Our interview with Conrad Grindheim of Conradical Games

Highlighted at the last Future Games Show, The Outbound Ghost also made a place for itself during the last AG French Direct in order to present a trailer and a new gameplay video, which taught us a little more about the game’s fights. At the same time, we were able to talk to Conrad Grindheim of Conradical Games to learn more about this colorful RPG, quite inspired by Paper Mario.

Birth of the project and influences

• First of all, thank you for this interview! Can you quickly introduce yourself, who are you and what is your role in the game?

Hi everyone ! My name is Conrad Grindheim and I am the lead developer of The Outbound Ghost. This means that I am the designer, the programmer, and the general coordinator of the project.

• How did your Kickstarter campaign go?

It was great! We launched the Kickstarter in the summer of 2021 and we needed around 10,000 euros to succeed. Fortunately, we were able to obtain 25,000 euros.

• The Outbound Ghost was highlighted during the Future Game Show in the spring, an opportunity for many people to discover the game. How did you experience this first major public presentation and the first feedback that followed?

It was amazing! I had signed with Digerati to be the publisher of the game right after the Kickstarter and we decided to add a combat system to the title since now we had more resources.

We also decided not to show the fight until we reannounced the game with Digerati, so from August 2021 to March 2022 I couldn’t show the new stuff! To be able to present all of this at the Future Games Show was amazing, and it was great to see all the positive reactions. Since then, I’ve been posting devlogs on my YouTube channel and TikTok, and the reactions have been amazing as well. It’s fantastic to be able to show everyone how much progress we’ve made over the past few months!

• Apart from the obvious influence of Paper Mario, what are the inspirations behind the game? And how do you intend to stand out from the Nintendo license?

Of course, the game is very inspired by Paper Mario but the combat is closer to more traditional JRPGs. For example, the game allows you to keep Aether Points (AP) to act several times as in the series Bravely Defaultand the equipment system is a combination of the badges of Paper Mario and the materia system in Final Fantasy 7.

Thanks to these inspirations, The Outbound Ghost stands out from the games Paper Mario because more hardcore JRPG fans can enjoy an incredibly deep combat system, and the game is accessible enough for fans of the Paper Mario.

Battle System Details

• We can meet several companions throughout the game who will come to help us, but how many characters can we integrate into our team?

The characters you meet throughout the story are not the ones you will use in battle! In The Outbound Ghost, you play as an amnesiac ghost who sees “apparitions” that are visible only to you. In the story of the game, the characters in the village think you are crazy and make up the fact that you can see these creatures in the world. However, they realize that you are telling the truth and that these creatures are physical manifestations of your lost memories.

When you begin to see these apparitions, you also begin to see “fantasies” which are manifestations of your imagination. You unlock these Phantasms at different points in the story and these are the ones you can use to fight off the apparitions! We won’t announce the exact number of fantasies you can add to your team, but there will be plenty that you can combine to create your perfect team!

• Can you go into a bit more detail about the combat system and the role of personality traits from our ghost’s past life?

I’m incredibly happy with the combat system – it’s a great combination of the depth of games like Bravely Default and Octopath Traveler, while having the accessibility of Paper Mario. Each phantasm has its own maximum AP that it can keep so they are all very different and can be used in different ways. However, you can change them up a bit with “aspectes”, which are the badges/equipment version of The Outbound Ghost.

For example, you can give them lifesteal, extra AP, new attacks, and more! As each fantasy can have 3 skills equipped, there are many strategies you can use. As each team member in The Outbound Ghost is a part of the personality of the main character, they are all very unique. For example :

• • Envy: Steals buffs from other characters and uses them on themselves with a multiplier.
  • Friendship: Healer like in other RPGs.
  • Insensitivity: A tank that can take attacks for other characters.

A single narrative

• Why did you choose this whole universe around ghosts?

I wanted that The Outbound Ghost to be an exceptional game for people who played Nintendo RPGs when they were younger, while being accessible enough for younger gamers to play as well.

A ghost-based universe is perfect for this approach as it allows me to talk about more mature topics, while having cute characters for more “wholesome” moments!

• We’ve seen a lot of games explore the theme of mourning and acceptance of death recently, like the very nice Spiritfarer. In what The Outbound Ghost Does it differ from other games dealing with these subjects?

The narrative structure of The Outbound Ghost is incredibly unique, I haven’t seen many games that does something similar.

Unfortunately, I want the details to be a surprise, so I won’t explain further. If you like a plurality of points of view, you will love the narrative of the game.

• Do you have any idea of ​​the estimated lifetime to complete the story?

It may change, but the estimated time needed to complete the main content of The Outbound Ghost is between 3 p.m. and 8 p.m.

• Do you have an anecdote or an unusual story to tell? Something that stood out to you or a development story about the game?

The most unusual anecdote I have about The Outbound Ghost concerns a bug that I encountered on the first day of the Kickstarter demo (perfect timing).

I had created my own kinematics system and had the commands in format. For example, if I wanted to move the camera to a certain position, the command would be where the numbers are the 3D coordinates. The problem was that, for some reason, some players in Western Europe were having the issue of the camera moving much farther than normal at the start of cutscenes.

It was very strange, and more and more people found this bug. I received reports from Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, etc. Eventually I realized that all of these countries use commas to separate their decimals instead of dots! This meant that the number 10.3 was read by my system as 103, and the camera moved incredibly far, but only in computers in those countries! Finally, the fix was simple, but I will never forget this bug for the specificity of the people who had encountered it.

• A last word for our readers?

Hope you enjoy playing The Outbound Ghost when it comes out later this year on Steam, Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S! If you want to follow the development, I recommend you to follow us on our channel Youtube on Conradical Games, and our TikTok on @ConradicalGames. A wishlist on Steam helps us a lot too!

We thank Conrad Grindheim for his time and his answers.