We liked playing A Summer with the Shiba Inu for our review, so I got in touch with Quill Studios to talk a bit about the game’s development. Come check it out!
PS4Blog: Hi! Welcome to PS4Blog.net. Could you please help us get started by telling our readers a bit about yourself and your work?
Hi! This is Quilly, studio owner and lead developer at Quill Studios. Thanks for having me here at PS4Blog.net!
I’m a huge video game collector, and I’ve met countless friends online and IRL through gaming, which inspired me to make games as well.
The goal with A Summer with the Shiba Inu, Quill Studios’ first major release, is to create a unique world of dogs while diving into a mysterious sci-fi story with virtual reality fighting arenas.
PS4B: On that note, A Summer with the Shiba Inu is out on PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch. What can you tell us about this game?
The main character in the game is Syd the Shiba Inu. She travels back to Shiba Inu island to resolve her past and find her brother, who has been missing for years.
She encounters enemies and allies from the past and finds herself entangled in Shiba Inu Island’s ARIna battles again, which are mandatory virtual arenas that every dog participates in. The ranking in these ARInas (pronounced arenas) determine the value of each dog for life!
With each decision Syd makes, with the help of the player, how will this adventure pan out? Will Syd find her brother, and survive the ARIna challenges with her old enemies? There are many endings, depending on how the player acts in the game.
My personal favorite thing since launching the game is hearing people’s reactions to the endings. There are quite a few where Syd gets to significantly change the world of Shiba Inu Island, and I love reading how reviewers think about the impact of their choices.
PS4B: How long did it take to develop A Summer with the Shiba Inu? Were there any hurdles or challenges you had to overcome during development?
It took a little over two years to develop this game. I was a full-time student and then worked a full-time job (not in the gaming industry), so I’m really happy with how I managed my time to work on this game on weekends.
I managed a global team. The artist, Bella Hsiao, is from Taiwan, and other contributors are from the US or Canada. It definitely made for some stressful times as I was the sole writer and game developer, so I had to manage myself as well – I’m probably the biggest slacker!
PS4B: With A Summer with the Shiba Inu out on consoles, are you currently working on any new projects that might make their way to Nintendo Switch or PS4?
With Quill Studios, the vision is to work on narrative games in unique worlds that have a slight twist to expectations.
In terms of A Summer with the Shiba Inu, I get a lot of “the worldbuilding is great; cute dogs, and then sudden dystopian Battle Royale,” which is a fun sentence to read!
I am starting the planning of another game in the Shiba Island universe, and another one set in a magical school, that is a darker whodunit mystery with a dash of romance! These are all ideas for now and not technically announced, but I can say what I want 🙂
Feel free to follow Quill Studios on Twitter for updates on our future projects!
PS4B: And that’s all the time we have for today. Is there something else you’d like to add before we go?
Thank you for reading this interview, and thank you, PS4Blog.net, for having me here!
I hope you can check out our game, A Summer with the Shiba Inu, and follow Quill Studios on Twitter if you are interested in our projects!
