'Minds Beneath Us' is a narrative-driven adventure that explores that fuzzy area of AI consciousness and moral ambiguity. It has captured players' imaginations with a thought-provoking story and morally-complex characters. But what sparked the project? What challenges did the team faced to bring their visions to life? And what lies ahead? I chatted with the creative team at Bear Bone Studio to understand their inspirations and the hurdles that shaped the game. Here's an exclusive look into indie game development, their next projects, and team's journey from classroom to indie success.
We started out as a group of university classmates with the dream of creating our own indie game studio...
I’m really curious. What sparked the initial idea for Minds Beneath Us? Were there specific games, movies, or even personal experiences that fueled the overall theme of the game?
The inspiration for Minds Beneath Us came from my personal disappointment after observing society. I had a lot of thoughts and feelings I wanted to express, and creating a game felt like the right medium for that. We live in a very complex time. The issues society faces are becoming more intricate, but we're still used to the mindset of fighting against a singular power or evil force.
In the past, it was about overthrowing a dictator, abolishing slavery, or defending one's country. Those were extremely difficult challenges that required great sacrifice, but the goals were straightforward. Nowadays, the dilemmas we face are more nuanced—like how much personal data should we allow corporations to use for training AI models? It can lead to better services, but it also compromises our freedom. These are things we need to think through together, rather than just reacting with resistance or outright rejection.
People are still passionate about making the world a better place, but they often just want a simple target to fight against, rather than engaging in the complex thinking needed for today's problems. This creates a situation where those with bad intentions can manipulate well-meaning people, leading to a breakdown in communication and cooperation.
At the heart of Minds Beneath Us is Nin Situ, a character who speaks about justice but ultimately makes decisions that might seem like betrayal. I wanted players to understand her, even if they don't necessarily agree with her. To me, this symbolizes how sometimes people with changing stances can still be good, and that sticking to one rigid position isn't always the right path. We should approach things with an open mind and not let ourselves be tied down by our initial stances.
The game dives deep into some complex ideas about consciousness. How did you go about bringing those ideas to life in a way that players could connect and interact with?
I believe that complex ideas can be more easily communicated through casual conversations between characters. When these deeper concepts are tied to the personal stories, positions, and emotions of the characters, it allows players to connect with them on a more emotional level.
Can you share some of the biggest hurdles that you faced during the development of Minds Beneath Us? And how did you tackle them?
In simple terms, the biggest challenge was our lack of technical capabilities. We never had a stable engineer on the team, which slowed our progress and forced everyone to take on tasks outside of their expertise. For example, I probably spent less than half of the development time on writing, with most of my focus being on solving other game-related issues. While we managed to finish the game through outsourcing and task coordination, this limitation definitely held us back. It's unfortunate because I believe we could have done even better with the right technical support.
Were there ideas or features that you had to let go of during development?
During development, we tried implementing a feature where players could assign an emotion to their dialogue choices. The idea was to give players more nuanced ways to express their thoughts. However, we quickly realized that this would significantly increase the writing workload, and in most dialogue scenarios, adding a specific emotion wasn’t really necessary.
..the biggest challenge was our lack of technical capabilities
How does it feel to have Minds Beneath Us out in the world for everyone to play? Were there reactions from players that totally caught you off guard?
I was really surprised by how deeply players connected with the story and enjoyed the dialogue. Saying "surprised" might sound strange, but I was extremely nervous before the game’s release, and I couldn’t predict how players would react. Besides the art style, I felt that the narrative didn’t necessarily cater to mainstream tastes, so seeing the positive responses has been a huge relief.
Another interesting aspect was the choices at the end of the game. We initially thought players would overwhelmingly lean towards a particular option, but the choices ended up being much more evenly spread out than we expected. It was a fascinating reminder of just how different people are.
I was reading comments on Reddit and noticed that a lot of players are requesting for a DLC? Can we expect one?
We don’t have any plans for a DLC at the moment, but we will be releasing some updates soon to address parts of the story that weren’t fully explained. We know many players are hoping for more of the story to be told, and while it wasn’t part of our original plan, we still want to improve the overall experience and player satisfaction. Although there's no DLC, we're already hard at work on our next project, where we’ll dive deeper into the world of Minds Beneath Us and tell more of its stories!
Do you have plans to release it on PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, even on mobile?
Ideally, we’d like to release the game on all platforms. Right now, we’re working on some of the porting tasks, and the Switch version is already confirmed. As for other platforms, we’ll need to assess the situation and make decisions based on cost considerations.
I’m curious about the team as well. Can you tell me a little about how you all work together and what makes Bear Bone Studio special?
Our main goal is to express ideas through storytelling...
We started out as a group of university classmates with the dream of creating our own indie game studio, sparked during our graduation project. Aside from our passion for game development, we saw great opportunities at the time—Taiwan had many competitions and investment institutions that were very supportive of new teams, providing funding and mentorship. We were also encouraged by advice from experienced developers, which gave us the confidence to start our studio right after graduation.
While some changes have occurred in our team, we've generally kept a core group of seven: one engineer, one technical artist, one 3D modeler, one scene designer, one character animator, one UI and character designer, and a producer/writer. As you can see, we heavily focus on visual presentation, with five members working in art-related roles.
Our main goal is to express ideas through storytelling, but we don’t limit ourselves to any particular genre. Whether it’s a text-based adventure or an action game, we want the story to be at the heart of it all.
Looking ahead, what’s next for Bear Bone Studio? Any specific genres or themes you’re interested in exploring?
We're currently planning a new project within the Minds Beneath Us IP. We want to address some of the gameplay content limitations from the original game, so we're looking to incorporate more gameplay elements. Personally, I'm hoping to add aspects of character development and action, potentially shaping it into an RPG-like format. However, since we're still in the early stages of development, everything is still subject to change!
Credits:
- Images: Steam Community Screenshots