Unreal Engine 5 makes Daughter of Voodoo's solo dev feel unstoppable

Since 2021, D&A Studios has shipped two games, including Conrad Stevenson's Paranormal P.I. and Among The Whispers – Provocation. That's not bad for indie solo developer Kip Edwards, who decided to throw himself into indie game development after previously working at a "soulless" farm job, and he's already announced a new project last October called Daughter of Voodoo. It's admirable productivity compared to some AAA studios that have struggled to even ship one game in that same span of time.

It helps that there's a running theme Edwards has been building on, with each game focused on paranormal investigations, a subject he tells me he's been an enthusiast of for decades. Even so, Daughter of Voodoo is a bit of a departure from his previous games, or most paranormal investigation games you might expect. You play the role of Marie Laurette, a clairvoyant priestess who uses ancestral Voodoo rituals to commune with spirits.

The idea intrigued Edwards, who recalls watching an episode of a ghost-hunting show that featured a Voodoo priest performing rituals to communicate with and guide a spirit. However, he also talks about spending a lot of time in New Orleans, Louisiana, where he became more aware of Voodoo as a real religion (its origin is actually from West Africa, though its practices have spread through the African diaspora, notably in Haiti and Louisiana).

The spirit of something special

"I think Voodoo, for the most part in Hollywood, has always been kind of sinister and used for evil curses and things like that, but it's a religion for folks in that region," Edwards explains. "So I'm just trying to portray it as respectfully and accurately as I can, so that the folks that are familiar with and understand Voodoo may see this game and get it. But I still have to bridge the gap to make it fit the game, while taking a respectable approach."

An essential part of the game then involves creating a Voodoo altar to communicate with the Iwa, or spirits, present in the house you're investigating. "Developing an altar will consist of the right materials to create your sigil on the ground. and then the correct candle, and those candles will align with the particular Iwa, and then there's oils that you would anoint," Edwards elaborates. "There's different ingredients that players will use to make an altar or a mojo bag, and then this will align with different ghosts' behaviours and interests."

Another important aspect is that Marie's clairvoyance allows her to see the world of the dead, and through that Voodoo lens, Edwards also wants to offer a different artistic perspective. "The origins of it for me are bayous in New Orleans, and trying to get that swampy feeling," he explains. "When you think about the spirit world, everything's cold and dead. But in Voodoo, it's just the cycle of life. So I wanted the world of the dead to feel alive and organic with vines and these purple fireflies. When you die, maybe your spirit's in there, but the plant life consumes the soul and recycles it to be reborn again."

The Unreal Engine connection

Although Daughter of Voodoo is being developed in Unreal Engine 5, Edwards admits he's still barely scratching the surface of its capabilities. "It's a powerful engine, but the drawback of being a one-man team is I have to spend some time just researching and understanding the impact of implementing some of these tools and if it's viable," he explains. "It's such a large tool that I find that I'm just learning all the time and with every new update there's new features."

Nonetheless, an important benefit, which came in the 5.4 update, has been the engine's animation pipeline where he's now able to largely focus on working just in Unreal. "Before, I'd use Blender quite a bit and then try the animations through Blender before then bring them into Unreal," he explains. "I find the tools in Unreal now are much better to where sometimes I'll only go back into Blender maybe to clean things up, or just because it's the comfort zone."

While Daughter of Voodoo is a first-person game, Edwards wanted to generate hype with its announced teaser, so he opted for a third-person perspective, showing Marie performing a Voodoo ritual. This was the perfect excuse to leverage the Metahuman Creator to create her character model, which he did easily by face-capturing an actor with just his phone. "Unreal Engine 4 didn't have those pipelines, or at least I wasn't aware of those pipelines to be able to do that kind of stuff. So Unreal Engine 5 has made this kind of work a lot easier to do."

Daughter of Voodoo is coming soon to early access, and you can wishlist it on Steam.