Deliver Us The Moon was incredibly captivating and was the moment I personally fell in love with the series. Both games have swept us off our feet with moments like this. How do you come up with these moments and develop them?

KN: Most events in the Deliver Us Series start with a few high-level visions, themes and directions we’d like to explore in a new title. For example, with Deliver Us The Moon, we really wanted to have you take-off with a rocket as an Astronaut, as astronauts describe this trip as very memorable. Something that we built-upon in Deliver Us Mars where it was done even bigger. Or what better way to evoke the dangers of space when you are thrown out of the station and feel how fragile the astronaut really is in a vacuum that feels this endless. The idea was simpler, but how it turned out is mostly done because of the team and how these disciplines get the experience together.

NRG: I am currently listening to the soundtracks as I write these questions. How did you choose Sander Van Zanten as your composer and will he be returning for Deliver Us Home?

KN: Sander literally and figuratively walked into the studio one day and that was the moment! He came by as an aspiring game-composer that was already gifted on the musical parts, to playtest our first attempt at a (horror) game back in 2013, before we embarked on ‘MoonMan’ now known as Deliver Us The Moon. Also, the first project he officially started working on as our composer and sound designer. With him also featuring in Deliver Us Mars and the sound and music being very recognizable throughout our series, he’s absolutely planned to be with us for Deliver Us Home.

NRG: In Deliver Us The Moon we play as Rolf uncovering the abandonment of the Moon colonies, through audio and hologram logs. How did you come to the decision to tell your story like this?

KN: At KeokeN we’ve always had big ambitions in mind when it comes to our creating our games. As Deliver Us The Moon was a narrative driven adventure, we wanted to evoke a sense of mystery but keep it realistic and give you that drive forward. Uncovering the story bit by bit the more you progress as Rolf but also as a player, just really clicked. However our ambitions were always more than just audio & logs. Looking at the AAA games out there, we dreamed of doing full-fledged motion capture and face animations. Something that we were enabled with in Deliver Us Mars, a dream ambition come true.

NRG: At the end of Deliver Us The Moon, Rolf finds that Sarah was saved by Isaac out of guilt for all the things he did. Deliver Us Mars follows Isaac’s daughter Kathy. Was the plan to always have a sequel and have Kathy as the lead character?

KN: We’ve always envisioned Deliver Us to be a series “franchise” rather than a one-off game. However, that wasn’t the case for our lead character yet. It was the early-days in 2019-2020 where we had deep brainstorms and discussions on doing a sequel and what would be the best character to lead this story. What we did know was it should’ve been a ‘Johanson’ or something that revolved around this family since Isaac invented the MPT system a life-saving solution for humankind.

NRG: Isaac is a fascinating “villain,” why did you choose to follow his story, and will we see more of the consequences of Isaac’s decisions in Deliver Us Home?

KN: In Deliver Us The Moon it wasn’t as clear that Isaac was developing into the villain. McArthur really took the stage there and took the lead into this villain type, only at the end, you could taste the change and indifference in his actions.

NRG: Isaac is quite the complex character, it gives a great opportunity to play around with his development and it makes him very hard to predict.

KN: Deliver Us Home will once again be a standalone game fully packed with mystery and suspense and will most definitely be connected to the universe lore and any unsolved or unexplained lose ends.

NRG: Onto less ideal things. In April KeokeN had to lay off most of the team. This must have been devastating, but you are managing to survive and continue despite this. What did that day look like for you?

KN: As a studio director, developer, friend and as human it’s something you wish you’ll never have to do. It’s heartbreaking, demoralizing and very unfulfilling. Even though we’ve prepared and warned the team for this long before it happened. When the day eventually comes it feels like you’ve still failed them. Even after our countless attempts on securing ‘any’ possible way to forth exist with the team intact. For the most part and due to our large transparency we’ve had nothing more than understanding from our employees. We shared tears, hugs, and did whatever we could to help them find a new place (and still do).

NRG: How has Wired Productions supported you through the days since the layoffs?

KN: Wired Productions has been very supportive towards our situation on multiple occasions. Not only this time but also in the past they’ve been pivotal in helping when it mattered. This is not just your regular publisher, they really care for their developers and situations with everything in their power. You can clearly see the bond between us in shipping yet another version of Deliver Us The Moon on Switch years after the original release.

NRG: Deliver Us The Moon is on Switch. Are there any plans of releasing or working on Deliver Us Mars for the Switch?

KN: It’s amazing to finally see the game on Nintendo Switch, also part of our collection of dreams. As you probably understand we’ve gone through the roughest patch we’ve had throughout the studio’s 10 years of existence. However we are always on the lookout to make more out of our established games and will always try to get the game to more audiences if possible, a great example of that is Deliver Us The Moon on Switch 5 years after its original release.

NRG: With the success of this new Kickstarter, how does the future of KeokeN Interactive look?

KN: Right now we’ve been granted a chance by our community to develop the third installment of the series. We’ve promised to build our studio back up brick by brick, and this is the first brick of a more hopeful future. Paul and I (as its now just us again) will slowly build back a team and project that the fans deserve. We can’t wait to reveal what we have planned for Deliver Us Home as it’s exciting just as how we started the company and Deliver Us The Moon back in the day.

NRG: Is this the final installment in the Deliver Us The Moon series? If so, what are your plans after this?

KN: As shown in our big prototype reveal at GDC, there was an idea on getting a Deliver Us game specifically for VR and to have an exciting idea for a spin-off. Right now, the situation is very different. Currently our focus is completely on Deliver Us Home and to make a worthy successor.

NRG: Finally, what thoughts would you like to share with the audience?

KN: I would like to thank everyone that has put faith in us. It’s hard to have a comeback after the events that passed, but the love of making games is real and we can’t think of a better way to fill our time than to develop the next Deliver Us Game that will surely surprise everyone!