Welcome, CryEngineers to another entry in our lineup of contenders for the Indie Dev Fund! Today's feature is The Oracle, the brainchild of longtime CRYENGINE user Jacob Provo. Naturally, when we heard the words "psychology of fear", we just had to know more. That's why we had a chat with Jacob to learn more about just what went into The Oracle.

Fear. One of the very few things that unites all of  humanity. A set of behavioral traits and physiological changes hat emerges from the most primal of human instinct. Nobody is truly above fear, whatever it may be. Today, the task of scaring the players of a video game has largely been delegated to the players themselves. After all, the greatest tool for creating fear is the human imagination right? Perhaps not. Enter The Oracle A new type of horror game, that tears ravenously into your psyche and probes the very metaphysical concept of fear. In The Oracle, you won't just encounter fear, you will enter it. 

In ninety-nine words, how would you describe your project?  What can the player look forward to experiencing?

The Oracle is truly something spectacular. It has been designed from the ground up to get to the player on a deep emotional metaphysical level, and really create a lasting impact. Something like you've never quite seen before.

What would you say makes The Oracle unique and deserving of the Indie Dev Fund?

When it comes to The Oracle, and what makes it truly unique, there's a lot to take into consideration. First, the environments. We wanted to create an Environment that has a fantasy feel, and both at the same time feels like you could go there tomorrow. Second, the plot. This is where Oracle truly shines. Unlike most games in our genre The Oracle, the games antagonist, isn't this omnipresent being that pops out of the woodwork to deliver cheap scares. He was designed, written, animated, and just all around created, to represent Fear. In Oracle, you are in HIS realm. You are in HIS reality. Anything can, and probably will, happen.

 "...you are in HIS realm. You are in HIS reality. Anything can, and probably will, happen."

Archaeology, murder, otherworldly encounters, this is quite a diverse project. What inspired you to pursue this genre of survival horror?

The inspiration for Oracle came in many ways. Way back in 2013 I was working on a project titled Operation: Oracle, which was a personal project of a generic FPS game set in modern America. I was a college student at the time studying film and minoring in mathematics, so as the story fleshed out I was noticing with every rewrite I was making it more and more about flashbacks and hallucinations of this troubled mind of the main character, also named Malcolm. So in late 2015 I scrapped the personal project and wrote the first draft of The Oracle. As I've mentioned previously I studied film quite a bit, and my specialization came in Horror films so I've always been in love of the creepy things. This is how The Oracle came about.

Did you use any real world sources when developing the Apache Indian spirit world? Does the game draw on any native American lore?

Absolutely. Myself I have a Cherokee background, and when I was little we used to go the Cherokee reservation once a year so I got very versed in their culture as well as several others. It's always been a part of me. As for lore, there will be. As to how much, that's still up in the air. For reasons why we will let the game explain why.

Can you tell us about any difficulties you had to surmount in the course of developing this project?

We have had quite a lot. Early on we wanted to implement the process of Photogrammetry and well, it destroyed one of our computers. Which sadly called for us to scrap what would have been the biggest draw to the game, a very specific mission of the game witch would have called for a real life model set being constructed for incredible life like visuals during the scene, but during the tests our computers could not handle the programs. We also ran into a few issues with the team. For a long time, it was just me working on the game until about January of this year. Probably the biggest difficulty so far, has been the sheer size of the map. Something we wanted to do was create such a large open world, and keeping it optimized, but still graphically appealing has been quite a challenge. 

What can you tell us about your studio, your team?

Project Home Productions started in 2013 as a way to showcase artists I met while I was in college. A lot of the people I knew who were incredibly talented were not getting the attention they deserved for their work, and I provided them a platform to do that. Over time, and with the creation of Operation: Oracle as mentioned above, it began to mold and shape into what it is now a Game/Film studio rather then publicizing artists. Today, Project Home Productions is a team of seven people who are all working incredibly hard as we speak on our first ever gameplay trailer which should launch if not next week, the week after. This will be a huge milestone for us, three years in the making really.

I have to say, your environment art looks fantastic. How interactive will the environment be to the player? Are the any surprises we can expect?

We plan on making the Environment feel like it's another character of the game. We want it to be immersive, interactive, and full of surprises. Everything from puzzles, to interactions with spirits, to just downright psychiatric episodes. It will be something you really will not forget. Also, I should mention that there is something more about The Oracle that we have hinted at on other sites. Some of our Reddit fans know exactly what we're talking about.

"It will be something you really, will not forget"

Sounds like an interesting project! Make sure to check out The Oracle and the many other promising projects currently featured in the Indie Dev Fund Gallery . Hit 'Like' and show your support!

That's all for today, Cryengineers! Stay posted for the next feature in our Indie Dev Fund lineup!

-Tracer & Nic