{"id":817154,"date":"2026-07-22T19:19:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T19:19:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/817154\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T19:19:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T19:19:12","slug":"red-kiss-guiding-vampires-through-a-blood-soaked-cold-war-berlin-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/817154\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Kiss \u2013 guiding vampires through a blood-soaked cold war Berlin | Games"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018You look at the news and you\u2019re like, \u2018Another pointless war, another pointless bloodshed, another pointless genocide.\u2019 And that can make you a bit hopeless.\u201d<\/p>\n

Roy van der Schilden, narrative designer and business director at Wispfire, speaks of a very human feeling. But the protagonist of its upcoming game Red Kiss can relate \u2013 despite being a vampire.<\/p>\n

You play as an (initially human) inhabitant of cold war Berlin who has tried to no avail to endure the conflict outside the window: through partying, journalling, activism \u2026 Still, you feel empty. When offered a new life of power and purpose, you don\u2019t need much convincing to offer up your exposed neck.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think a lot of people who create vampire games feel the anguish and the melancholy of the genre,\u201d says Van der Schilden. \u201cLike, how to deal with your feeling of justice in an unjust world.\u201d<\/p>\n

The best fangs for the job \u2026 Red Kiss. Photograph: Fellow Traveller<\/p>\n

In this tactical narrative RPG, you plunge into a fictional 80s Berlin by dispatching vampire agents to its fractured streets. They\u2019re your eyes and ears, looking for clues, building reputation with city factions, and of course quenching their bloodthirst. As in last year\u2019s superhero caper Dispatch (from AdHoc Studio), you\u2019ll come across opportunities around the map, each with its own requirements, making use of a skillcheck system tied to six character skills. It\u2019s up to you to pick the best fangs for the job, all while maintaining their energy, money and blood supply.<\/p>\n

The vampires under your command are the beating (undead) heart of the experience. You progressively unveil their backstories by undertaking personal missions, during which you learn about their individual pasts and struggles. It\u2019s in these moments that you begin to enact change and share some of your newfound purpose with others as guidance, deciding how their stories are ultimately resolved.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Wispfire emphasises the importance of the cast by infusing hand-drawn portraits with voice acting and motion-capture (mocap) animation. Notably, for the latter the team is using Live2D, a relatively inexpensive software tool commonly used by VTubers to animate their virtual avatars during a livestream.<\/p>\n

A good iPhone was enough to start experimenting, but the team had to develop tools to adapt the software to suit their needs, and the tech isn\u2019t without limitations. \u201cWith a mocap character for 3D, you usually can move your entire head,\u201d says art director and animator A\u00efda de Ridder. \u201cThere\u2019s something stuck to your face and it moves with you, right? We have a static phone, so we have to make their performance more centred. There is a limit to the range of movements.\u201d<\/p>\n

In order to make models feel \u201canimated\u201d, the team found that a performer needs to exaggerate their facial features to convey the desired result. But Wispfire is well acquainted with this, thanks to a shared background in interactive theatre where, as Van der Schilden says, \u201cIt\u2019s harder to see for people in the back if you do a muted performance.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

Vampires shine the most when they have strong personalities and distinct looks. In Red Kiss, many elements intersect with one another to give characters power and purpose. And this is all being funnelled through a queer and dark lens \u2013 like the best vampire stories are.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe like queer media, \u201csays Van der Schilden. \u201cBut we, as a team, always felt that a lot of the media was very pink rainbows, happy-go-lucky. We wanted to make a really dark, queer, diverse game. And I think Red Kiss is that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u2018You look at the news and you\u2019re like, \u2018Another pointless war, another pointless bloodshed, another pointless genocide.\u2019 And…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":817155,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[64,63,105],"class_list":["post-817154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=817154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817154\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/817155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=817154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=817154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=817154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}