Anyone who has ever worked a corporate job will find something relatable inDev_Hell,the upcoming roguelikedeck-building gamefrom Unhinged Studios. Players take on the role of a nameless, faceless drone initially thrilled with their new job at a software development company until they learn there’s something sinister going on behind the scenes.Dev_Hellis a brutally realistic, gut-bustlingly hilarious take on the mundane realities of the 40-hour in-office workday, complete with performance reviews, horrible-tasting coffee, incompetent bosses, and more.
Game Rant sat down with the Unhinged Studios team, game director Don Westerndorp and creative director Del Sharratt, to talk all thingsDev_Hell.The team discussed their inspirations, which included games likeInscryptionandPapers, Pleaseas well as TV shows likeThe Office,their own favorite and least favorite parts of the corporate grind, the game’s photo-realistic art style, and how the COVID-19 pandemic nearly changed the entire shape ofDev_Hell.This transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.
The Making of Dev_Hell
Q: Which came first - “I want to make a game about corporate culture” or “I want to make aroguelikedeck-building game?”
WESTENDORP:This is kind of a long story, but I initially came up with the idea in the middle of a sprint planning meeting. I made a joke to my product manager: what if we made agame that was likePapers, Please, but it was JIRA. You were the product manager, you had to ensure all the tickets were meeting their goals, and you had a time crunch to look through each thing and make sure it met its expectations. As I thought through that idea, I realized I’d rather it be more like my job, which is trying to make the team successful, even though there are significant forces that want it not to be.
It was kind of likeSlay the Spire, but each team member was a deck. You’d have to control each team member’s deck, and they’d need to play a card every turn. You’d have a hand that was “the situation you have to deal with,” and then you would play cards against that. That was the original idea. Del got involved in that when we found out that we each had the same background. I said to Del, “Hey, I’m trying to come up with a game around this thing,” and I hoped Del would want to see what happens next.
SHARRATT:As far as our game development background, especially withDev_Hell,we’re looking at making something that combines both of our interests a little bit, so we decided to takeDev_Hellto a second iteration that was morenarratively focused. There weren’t really characters with personalities in the original version. That’s also how we ended up doing the first-person angle, so we could introduce something that was more immersive, more personal, more intimate, and more story-driven as a whole.
WESTENDORP:There was a gap in the middle there too, because the pandemic hit and work-from-home culture started. We thought: this doesn’t really fit that. It could simulate it, but we felt it would be boring if it was justZoom, not showing people in the office together having to really interact. We then took a break and worked on a different game for a little bit, and then we came back to this. Maybe there’s a major content expansion someday - a working-from-home campaign. That’s something we’ve thought about, but we’re going to do this first. Our intent really is the character is you. There’s no gender, there’s no talking, there’s no sound that the character makes. You’re the character. You’re playing as a software developer. We never leave first person.
Q: You described the game as “InscryptionmeetsSeverance.“Could you talk a little bit more about that?
WESTENDORP:TheInscryptionsimilarities started with a joke. Most of my ideas start with a joke. It was around the time Twitter was taken over by Elon Musk, and I wanted to make whatfeels likeInscryption,but, instead of Leshy on the other side of the table, it’s Elon Musk. Well. A caricature of him. Not actually Elon Musk, for legal reasons. You had to play cards against them to keep your job, to prove that your code was salient enough for him to approve of you. But as Del and I talked it through, we thought is this enough of a premise for a game? It’s not the real story we wanted to tell.
Q: IsDev_Hella game that can be enjoyed without prior software development or coding knowledge?
SHARRATT:There are no requirements of former prior software development knowledge in any capacity. There is no actual coding! There’s a lot of terminology, mostly flavor text. Coders might appreciate it a little bit more, little things that poke fun at the industry, but I think that playing the game will also introduce you to that. You might be able to appreciate it, as someone looking in from the outside. It’s absurd if you know what’s happening firsthand and have experienced it, but if you’re seeing it from the outside, it’s almost more absurd. You’re left wondering - is this actually how things go? And it is because there are a lot of ridiculous things in tech.
Q: Like explaining things to a rubber duck!
WESTENDORP:Yes! And the way therubber duckworks in the game, it stays on the board for a certain amount of time. After that amount of time passes, it sends its code out to help you. Like it’s “rubber ducking” for you!
Q: So there are fun little nods that coders and software developers might notice.
WESTENDORP:Yeah! The closest you get to actual coding in the game is that some of the cards have logical operators on them. It’ll say, for example, if this card is played against a bug, then this outcome will happen. And if there’s not a bug on the other side, then something different happens. That’s all actually on the card - it shows you the logic happening.
Corporate Culture in Dev_Hell
Q: I noticed in the trailer that the office you’re working in offers “unlimited coffee” as a perk. How does coffee work inDev_Hell?
WESTENDORP:Dev_Hellis different fromInscryptionin the fact that there’s a mana system, and we call it concentration. You get one concentration per turn to play your cards, and there are a lot of ways that you can generate concentration. One of them is that your coffee can generate an extra concentration per turn - but it’s limited. There are certain encounters where you can refill your cup of coffee. It’s a mechanic to ensure that, if you’re having a bad time, you have a way to get extra mana, but it’s very tightly coupled to that idea. If you have to get coffee too often, it might be detrimental. It’s something that’s there to help you.
The game is based around juggling. The thing we’re trying to do is make you feel like you’re juggling a lot of priorities because that’s really what software development is. It’s like: how do I deal with all these people and still do my job? We have a lot of mechanics that are based around that. One is, if you’re having a particularly hard time, you have a card that you can play once every couple turns called Damage Control. You can put it in the way of something you hadn’t prepared for, so you’re fine if you just have one problem, but we’re going to be throwing a lot of problems at you.
Q: What are some elements of corporate culture you incorporated intoDev_Hell,and why did you choose them?
SHARRATT:I think something that we’re trying to bring forward is, we made the reference toSeverancealready, but there’s also aThe Officeelement to it as well. There are so many aspects of working at a tech workplace: it’s so mundane, but some of the people are just so self-important. Everyone takes everything so seriously, but it’s kind of silly at the same time. There are differing degrees of how seriously everyone in the office is taking it. For me, Kyle is one of our most relatable characters because he’s there just to get paid. He doesn’t enjoy coding. He’s just like: “You enjoy coding. That makes one of us. Like, I’m just here to get through the day.”
WESTENDORP:Oh, and we should talk about the moral ambiguity aspect of it!
SHARRATT:Yeah, I think that’s a big focal point of the game that comes through. We use both a satirical and a commentary angle to examine it. Within the tech industry, no matter what size of team you’re working on or what company you’re working for, you’re ultimately going to be creating products that influence a very large number of people - possibly dramatically larger, depending on the scope of your workspace. There’s this kind of weird nature of: you know you’re in these spaces that are really, really mundane, but there’s a lot of power impacting them.
The moral ambiguity comes through in that. You are working in these really mundane spaces, and it’s easy to just say: you’re there to do your job. But there are implications to you doing work that affects so many people at once. There are these questions to weigh: are you making something that is actually going to benefit people at large? Because it’s going to affect a lot of people, and you get to decide whether or not you want to think about that.
Q: Ooh, so, is the company you’re working for inDev_Hellactually up to shady stuff?
WESTENDORP:Yeah! We’re going to dive into a little bit of that. We want to be specific - you’re definitely working onsomething that’s morally ambiguous. Are you okay with that?
A part of the narrative is going to be, you can just ignore it and do your job if you want to, but most of the game, including the true ending, is going to be behind diving into those narratives, the outside stories in the game. The way you’ll navigate through the encounters will change depending on who you interact with and the way you interact with them.
Q: How many endings will the game have?
WESTENDORP:We don’t really know. We have avery specific true endingin mind, we’re not opposed to other ones, but we really want to make sure the one we have is exactly right first. There’s still some framing around it, we’re trying to figure out exactly how we’re going to deliver it and make sure it’s not bad. We’re asking ourselves, can we make sure it really lands?
Q: But there are many different ways to get to that ending?
WESTENDORP:Yeah, there will be multiple ways to figure out what’s going on. We have a lot of those figured out, and figuring them out will provide very bespoke rewards. For a person playing the game, they can be like, “Oh, I really need this card in my deck. I know if I do this side quest, I’ll get that card, and it’ll synergize well.” It will incentivize people who might not necessarily be narratively inclined to get more into it.
Q: Tell me more about how you can get to know your co-workers inDev_Hell!
WESTENDORP:We have a lot of plans and a lot of stretch goals beyond what we want in the base game. We have an analogue toSlackthat we’re calling Smack right now. The icon is a hand, and it’s kind of the same colors. We want to do some exploration with that in the game. We also have the main menu of the game as a desktop that has apps on it, and you can explore the apps. Later in the game, we have an app called JackedIn instead of LinkedIn. The idea there is, if you finish a run with a good reputation with a character, you can unlock more lore about them there. There’s some stuff like that, and likeHades -where if you give a person ambrosia, it unlocks more about them. It’s kind of the same idea. It’ll be something fun for the people that really want to dig into it.
SHARRATT:We’re going to really try todelve into backstories. We tried to write the characters so that they all have very different personalities but also very different backstories that you’ll be able to learn about. Those are things that also inform why they are the way they are as far as how they’re showing up to work, why they’re engaging with you in a certain way, and even their feelings about the company and its morally ambiguous doings. you may definitely play favorites - that might influence your builds in a different way or the progression of your game. It is absolutely advantageous to like different people.
The Office, Satire, and Dev_Hell
Q: Can you talk about the inspiration behind some of your characters? Any Michael Scott types in theDev_Helloffice?
WESTENDORP:We can’t comment on real-life people at all, but we can say there are a lot of amalgamation and stereotypes. The CEO is kind of modeled after Elizabeth Holmes - which we can say since she’s in prison now. Like that “ambitious, maybe we’re selling something we can’t actually make” kind of person. The CTO has some Michael Scott qualities to him. He’s certainly not going to be the most competent manager, but there are some levels ofMichael Scottwe don’t feel like we can do justice to in the format of the game - in terms of making the player really cringe. Like, intentionally getting that level of cringe and not having it actually be cringe. I don’t know if we can accomplish that within the format that we have, but he’s definitely an inspiration.
Q: Did the Elon Musk-inspired character you mentioned earlier survive into the final version of the game?
WESTENDORP:That’s kind of where we’re headed with the CEO’s angle. It’s gotten more sinister and less being very publicly bad at your job. This character is more insidious than that. This character is not just trolling people. We’re trying to make sure they’re not just antagonists, though, as they have very specific reasons. We’re very much trying to stay away from “this character is pure evil” because we’ve never met a person like that in tech. They have evil tendencies, but they also have all these other things going on in their life.
Q: What advice would you give toDev_Hellplayers about how to have a successful run - how to avoid getting fired?
SHARRATT:It’s about juggling your responsibilities and having balanced builds. Being able to prioritize different things is what’s going to be most beneficial.
WESTENDORP:There’s also the in-game currency: kudos. When you earn them at the end of each run, you’re going to get the amount you earned, and you’re going to buy upgrades with it. As you get more powerful, the runs will get easier. There’s no balancing act to it - however many you get, that’s how many you have at the end of the run as well. The game should become significantly easier during those periods. And then, once you have all the unlocks, we have escalations that you can do after you hit the true ending, where you can add more difficulty if you want.
SHARRATT:And Peely is there to help you!
Q: Peely - that’s the Clippy equivalent, right?
WESTENDORP:We were very much like: how do we contextualize our tutorial section andClippywas the obvious answer. We are calling the program you use “code monkey,” and the icon is a banana. We needed a banana, and then it just came to me - obviously, the banana’s name should be Peely. Peely isn’t going to necessarily be the most altruistic character either.
Q: Oh no. Peely’s morally ambiguous, too?
WESTENDORP:Yeah. We’re still figuring out the fine details of that. Some of it is going to depend on how players respond in testing. You might be able to call Peely sometimes or get his opinion on your deck or something like that. Because there’s a specific way that you can build a deck and have him be like, okay, this will probably make it through.
Cards, Art, and More in Dev_Hell, Oh My!
Q: Speaking of decks, what are some of your favorite cards inDev_Hell?
WESTENDORP:One of the first cards we designed was “It’s a Feature.” It’s a card that just kills a bug card. If there’s a bug card on the board, you can just be like “No, it’s not a bug,” and get rid of it. On the bigger end of that, we have a card called “The Roadmap” that you play as an action. You just play the card, and it deletes any tech debt or bugs on the board because fixing bugs and fixing tech debt is never on the roadmap!
SHARRATT:I’ve been doing the card art for the game, so I’m always a little bit more biased towards the visual. You can have different types of builds and one of them is basically a “spaghetti build.” One of our cards is “Awakened Spaghetti,” which is these almostCthulhu-likeeyes coming out of a bowl covered with spaghetti. It’s actually very cute.
WESTENDORP:It’s the cutest card. Hands down.
Q:Could you talk some more about the art style? I love howDev_Hellreally gets across the corporate, bland office setting, and then the cards are really colorful.
WESTENDORP:Yeah, we went for stock photos for that reason. We feel like we’re just takingstock photosand making them look better.
SHARRATT:I have a background in photography and photo manipulation. I went to art school for web and multimedia, and I’ve been doing aggressive manipulation work on the images. But neither of us are illustrators.
WESTENDORP:We tried some illustration approaches, and it just didn’t feel right in the environment. We’re trying to be unapologetically realistic about it. Even though some of it might be boring and some of the characters might hit someuncanny valleystuff, we kind of like that. We’re just trying to be as upfront as possible about that because we know it’s not going to be for everybody.
Q: I love it, personally, and I love the card art. Especially the Spaghetti cards. How would I go about making a good Spaghetti build?
WESTENDORP:The Spaghetti build is one of our easy builds to get into. There are a bunch of cards that will make your Spaghetti cards more powerful, so if you see Spaghetti, take it. You just take and take. It’s a more simple build.
Q: One thing I clearly remember about working in a corporate office was the endless barrage of emails. Do you incorporate that intoDev_Hell?
WESTENDORP:We have a card that’s literally named “Per My Last Email,” and it’s a guy throwing aMolotov cocktail. There are cards that you play against other cards, and they can just do damage. This one does influence damage, so if the card has a purple number on it, it can get rid of it. If it’s a specific email card, if it’s a defensive card, and it doesn’t kill it, it draws another card. Like: “My last email wasn’t good enough, so we’re going to give you more.”
There’s a whole list of NPC cards that you play against their situational emails - like, you’ve received an email that causes a specific problem. In the trailer, there’s a “Phishing Email” card and a “Welcome Email” card. You have to respond to your welcome email, and as soon as you do, a phishing email shows up.
Q: Anything else you’d like to add?
SHARRATT:The main thing is, this is not exclusively a card game, mechanically. If you’re interested in fully exploring the story, you need to approach it with an open mind. Explore every aspect of the game.
WESTENDORP:We’re really trying to make you feel like you’re there in a real office. You do some of the same actions. You meet with some of the same people. We’re trying to ensure that the abstraction remains fun. You don’t have to write the email. You don’t have to write the code. That’s what we’re really trying to do. And if that’s what you want to do, if that sounds appealing, that’s the kind of person that wants to play this game. We understand that a lot of people don’t want to do that.
We’re trying to be as clear as possible that that is our goal, but we’re trying to make plenty of accommodations. This should be a card game that most people can pick up. We have designed it to keep a lot of the introductions and the mechanics fairly straightforward and easy to understand. And we’ll have a guy, Peely, there to tell you about!
Dev_Hellis currently in development and is planned for a 2024 release on PC.
