Red Thread: Sitting Down with Cerise Pomme and Alex Sheppard

As September came to a close, I attended this year's Portland Retro Games Expo, which as the name implies is a gathering of retro gaming enthusiasts and developers looking to create games for them. Along with a plethora of artists, pinball machines, arcade cabinets, and free-play gaming setups, the Portland Indie Game Squad (PIGSquad) hosted a large table where attendees could try out a handful of games made by local indie developers. After the event, I was lucky enough to interview two co-developers about their game, Red Thread.

Cerise Pomme and Alex Sheppard have been working on Red Thread, a single-player strategy card game where players build connections, shape their destiny, and navigate the complexities of life with a cast of unique characters. I asked Cerise and Alex about their game development journey, their thoughts on their game’s characters, and what fun ideas are present in Red Thread’s design.

SUPERJUMP

Could you introduce yourselves and give a little background on who you are as game developers?

Cerise

Of course! I'm Cerise Pomme, I do the programming and about half of the environment art, and then this is my artist, Alex.

Alex

Yeah! I just do art. I started out as an animator, and then I decided to do UI, and that's how me and Cerise connected so that's how we started getting into game dev together. All of my game dev experience comes from working on stuff with her.

Cerise

And she says all she does is the art, but she also writes too, so she's done most of our writing.

SUPERJUMP

Oh, that's cool! Did you meet through PIGSquad or were you already in it and it just worked out?

Alex

Through PIGSquad. We were doing a board game jam. Cerise liked my art and then commissioned me for something for her first game, and then we just started doing more projects from there.

Cerise

And we found we work really well together, and it's hard to find someone you work well with, so I feel like we're both pretty lucky in that regard.

SUPERJUMP

What got you guys into game development?

Cerise

Well for me, when I was in high school I was trying to figure out something to do, and my family really wanted me to be, like, a lawyer or a doctor – they're really serious about being productive and contributing back to society – and, you know, I was having a really hard time meeting their expectations, so I was kind of at a loss of what to do. I had a guidance counselor who recommended me to go enter this contest because I was fiddling with programming languages as a fun thing to do, and so my guidance counselor recommended that I enter the Scholastic Art and Writing Competition, and I ended up doing really well. I ended up winning nationally, and that kind of proved to me that it was possible to do game design as something that I was good at and I started getting really into it and really enjoying it, and I've stuck with it ever since.

Alex

Basically, I've always loved games. My first game was Frogger, and I was like, 'This is cool', and then I wanted to be an animator, so I went to school for animation. And then the animation industry basically... it died. I want to say it died. It got really screwed up, and then I was like 'Okay, well that stinks', so then I kind of shifted into game dev because I've always been interested in doing anything creative, either with animation or with games. So, I got out of college after getting my second art degree, was going to do concept art, and then someone was like, you're not good enough to do concept art, do something easier like UI! I was like okay, so then I went to go do UI and that's kind of how I got started doing game dev stuff.

I ended up winning nationally, and that kind of proved to me that it was possible to do game design as something that I was good at and I started getting really into it and really enjoying it, and I've stuck with it ever since.

SUPERJUMP

I think it's funny how you went from being told you couldn't do art and to go do UI and now you're doing both.

Cerise

Yeah, and I think she's really good at it.

Alex

Thank you! You're always looking at your own stuff, so it's hard to know that it's good until someone else who hasn't looked at it before is like oh, this is good! And then you're like oh, this is good! Okay, awesome!

SUPERJUMP

Well, that was one of the things about Red Thread that I really liked from the bit that I played at PRGE. All the characters are very unique, and if you don't read the dialogue or if you miss something you still get a general idea of their personality just off of their appearances alone. What were the design choices for the character appearances and how do they mesh with how you interact with them in the game?

Alex

So, basically, when we had first started doing this project, we were talking about Fate/Grand Order and Genshin [Impact], and how the good thing about those games and gacha games, in general, is that anyone who plays it feels something towards one character at least because there are so many characters. That's what I wanted to do with these characters, I wanted to make sure everybody more or less felt represented, like they could look at the characters and be like, oh my god I relate with so and so because I like doing...karate! or I look like so and so, so I relate to them! Which is really important to me because I feel like there's not enough representation in character design. It's getting better now, but like, you know, when we were all kids 20 years ago it was like, here's a white guy, and here's a white girl – there are your characters!

So, something really important to me was making sure everyone had their unique stuff about them, it was diverse, and also all the styles were really different. Zera is an angel, and he's like, kind of hyperpunk/cyberpunk, but then there's like, some girl from the 90s just doing her thing. And also, Pinterest had my back because it had lots of interesting outfits to choose from, so it made it really easy to design characters based off those outfits.

Cerise

We've also thought about like, what gaps we still haven't filled yet, and when we release the full game, we're gonna come up with at least a few more characters, we haven't decided on a final number yet. But, when we were showing off the game at OMSI or PRGE we were kind of seeing like, okay well what is there that you want to see that you haven't seen yet? And we're gonna take that into consideration when we try to come up with the remaining characters. So, hopefully, by the end, everyone will truly have a character that they really love.

So, something really important to me was making sure everyone had their unique stuff about them, it was diverse, and also all the styles are really different.

SUPERJUMP

I do want to say that I applaud y'all for the character creator at the beginning. There are a lot of options, but it was really cool seeing how there are so many different cosmetics, and your skin tone can be anything. I love how all the colors are on a slider.

Cerise

Thank you! I think it's going to be even better soon because we got a lot of really great feedback on how we can make it even better, but one of both of our favorite things is a really good, robust character creator, so that was really important for us.

SUPERJUMP

Cerise, you described the game as Mario Party meets Disco Elysium, but can you go into more detail into what it means to bring those two identities together?

Cerise

So, to me, one of the most important things about storytelling is choices. Storytelling is about choices. Every choice we make ultimately has consequences, and that shapes who we are and who we become; I feel like nothing does a better job at encapsulating choices than a Mario Party gameboard. One of the things that I think really showcases this is the genre of roguelikes. So, different roguelikes have these maps where it's basically like a simplified Mario Party gameboard. You have different paths you can pick, and those paths give you like Oh there might be an elite monster fight here or there might be a shop here, or there might be a question mark event where you don't know what's gonna happen.

So, as you're having those slower moments between the gameplay you're choosing what part of the gaming experience do I want next? And that creates a lot of really great pacing moments because you get to choose what you're in the mood for. If you want something really intense and exciting, you can (have it). If you want to go to a shop and spend some money and buy some things you can, and if you want something a little more slower-paced like a story segment you can. It kind of puts the controls in your hands. So, I thought like, okay, that would be a really cool way, instead of just putting it in as a small element of a roguelike, what if we expanded that and made that sort of the heart and soul of a narrative engine so that you get to explore an island and in doing so tell your story? I thought that it would be a really good foundation for that kind of narrative storytelling sandbox.

Disco Elysium is sort of an open-world version of this, it's a little world you can explore that has different characters, different events that you can overcome, and that all ultimately leads into this grand overarching story. So, I kind of wanted to create something like that but with the strengths and innovations of roguelikes from previous years. The game ultimately is intended to be something you play continuously for maybe about 10 hours, it's probably not as long as a lot of single-player RPGS, but we do really consider the replayability because you're probably gonna want to go through the story multiple times in order to get different endings or pick different characters or try different strategies. So, it's kind of loosely inspired by roguelikes while still being a traditional RPG experience.

Every choice we make ultimately has consequences, and that shapes who we are and who we become, and I feel like nothing does a better job at encapsulating choices than a Mario Party gameboard.

SUPERJUMP

The gameplay loop for Red Thread is very interesting and satisfying. What is the next step in the development process before the final version releases?

Cerise

Well, we've got a couple of things. One of the things Alex and I have been working on right now is we just hired a composer so we're adding music and sound effects now. That's going to bring the game quite a bit to life. And then the other thing we're gonna work on next is making sure that there's an objective that pulls the player forward toward the endings.

SUPERJUMP

As it stands right now there isn't a goal in Red Thread. Is the final version going to have an ending or is it more about an endless strengthening of relationships as you travel around the board?

Alex

There is going to be a final ending. It's basically going to kind of be like... you know how in Epic Mickey where depending on your choices you become evil or good and that's how the game kind of goes? Your choices depict how your game is going to end, so the premise for Red Thread is that you, the player character, are on an island with other characters from different books, so in the end you're going to have to pick whose book you want to go into, so that's the ending. But if you're a jerk to everyone and no one likes you your ending could be that you don't get to go into anyone's story and you don't get to do anything. You basically, for lack of a better word, you die and then you get to restart over and get to make it a better ending. I guess the easier thing to say is that it's more like a visual novel ending where you have different variations of endings like good, bad, worse route, pure route, that sort of thing.

SUPERJUMP

How much autonomy is there in the character interactions? I remember that there's a lot of dice rolling for character interactions that sort of leaves it up to RNG.

Cerise

Well, I think there are two parts to this. Part one is we're going to be adding new types of events to the game. So, one of the things that we're going to be adding are direct choices where you're faced with a question by a character and then through a couple of different game mechanics, you'll be able to pretty easily choose one of a couple different answers. What we're probably gonna do for this is do some kind of Plinko board where basically there are different choices at the bottom and you can choose where you drop the Plinko marble and ultimately have an impact on the choice. It might not go the way you want, but depending on where you drop it, you're pretty likely to have the choice. So that's one of the things we're going to do, is for more important events we're going to give the player more agency so they can just outright choose.

Additionally, we're gonna add items so that you can influence the rolls a lot more. So, one of the things you'll be able to do is go to a shop, buy some extra bonus dice, and then use those bonus dice in an event you care about to make sure you get the result you want. Like maybe using a bonus die that lets you add a certain number to your roll, or reroll your worst die. So there will be ways to get both more agency in the events that are in the game now, as well as new types of events that will offer more agency from the get-go. You also are able to redo events if you fail, so if there's an event you need to succeed to unlock something else you can try that again.

So that's one of the things we're going to do, is for more important events we're going to give the player more agency so they can just outright choose.

SUPERJUMP

Are you both from Portland?

Cerise

No actually, we're both from different parts of the Midwest. I'm from Kansas, grew up on a farm in the middle of nowhere, spent a little bit of time in Texas, and then ultimately moved here.

Alex

And I'm from Ohio. Boo.

SUPERJUMP

How has your time in Portland affected the design choices of Red Thread? Has your work with PIGSquad had any impact on Red Thread?

Cerise

I mean, for me I know since I've moved up here there are a lot of really good programmers up here. When I was in Texas they recommended I move up here because the Portland Indie Game Squad is one of the biggest and best indie game development organizations in the US, so when I was in Texas I knew a bunch of people who were like oh man we're gonna go to Portland, these are awesome guys I love to work with. So they recommended that I come up here because when we were trying to leave Texas because we didn't want to be in Texas, this was where we decided because we'd heard such good things.

Everybody here is really knowledgeable, really helpful, and I think they really helped me get a lot better at being a software developer. Even though I've always been good at it there have been moments where maybe my code wasn't as optimal as it could be but I've learned a lot and now I can do things that I couldn't've dreamed of when I was in Kansas or Texas. So the possibilities of what we can create are a lot broader now which definitely means the games we can create are a lot broader.

Alex

Ah...I don't think so. I guess the only way that being in Portland and being a part of PIGsquad has affected it is that it created it in a way. because without it we wouldn't be making this game.

Cerise

Yeah, I'm very glad that PIGSquad introduced me to Alex.

Alex

Yeah, I'm very cool.

SUPERJUMP

What was the biggest piece of feedback you received from people who played the live demo at PRGE?

Cerise

This will probably not surprise you, but everybody just wanted there to be more of an objective. They really liked the mechanics, the character creator, the art, and the world, they just wanted more of a reason to play. So that's gonna be a big goal of our going forward.

Alex

Basically, what Cerise said is that people were like I like it, but what am I doing? What am I trying to do? But the good thing about that is that is that we've had the 'What are we trying to do?' question answered for a long time it was just a matter of time because we both have day jobs and it's just the both of us, so it was a time constraint that we couldn't get that in there yet. It shouldn't take too much longer to get the nihilism out of Red Thread.

They really liked the mechanics, the character creator, the art, the world, they just wanted more of a reason to play. So that's gonna be a big goal of ours going forward.

SUPERJUMP

Who out of the characters in Red Thread is your favorite, and who was the audience's favorite?

Alex

My gosh, everyone loves Fizzi and I hate her for it.

SUPERJUMP

Why?

Alex

I don't like Fizzi because I don't like how I drew her face. I just don't like it, but she's everyone's favorite, Cerise loves her, and I was like No! But my personal favorite is Zera, he's the blue one, he's got an angel motif, he was on the poster. He's my favorite! I love him so much! He's so cool! He's supposed to kind of be like Sonic where he's like ugh, I don't care, but he's also not a douche. Oh my gosh, his design is also my favorite, I just love him so much.

Cerise

I think for me my favorite is probably Nyphara. I think Fizzi's probably my second favorite, but I think I like Nyphara a little bit more.

Alex

Good.

Cerise

As far as the tally of what everyone's favorite was, when we went into [PRGE] we had just been to OMSI which was an event primarily aimed at younger kids into their mid-teens, and there we had a really strong showing where Fizzi was number one and Oliver was number two (Oliver is like the cyberpunk hacker character). At PRGE it was a very different demographic, and while Fizzi was still pretty high, she ultimately scored third. first and second were Zera and Sinclaire. Overall, the final tally right now is that Zera and Fizzie are tied both at 48 votes, Sinclaire is third, and Oliver is fourth.

SUPERJUMP

My last question, and this is just for fun: Who's your Mario Party main?

Alex

Oh, mine's Peach.

Cerise

So, I have two answers, and it depends on who I'm playing with and which game it is. Usually, it'll be Rosalina because I like her, she's my favorite. But in Super Mario Party where they have the unique character dice for each character, it's Shy Guy because most of his dice faces are the same and it's really easy to move consistently across the board. So, if I'm trying to win against my friends, Shy Guy, but otherwise Rosalina every time.

I want to thank Alex and Cerise for participating in this interview. I loved my time playing Red Thread at PRGE. You can play the demo for Red Thread and wishlist it on Steam here!