Metalheads, cat lovers, and fans of punishing ARPGs should all keep a feline ear to the ground in May, as developer Astral Clockwork Studios will be announcing when players can get their hands on the upcoming SekirolikeKristala.
Fighting against an enigmatic curse, bossesvoiced by deathcore metal vocalists, and five other Raksakkars, players will engage in a less-than-peaceful pilgrimage to join the illustrious ranks of the Raksaka and unravel the mysteries of Ailur. Game Rant spoke to Astral Clocktower Studios’ founder andKristalaproducer Alexis Brutman as the company prepares to announce an Early Access launch date. Brutman explained the game’s episodic structure, the vast world, and the language Astral Clocktower created for its game.The following interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Q: So… why cats?
Brutman:Well, there’s a couple of reasons. I’ve two partners at Astral Clocktower, but when Tiffany [Gomez] and I originally started, it was just her and I. We were bouncing ideas off of what kind of each other about what kind of game we wanted to make: my idea was a soulslike kind of idea, her idea was a cutesy adventure game about a cat. So we thought, okay, that makes the most sense. Let’s do that.
Then instead, we did a hybrid of the two games, and made a cat soulslike.
Part of the reason why we did that was because it allowed for more interesting mechanics. There’s a million soulslikes out there, but only one where you can be a cat. And that gives us all sorts of verticality and traversal. It opened the door to some more interesting kinds of things you could do with your character.
Q: Can we dive deeper intoKristala’s inspirations?
Brutman:Well, there’s a couple of things. I am a huge fan of the soulslike genre,andBloodbornein particular, which is where the name of our studio came from. At the time, I really just wanted to make my dream game. Then, there’s the fact that my partner Tiffany and I are both former veterinary professionals. I’ve been rescuing cats for probably the past 20 years now. So it kind of made sense that I made a cat game. It was actually surprising that it wasn’t me who came up with the idea initially, because I’m such a cat person.
Q: Introduce us to our feral cat warrior protagonist.
Brutman:Your feral cat warrior is what’s known as an Anagativa or Ana for short. And you are what’s known as a young Raksakkar. To become a Raksakkar, warriors must first also possess the gift of Kristala, which is the ability to communicate with the six Sacred Kristals. So essentially, you are the best warrior of your clan and your clan has chosen you to go out into the world of Ailur, which is the world where these cats live.
There are six clans of magical cats, who were evolved by these crystals that came crashing to their planet a millennia ago. They are the ones that were able to speak with the crystals and learn from them. They’re known as Kristalans, or they had the power of Kristala. So Raksakkar by default also have the power of Kristala, so you’re like the best of the best warriors.
And in the land of Ailur, the cats are governed by a group of like, the most powerful warriors called the Raksaka, so you’re basically sent out at the beginning of the game on one of the annual Raksaka provings–you are proving that you’re a good enough warrior to join the ranks of the Raksaka and help guide other Anagativa and keep things civil between the clans.
Typically this is a mostly peaceful pilgrimage but that would be a very boring start to a video game, so it’s not peaceful at all. It’s very different because at the same time, the other group of animals that were involved. The Kotakaya, which are rodent beings, have decided to rebel to demand access to the crystals because the Anagativa have held it back from them since the beginning of their time.
Q: I love these names! Where did you draw naming inspiration from?
Brutman:Originally we grabbed a few different languages that we really liked, and then we would think of a word, and then we would decide on the meaning of that word. So let’s say the word was Anagativa–we think of feline beings, or evolved felines, and then we would go and look up that term in all sorts of different languages and then pull pieces from those languages to put together a word we thought sounded nice.
So that was basically the beginning of Ailuran, but then we created a real language called Ailuran. Now we can make up words on the fly because of this. We worked with linguists tomake it like a real language.
Q: Can you talk a little bit about what the process of developing the language was?
Brutman:Ah, well, that is kind of hard for me to answer because I wasn’t the linguist who did it. When she was doing it, one of her biggest inspirations was that she wanted to make something catlike. She started with the written form, because she wanted a language that looked like cats had scratched it into sand. She made each letter like an equivalent letter that had its own sound attached to it that looked like a cat had scratched it into sand with their claws.
When we want to create a word with it, we actually created a font, and now we have a guide for what the different letters mean in terms of sound, so we can just type in the font what we want the word to be. Say I’m typing in the word cat, for example, the font gives me the three Ailuran characters, and then I can look up in my guide what sound that makes, and I have a word. So that’s how she did it.
Q: What clans can the player be from?
Brutman:Okay, so there are six clans. While players will be able to customize their character’s fur color, fur markings/patterns, fur length, and face shape, etc. to visually look however they’d like (regardless of the clan they choose to play as), their character’s eyes will always reflect the clan from which their character originally hails and will not be customizable.
The first is the Nisarga, and they do magic derived in nature.They use nature-based eminence magic; Nisargan magic will be featured in the upcoming Early Access PC release. Aesthetically, Nisargans have green eyes and typically have brown, tabby-like fur.
The next plan is the Myrtuna clan–they are necromancers. They’re super focused on opening their third eye because they want to be able to speak to the ancients on the other side of the veil. Officially, we call the Myrtuna’s art spirit-based malediction magic. Aesthetically, Myrtunans have purple eyes and typically have black fur. They’ll also be in Early Access.
The Tandar clan use ice-based eminence magic; Tandaran magic will not be featured in the EA release. Aesthetically, Tandarans have blue eyes and typically have long fur (due to their tundra home) and resemble silver Maine Coon cats. As for the Keoza, they use fire-based malediction magic; Keozan magic will not be featured in the EA release. Aesthetically, Keozan’s have orange eyes and typically resemble Bengals, Savannah cats, etc. with more spotted, exotic fur markings. We also have the Lyumina, who use light-based eminence magic; Lyuminan magic will not be featured in the EA release. Aesthetically, Lyuminans have champagne-colored eyes and typically resemble white- or fair-haired cat breeds.
Last are the Sykomana, who welike to call Ailur’s Jedi. They use mental-based malediction magic; known as Ailur’s jedis, the Sykomanans are skilled in mental abilities like telekinesis, emotional projection, etc. Sykomanan magic will not be featured in the EA release. Aesthetically, Sykomanans have deep-red eyes and are typically furless, resembling Sphynx cats. They’re all really interesting.
Q: Will we run into the other Raksaka warrior candidates?
Brutman:Yes, we will. We will, and which ones you encounter depends on which clan you’ve chosen. So you won’t obviously run into the other Nisarga initiate because there isn’t one if you’re in Nisar, but you’ll meet your first fellow initiate in the Early Access release.
Q: What characters support the player on their quest?
Brutman:One of my favorites is a merchant character based on my late father named Neil of Nisarga. There’s some really interesting ones. We have a giant frog that you’ll meet in the Dalamase, which is like a former fishing village area, his name is Krabufo.
Krabufo once lived a quiet life loafing about in the muddy waterways of Dalamase and feeding on unsuspecting creatures and insects passing through his swampy forest home.
When the rodent-like Kotakaya–or Kota, for short–came to Dalamase, they became one of Krabufo’s favorite snacks–albeit, a rather unwilling snack. One day, while munching on one particularly heavily-armored Kota soldier, the soldier ultimately prevailed, breaking off one of Krabufo’s sharpest, most precious teeth and escaping with it. Now, Krabufo wants both his tooth and the meal he lost back. Krabufo is hungry, angry…and driven by both.
There’s also your fellow initiate Prada Lun. She is also a Lyuminan scribe, cosmic cartographer, and apprentice to Chronicler Udamos. The player will meet her at the entrance to Dalamase’s Fungal Forest, at which point Prada Lun will issue a quest for the player to retrieve five coveted Lyuminan Scrolls.
One of our favorite characters is a famous alchemist named Zazagrul. She’s really cool. We just did a whole bunch of voice work for a bunch of NPCs that you’ll meet just in the Early Access alone. There’ll be a lot of different characters, one of the characters that introduces you to what’s going on and sends you on your way. His name is Atraeus Stone and he is the leader of the Raksaka and he is based on my cat Andreas. And he’s voiced by Ian Russell, a British voice actor who did a really great job with his voice. So that’s the first MPC you’ll meet.
Q: What is the Dark Curse?
Brutman:So basically, there’s a curse on the land of Ailur. We can’t reveal who it was cast by. One of the goals of the game is to figure out why it’s there. The Dark Curse has affected all the normally docile creatures andturned them into mutated ravenous beastsset on destruction and trying to kill pretty much anything they see. It also has created these curse tendrils all over the world that will block your path. Essentially it’s a curse that’s on all the creatures the land turns them into crazy monsters, and it’s to stop your progress. It’s trying to keep you from getting to the end of your goal and speaking to the Raksaka.
Q: Tell me about some of the bosses players will face?
Brutman:The first boss is Lophi the Lost and he’s definitely a little bit confused because he used to be a fish and now he’s got legs.
Q: That would be confusing.
Brutman:Yeah, right? He’s pretty pissed about it too. There’s also a spider boss named Rhylotha, Weaver of Echoes. There’s Hiratrola, the Abandoned Son, who is an ogre boss that’s lost his battle to the curse. And there are many, many more to come. But those are the first few you’ll meet in the Early Access release.
Heavy Metal Cats
Q: Bosses are voiced by deathcore metal vocalists?
Brutman:I mean, well, maybe not every single one. But yeah, Hiratrola, the Abandoned Son voiced by David Simonich from Signs of the Swarm. Lophi the Lost is voiced by Paxton Grizzle, he’s the vocalist of Brojob. We’ve alsoused deathcore vocals for other thingslike undead screeches, for example.
If you have the presence of a necromancer clan, you also have to have undead creatures. So there’s lots of those. And we used Will Ramos from Lorna Shore and Kasey Karlsen of Deadands for a lot of the undead screeches and sounds that you’ll see in Early Access. But there’ll be more to come.
We’ve done a mixture of regular voice actors and deathcore vocalists because I’m a big metalhead myself. And I thought, why aren’t they making boss sounds? Why aren’t they making creature sounds in video games with deathcore vocals? So I thought I’d give it a shot.
Q: How do the heavy metal vibes blend with being a cat?
Brutman:You know, it’s surprising how many metalheads are also cat people! I thought when I started reaching out to vocalists that they would think my game was too cute for them, right? But, surprisingly, instead I got “Oh my god, this is amazing, I love cats so much!” I think that cats are just rooted in the internet in general, so it’s almost easy to assume that, like,three-quarters of people like them–and there’s like that group of people that just absolutely hate them.
I got a very positive response, like Will Ramos for example. He really loves his cats and he posts about his cats and stuff. So that was a pretty good target because of that.
Q: What can you share about the soundtrack?
Brutman:It’s been mostly developed by our in-house composer, AdLibPiano. He’s been with us since the very beginning. He started out like our whole team started out: as a bunch of volunteers. And now, we’re not volunteers anymore, which is great.
Q: What sets Kristala apart from other soulslikes?
Brutman:Well, I would say number one is the cats!
But also it’s also the fact that it isn’t necessarily a soulslike so much as it’s more like a Sekirolike. We’ve taken a lot of inspiration fromSekirobecause we really enjoyed the verticality and the fact you can traverse. We’ve taken it to different places than that “he’s got a special hand” and all that andSekirostuff, we don’t have that, but I would say that the traversal makes it a lot different.
We also have alot more emphasis on stealthmechanics. Because you’re a cat, if you couldn’t be stealthy, that’d be crazy, right? So you can go through the game as an entirely stealthy warrior, if you’d like to. There’s a lot of sneaking and strategic gameplay. But you can choose to play any way you want–you could decide to just brute force your way through as well.
It’s specifically the fact that you’re a feline, you can evolve your feline skills, and you can go through the world in a way that isn’t so straightforward. You can traverse upwards and run on the tops of roofs and do all sorts of aerial assassinations or sneaky kills from behind. You could go through the world completely undetected as a little shadow cat.
Q: What do you think is causing the draw toward Sekiro-likes?
Brutman:I was watching a video the other day where somebody said “why does nobody talk aboutSekiroanymore?” I just saw the title and I thought about it. Yeah, that does confuse me becauseSekirois probably one of the best games FromSoftware’s made. I think that’s because in your typicalSoulsgame–they added jumping toElden Ring, but it wasn’t a huge gameplay mechanic, it was just, now I can go up and down sometimes. It wasn’t like they added a bunch of traversal and got really into it. I think that’s what madeSekirostand apart from the other Souls games. It had a totally different system for combat with a balance bar and all the blocking.
I think it’s also in partbecauseSekirowas fast. If you’re thinking about the way that cats would fight,Sekirowas one of our inspirations. So wasNioh. We had originally thought, you know, if we were going to take inspo from from another game, it should be one that has a lot of really quick, agile combat. So actually, at first we focused a lot onNioh, andthen we thought it’d be really fun if we had some sort of balance mechanic. And so we kind of lean towards mechanics from both of those games. But I could see why other people had had a similar thought.
With the market of soulslikes becoming as popular as they have, it kind of makes sense for people to want to lean toward doing something that was different a lot like FromSoftware themselves did. They seem to set a good standard for the difficult fast-paced combat.
Q: Talk a little about the game of parkour and movement mechanics?
Brutman:You’re a cat. You can do all sorts of cool things. There’s the obvious, like you’re able to like jump and climb on top of things. You can vault over things. We have wall-jumping, you can swing on branches, tightrope walking, the ability to crawl on all fours through different small openings.
I guess it’s not really parkour but as part of the traversal system: you’re able to get through the world in a bunch of different ways, but upward is huge. Really the safe bet. So there’s a lot of opportunity to go up above and jump down below to surprise your victims.
The Nuts and Bolts Leading to Release
Q: Why did you choose Unreal 5?
Brutman:Well, number one was because I was fresh out of school and I had just spent four years learning Unreal Engine, so it was the one I was most familiar with. Secondly, I’m super glad we went with it because of just the high quality it creates. I mean, Unreal is the cream of the crop these days, I would say. Even our early builds had really nice visuals. But now, since Unreal 5 has come out?
We finished our demo in Unreal 4, andUnreal 5 came out around the same time. We were like, “Oh, I guess we need to do that again.” So that’s exactly what we did. And I’m super glad we did because the difference was staggering. We were able to do so much more with it with the tools that they’ve come up with, like Nanite. We have a lot more flexibility now.
We still have to do some balancing and optimization. Well, like all the time we still have to do that. But it’s just amazing what we’ve been able to do with their newer technologies. I mean, the world just looks insane.
Q: What’s your early access release date, and when are you aiming to have the full game released?
Brutman: The early access launch is happening in May, but we are currently keeping that date under wraps for announcement purposes. We are targeting a full release by Q4 2025, with console ports to follow.
Q: What’s the roadmap like from early access to full release?
Brutman:Our plan is to basically doan episodic chapter release, because it was the best way forward as an independent studio that doesn’t have a publisher. Luckily we had to set up the world in a way that works really well for that because of the different clans and essentially, you’re traveling through six different clan lands. So the idea is that we’ll just release each clan biome at a time.
The first clan biome and where the game starts when you play the full game is the Nisarga. And in Early Access, you’ll be able to play as either a Nisargan or a Myrtuna. You’ll play through the first chapter, which is essentially the Nisarga and clan lands including Dalamase along with the capital city of Nisar.
The second release, which we’re planning to do within a couple of months of the first one, and with periodic updates in between, like every couple of weeks, would be the mere tuna clan. So you get to play through you’ll get to see the great city of Mir along with the cartoon and catacombs. Each of the six major chapter releases will include the new clan biome each time and the ability to play as a new clan as well.
TheEarly Access releasewill also allow you to choose right now between two starting weapons, you’ll be able to play with either the claw weapons, the claw enhancement weapons–unarmed technically–and the sword and shield weapon. We’re hoping to also get in the third choice, which would be the greatsword, but if we can’t, it’ll come within two weeks of the original release. It’s just a matter of getting the animation finished.
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