One-on-One With Alisa Creator, Casper Croes.

In my last article about Alisa, I wrote extensively about its graphics, music, and overall game play. As readers of my previous article would recall, I was deeply impressed with the design of Alisa. Recently, I have come in contact with Casper Croes for a behind the scenes interview about his creation.

Tyler Hall: Would you be willing to share some insight about yourself?

Casper Croes: I'm Casper, I've grew up with win95/dos games. I saw my oldest brother playing all kinds of crazy games like Doom, Duke Nukem, Fallout, and so forth.

The moment I saw games for the first time, I knew it was possible to make one myself, I didn't have the tools for it but I was already drawing them on paper. when I became eight, I started to make mods for games by changing graphics and levels until around 19. Then I started to feel like I should aim for making real games. I'm 27 now.

Where did the idea to create Alisa come from? What was it that motivate you to create Alisa?

When I met my girlfriend (her name is Arisa) I was surprised when I heard that she was a fan of Svankmajer's Alice. Also, back then, I played a lot of PlayStation One Resident Evil games. So I thought of combining these two things.

I was not inspired by MC Gee's Alice.

Arisa makes the music and is the voice of Alisa.

Would you be willing to tell us about the world that Alisa takes place in?

The world is a fantasy version of ~1920s. All countries, armies, etc is all made up but could fit in that era.

The Dollhouse is stuck in Victorian era. Because it's way older.

Why did you decide to create Alisa in the ascetic of old school PlayStation games?

I like low-poly graphics, and I was into PlayStation One games, so this happened. The project I was working on before Alisa was more like Quake 2-Quake 3 kind of graphics.

Why dolls?

Well, I thought dolls were kinda cool and there is a lot of creative freedom in it. and more original then zombies.

Aside from dolls, will we encounter any other characters that are humans?

There will be indeed some human characters. The prologue will contain many humans!

Who, or what is Pol? He seems to he hiding something!

That's a difficult question to answer. Because I don't want to spoil anything. But he has a bit of a bigger role in the story then the Resident Evil 4 merchant.

Okay, this is not a question, but a compliment. I love the term "toothwheel" to describe the game currency. Sounds very creative!

I'm glad you like it!

Fun fact: my main language is Flemish Dutch. And "cog" in Dutch is "Tandwiel" which is literally translated to "Toothwheel". Other fun fact. Arisa is Japanese and realized later that the Japanese word is "Haguruma" which kinda translates to "tooth car(?)"

Since gamers love the idea of save points, what would be a great idea for a save point?

Been changing the idea constantly about saving. From savepoints to autosaves to buying saves...to list some ideas. Will see how it turns out in the full game.

When will we see the final product? Alisa looks very interesting!

I'm aiming to release in May 2021. Of course, I cannot foresee all difficulties on the road. But let's hope I don't have to delay it too much.

Any last words?

I love Dark Souls. Prepare to die. a lot.

Once again, for those whom wish to play a demo of Alisa, please visit https://caspercroes.itch.io/alisa-demo. Casper Croes has put in a lot of hard work and devotion into his creation. His site contains all the information relating to Alisa and updates regarding its production. Mr. Croes also has a site at https://www.caspercroes.com/

For those who have social media, please follow Casper Croes on Twitter at https://twitter.com/CasperCroes and Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/alisagame.exe/?hl=en.

In closing, let us hope that Alisa can escape the Doll House, and in the meantime, solve the mysteries associated with it. Oh, and deliver more toothwheels for goodies and items from Pol the Puppet!