Small teams and solo developers often produce some of the most unique and personal games, and this holds true for Rablo Games, an indie studio led by founder Pablo Coma. The studio’s upcoming release, Necro Story, marks an exciting new chapter. Coma, known for his solo debut Healer’s Quest, is no longer working alone. Now collaborating with Baptiste Remy and later joined by Clémence Geurts, he is working on Necro Story as a team and has even begun development on the studio’s next project.
“I started working on Necro Story right after finishing Healer’s Quest in 2018,” says Coma. “Initially, I planned to develop it alone, just like my previous game.” But as is often the case, plans change, and the solo dev path transformed into a collaborative journey. Six months into development, Coma accepted a job at Appeal Studios as a game designer, eventually becoming a game director. During his time there, he reconnected with a colleague from a previous game jam, Baptiste Remy, who shared an interest in making smaller indie games outside of work hours. By 2020, the two had rebooted Necro Story, this time as a duo.
For any indie developer, the transition from working solo to collaborating with others brings new challenges and rewards. “I learned that synchronization between people takes time,” Coma reflects on the process. “When working alone, I could implement ideas almost immediately. But with a team, even if it’s just two people, there’s time needed for discussion, planning, and making sure we’re all on the same page.” That’s a lesson he learned not just from Rablo Games, but from his experience directing larger teams at Appeal Studios, where he spent five years working on Outcast – A New Beginning.
Two people, twice as fast?
Working with a partner in indie development, Coma explains, is far different than leading a large studio team. “A team of two won’t necessarily work twice as fast as one person. The more people you have, the more time it takes to keep everyone in sync.” Coma remains cautious about expanding Rablo Games too quickly, as he values the hands-on creative process over managing large teams.
By February 2024, the team had grown to three with the addition of Clémence Geurts, who was initially hired for a future project. However, as Necro Story took longer than anticipated, she pitched in with QA, key art, and marketing assets. “Her drawing style is amazing,” Coma says. “She adapted to our graphical style quickly, and for our next project, she’ll be handling most of the game graphics.”
From Healer to Necromancer
The inspiration for Necro Story came from a simple idea: take the mechanics of Healer’s Quest, where the player controls one character in a party, and apply it to a different role. This time, the player steps into the shoes of a necromancer. “There’s so much you can do as a necromancer,” Coma says, listing off abilities like summoning the undead, casting poison spells, and even making pacts with demons. But it was more than just the combat mechanics that intrigued him. The story, humor, and the relationship between the characters, a grumpy necromancer and a playful ghost named Vivi, became central to the game’s identity.
Writing for the game came naturally to Coma, who infused it with a comedic tone similar to Healer’s Quest while avoiding the more meta, fourth-wall-breaking elements. “The idea of a necromancer guided by a ghost was just too fun to resist,” Coma chuckles. “It’s a dynamic that really drives the narrative forward.”
Catching souls
Perhaps the most innovative feature in Necro Story is its soul-catching system, a mechanic that adds both urgency and reward to the game’s combat. “Every time an enemy dies, its soul flies off, and you have to catch it before it escapes,” Coma explains. This interactive element not only keeps players engaged but also provides valuable rewards like extra XP, resources, and mana. “Some souls will even try to flee from the mouse pointer, adding an extra layer of challenge.”
For controller users, the mechanic required a complete redesign. “With the gamepad, we had to introduce a new system where players aim with the left stick and press a button to vacuum up the soul,” Coma says. This wasn’t the only adaptation needed for the console version; reworking the controls for all aspects of gameplay, from targeting enemies to navigating menus, proved to be a significant challenge. Still, the feedback from players has been overwhelmingly positive, particularly for the adaptive difficulty and variety of soul types.
The cartoony side of death
The visual style of Necro Story draws heavily from Coma’s earlier, unreleased project Lost Spirits of Kael and continued through Healer’s Quest. “Players loved the art style in Healer’s Quest, so it made sense to carry it forward into Necro Story,” Coma explains. The bright, cartoonish art contrasts nicely with the darker themes of necromancy and death. While Geurts didn’t work on the game’s core visuals, she contributed key art and illustrations for promotional material, social media, and achievement badges. “Clémence will be leading the art for our next project,” Coma shares. “Her talent is going to take our visuals to the next level.”
Balancing a day job with indie game development is no small feat. While Healer’s Quest provided enough income for Coma to reduce his full-time job to part-time, further opportunities, like a mobile version and Nintendo Switch port, took time and resources but didn’t generate significant revenue. “Those versions were very time-consuming and didn’t perform well commercially,” Coma admits. This limited his progress on Necro Story, especially once he started working full-time again as a game director at Appeal Studios.
Lifesaver funding
In 2023, with the game still unfinished, Rablo Games secured funding from Wallimage, a Belgian public fund for video games. This allowed new team member Baptiste Remy to work full-time on the project for nearly a year. “That funding was a lifesaver,” Coma says. However, by mid-2024, the team once again found themselves working unpaid as they pushed toward the game’s release date.
As Necro Story nears its October 7th release, the team at Rablo Games is already thinking ahead. Thanks to additional funding, pre-production for their next project is already underway. “We’ve got big plans for the future,” Coma reveals. “We’re aiming for a 2026 release, but it all depends on securing more funding or the success of Necro Story.” For now, though, Coma and his team are focused on bringing Necro Story into the world, excited to see how players respond to the game they’ve poured so much into. “We’re keeping our fingers crossed,” he laughs, “and hope that our game development adventure can continue.”