Black Salt Games on DREDGE – Interview Series

DREDGE creator Black Salt Games is making swift progress in the New Zealand game development scene with its “overwhelmingly positive” repertoire of feedback from the game’s 2023 launch.

Clearly, the future is bright for the studio, and so, regardless of the outcome of the next project, it seems as though fans will more or less be pledging their allegiance to the team’s ongoing efforts to monopolize the Kiwi quarter and beyond. And we’re with them.

In an effort to learn more about DREDGE’s launch on Android and iOS, as well as Black Salt Games’ future plans to broaden its portfolio, I decided to reach out to the studio’s 3D artist and animator, Michael Bastiaens.

Firstly, we just wanted to thank you for the opportunity to virtually sit down with you and talk about the latest happenings in Black Salt Games. Before we descend into BSG, however, would you mind introducing yourself to our readers and telling us a bit about your involvement with the studio?

Mikey: My name is Mikey and I was the 3D Artist and Animator on DREDGE.

We would love to hear more about Black Salt Games; specifically, how it came to be. Would you mind telling us more about its origin story? How did it all come together, and what brought you to the conception of DREDGE?

Mikey: The origins of Black Salt Games started with splitting off from our previous studio around the period of COVID. It was predominantly a “Work for hire” studio where we would work on games and experiences for big clients. With a lot of companies looking to cope with the pandemic we decided that now would be a good time to try our hand at doing our own game and so the small team of Black Salt Games was formed.

As for coming up with the idea of DREDGE, we started off by first having a number of meetings and conversations around the types of games we would all want to make or not want to make.  We were able to narrow down the scope and potential genre of the games we would want to make through that process.

After these alignment meetings, there were a number of game pitching sessions where the team came up with game ideas that fit into the categories we had decided on. From these ideas, a few were chosen for rapid prototyping. These prototypes were made over a couple weeks and then we got people to playtest these games and help the team decide on which game to take into further development.

One of these ideas was “DREDGE” which had a simple tagline of “lovecraftian fishing”. The prototype for the game was fairly different from the game we ended up creating but at the same time, all the bones of what made DREDGE the game it turned out to be were there.

DREDGE was a major success for the studio. Tell us, how do you plan on building on that momentum in your next venture? The sky’s the limit at this point, but we have to ask, what are your plans for getting there?

Mikey: The way we went about aligning ourselves with the sort of games and experiences we wanted to make proved to work out very well for us so there probably won’t be many changes on how we go about coming up with ideas and prototypes to experiment with.

We’ve briefly spoken about your next venture, but have yet to delve into the details. So, let’s talk about it. If you’re willing to share, would you mind telling us more about the next phase of your journey?

Mikey: It’s hard to really say at this point since we are still working on DREDGE for mobile and other platforms.

On a side note, do you have any words of advice for those who’ve yet to embark on their own fishing expeditions in DREDGE? Are there any useful beginner tips or general pointers that you wouldn’t mind sharing?

Mikey: There isn’t any right or wrong way to play DREDGE. For players that might be scared of the horror elements of the game, you can switch on passive mode and just complete the game comfortably during the day like a sensible human. If on the other hand you want more of a challenge, then seeing how far you can get without ever sleeping is also a viable option.

We would hate to miss out on anything Black Salt Games related. With that in mind, would you mind sharing a few useful social handles, newsletters, or any other notable sources of information with us?

Mikey: Presskit, Instagram, Tiktok and Bluesky

You’ve been great, thank you. Before we bring this story to its natural conclusion, would you like to add anything else to the pot? Do you have any last-minute comments that you would like to share with our readers, perhaps?

Mikey: We never expected the sort of response to our game that we got! To hear people come up to us and say it’s been one of their favorite games, show off their tattoos of some of the crazy looking fish or share their own stories has been amazing! And we want to thank all of the people who have been a part of the journey since it gives us joy knowing that we can continue to create more exciting games and stories going forward.

Thanks again, Mikey — we really appreciate your time!

You can stay up to date with Black Salt Games by following the official X handle here. For even more details on the studio’s upcoming projects, visit the website here.