Summary
Children of the Sunis one of the most unique and critically acclaimed games you’ve likely never heard of. Despite being published by Devolver Digital, and racking up an impressive 81 percent on Metacritic and 9/10 on Steam, the title, which combines strategy, puzzle, stealth, and shooter mechanics, has struggled to capture the public’s attention.
AtWASD, part of London Games Week, I had the opportunity to sit down with Children of the Sun creator René Rother to find out more about his vision, the unique gameplay mechanics, and how it feels to make something universally loved by those who have discovered it, but incredibly difficult to market.
The origins of Rother’s idea were as unique as the end product. “Usually, when I made games it was more atmospheric kind of pieces, like walking simulators and visual experiences.” he tells me. “At some point, I suddenly had a prototype which actually felt like a game, so where exactly this idea came from, I don’t even remember.” He goes on to say, “I had this one amazing idea and I thought, ‘This is going to be a game, and I’m gonna put everything I have into it.’ It was kind of a flowing process.”
Children of the Sun self-describes as a tactical third-person puzzle-shooter and it’s every bit as chaotic as that suggests. Movement is done only via a mouse, and the only initial information you have is gained by stealthing around a location on a fixed trajectory. As Rother tells us, “You have a planning phase and an action phase. First you explore the area where the enemies are, and plan your move. Then you ricochet the bullet across different things.”
For each level, you must work out a path for the bullet in order to take out every visible enemy. You need to plan carefully because once the bullet is shot you will follow its journey. When it hits an enemy or obstacle you will have to aim it at the next target as soon as possible, since enemies will react to the bullet being shot and will move accordingly. you’re able to also use environmental objects, such as gas tanks, to achieve your goal.
You are told how many times you can ricochet the bullet, and if a level becomes impossible with the number you have left, you’ll automatically fail.
“So in later levels, you have to kind of take movement into account as well.” Rother explains. “Sometimes it makes sense to hit this one person here, then let this person run away, go for another one and then go back for the one which ran because it gives you a better position to be in. So it’s a bit of a trial and error in a way. It requires some retries.”
While it looks like a shooter initially, it’s actually a strategic puzzle game, and its main focus is on atmosphere. “The game [has] basically no dialogue which made it interesting to me,” says Rother. “I just wanted the atmosphere to be prominent and carry the story and emotions.”
You play as a character known simply as The Girl, who is seeking revenge against The Cult. She eliminates them one by one, until reaching the final target, The Leader. While this is a simple story, the depth of it comes across in the detail and care each level is crafted with.
Every level also has some kind of hidden challenge, which is the subtitle basically. So, if you want to explore the dilemmas a bit further to figure out what happened, then things can be done.
“I would say the biggest inspiration has been music,” Rother states. “I do like melancholy kinds of music. Lots of it was more like droney atmospheric music because it’s not only melancholic, but also slightly aggressive, but not in a negative way. It can also sometimes give me something very positive and energetic, although on the surface level is kind of negative, and it’s a feeling I kind of wanted to put into the game.”
Rother took this vibe, which he finds difficult to nail down, when focusing on the game’s soundtrack. “So there was this musician who I really like a lot and was a big inspiration. At some point, I was just writing a message like ‘Hey, would you like to make music for a game?’ And he was like, ‘Yeah, sure, why not?’ So I was like everything I did for this game was kind of just happening.”
The control system also brings you into the game’s atmosphere in a way I didn’t expect, and this is deliberate. “It takes people a little bit of time to get used to, but I feel like that’s a good thing,” explains Rother. “I feel like control is just like an extension of the player. Also, I feel like it can bring people deeper into it because you need to think more about what you’re actually doing, instead of just relying on what you have learned in other games.”
The choice to go dialogue free also posed some challenges in terms of tutorials. “It made it interesting to help people understand things,” Rother explains. “It’s kind of an internalized process, with indicators.”
All control is done via the mouse. Moving side to side scopes out the area, while the buttons and scroll wheel are used to mark, aim and shoot at targets. Enemies are highlighted and any environmental objects that can be shot turn green when hovered over.
This plays out as an increasingly complex series of puzzles, where items you can shoot glow green, allowing you to pick them out and factor them into your plan. You also have a counter, showing the maximum number of times you can ricochet the bullet. Much of the game is based on instinct and experimentation with only the environment to guide you.
When asked about the critical reception, Rother describes it as “awesome” and “amazing” before explaining that he found it “very surprising,” since this is his first purchasable title and his experience is limited. “I don’t have any formal training. I don’t have any formal experience,” he confesses. “I’m more into atmosphere and visuals and these kind of things, so people saying nice things about the game, it’s always surprising to me, but feels very good.”
Rother also remains surprised about the journey itself. “It’s funny because I never thought that I would make a puzzle game actually. It was not my plan. It just kind of happened. Like everything in this game, it’s kind of a weird experience to me how things just clicked.”
Children of the Sun took four years to develop, although Rother has only done this full-time for the past two. “Making this game has been very satisfying to me, it has been such an amazing experience.” he says. “Without Deveolver this game wouldn’t exist, because it was just something I did for fun. And now to live a few years of my life the way I would like just making it. It’s been an incredible experience.”
