Forget punishing runs and endless repetition – Dlala Studios’ upcoming title, Murals, is aiming to redefine the roguelike experience. While drawing inspiration from classics like Hades, the studio wants to create a game that prioritizes fun and accessibility for all players.
A Fresh Take on Fairy Tales
Murals might look familiar at first glance, but Dlala Studios isn’t simply rehashing existing formulas. Instead, they’re crafting a unique blend of dark fairy tales with fast-paced action inspired by modern games like Doom and Diablo. One key difference is the game’s customizable difficulty settings, designed to ensure that players of all skill levels can enjoy the experience.
“There are difficulty selectors, and you can kind of tweak some of the individual settings,” explained Dlala CEO, Aj Grand-Scrutton, in an interview with GameSpot. “We’ve got high-level options like enemy damage and health, but also things that affect the player’s health. We tried to make it as welcoming as possible, just like we did with Disney Illusion Island.”
“When we’re building, we don’t care about player deaths,” Grand-Scrutton continued. “Our goal isn’t to kill the player; it’s to make sure they have fun. We try to make it as customizable as we can so everyone can get through. Even if you’re a button-masher, that’s a legitimate tactic in our rules.”
The moment-to-moment gameplay of roguelikes like Hades inspired the fast, frantic combat in Murals, but the goal was to capture a “persistent, linear” experience within the fairy tale worlds that players will explore. Doom and Diablo also helped inspire the game’s design, and Allen added that an indie game called Blazing Beaks also served as an influence.
“For me, it was kind of like looking at those games and understanding the experimentation that they had,” Allen added. “But obviously, it’s very finite how long you have those for in those games. It was more like looking at our game as more like a child’s science kit.”
Revealed during Gamescom Opening Night Live, Murals will see players trek through hand-painted fairy tales that have gone spectacularly wrong. For example, Sleeping Beauty is an insomniac, and Rapunzel’s own hair is trying to murder her. As the amnesiac protagonist, it’s up to you to defeat distorted legends from lore and take down the enigmatic Creator. Murals will launch for PC in 2027.
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