Surprisingly, Hell Maiden marks a massive shift for the team. They’re taking the famous setting from Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy to create a horde survival rougelite deck-builder. It will be interesting to see how the team approaches this new genre. This is where we asked them about the game’s features, its tarot-inspired card system, when to expect the first demo, and if their iconic anime graphics will still be present.

In Hell Maiden, you play as Dante who inexplicably finds herself back in Hell after already reaching Paradiso, her memories completely wiped. Determined to claw her way back to Heaven and uncover the truth, she’s joined by the wise Roman poet Virgil and the saintly Beatrice. Your journey takes you through the nine Circles of Hell, where you’ll face swarms of fiends and bosses. You’ll build your arsenal by collecting, stacking, and merging tarot-inspired cards.

The game is set to release on PC via Steam with no current date, and the developers describe it as “Touhou meets Vampire Survivors”.

Hell Maiden is described as an original retelling to Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy. What inspired you to reimagine this classic work as a horde survival deck-building game with an anime-inspired twist?

The idea was initially proposed by our creative director, Kira (António Lopes), based on his own original character designs for two of the main characters of Dante’s Divine Comedy — Dante and Beatrice. This spontaneous character design exercise was what kicked everything off and led to the creation of Hell Maiden.

As fans of the horde survival genre and games such as Vampire Survivors and Halls of Torment, we decided to pair it with another much beloved genre among our team members, deck-building, to create an unlikely combination of mechanics that work surprisingly well together.

Anime being an integral part of our artistic expression, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to reimagine Dante’s Divine Comedy with an all-female cast, which lines up perfectly with our studio’s previous titles. More than a retelling, Hell Maiden is mainly a sequel that picks up from where the original poem left off.

Your previous titles Pocket Mirror and Little Goody Two Shoes leaned heavily into horror and narrative-driven RPGs. What motivated the shift to a more action-packed genre?

The team had been itching to explore other genres that involved more action and fast-paced gameplay ever since the development of our previous title, Little Goody Two Shoes. While we’ll forever love the horror RPG genre and would be happy to revisit it in the future, we consider it’s the right time to expand our horizons and explore other genres, ideas and possibilities for our small studio. Personal taste and creative vision weren’t the only factors going into Hell Maiden’s creation and genre choice.

As an independent game development company, we feel ready to explore not only different creative avenues, but especially the possibility of self-publishing. After Little Goody Two Shoes, we decided to aim for a project that makes the most of our in-house strengths, skills and abilities in order to develop a game that’s more in line with what we can accomplish independently at this point in time.

Dante is portrayed as a female character who has lost her memories and is back in Hell after reaching Paradiso. What can you tell us about her character?

Hell Maiden’s Dante is rather different from the original poem’s protagonist: from her motivations to her circumstances. Contrary to the original Dante, our protagonist isn’t solely motivated by the prospect of meeting her beloved, Beatrice, in Paradiso and instead is moved by a strong sense of justice and determination to get to the bottom of why she was cast out of Heaven.

While the original poem’s protagonist personality encapsulates common and universal traits, our Dante is unreasonably determined, passionate and incredibly willful. She isn’t easily swayed by her emotions, nor is she intimidated by her opponents — no matter how tough. The one trait she does have in common with the original Dante, however, is her prideful nature.

The game features a cast of characters like Virgil, Beatrice, and the Poets of Limbo. How did you decide which figures from Divine Comedy and history to include?

Virgil and Beatrice are integral characters of the original poem and we couldn’t go without including them in our main cast. All other characters, however, were directly mentioned by Dante.

Right at the beginning of Inferno, Dante lists a series of virtuous poets, polymaths and philosophers (among others) from antiquity whom he admires. Virgil, Ovid, Homer, Lucan and Horace are among the most virtuous of all which made our decision to include them as the five main Poets of Limbo rather straightforward.

While Dante’s list is quite extensive, we’re taking our own liberties and including others with similar characteristics to the canonically included historical figures as well. The same doesn’t apply to the antagonists, however, as they’re all canonical residents of Hell.

The graphics feature that unique anime style you showcased in Little Goody Two Shoes. Do you now consider this your signature style, or is it simply a style you’re comfortable working with?

Our visual identity is very much intentional and unique to our studio — more specifically to our creative director, Kira, whose personal style in illustration and design shapes our games’ visuals. In that sense, it is very much our signature style although we collaborate with different artists for our games and often enjoy working with mixed media elements as well.

We’ve been experimenting with 3D as of recently, so there’s still plenty of room to experiment with and explore our signature style!

What’s the current state of the game, when can we expect its release, and when might the demo be available?

While we don’t have a release date yet, we’re currently working hard on a demo version of Hell Maiden which we’re hoping to release soon. In a general sense, the game is still in early development, but we’ll be keeping everyone updated with our every move!

Moving onto the gameplay, can you walk us through the process of designing the tarot-inspired card system? How do Spirit Cards, Weapon Cards, and Mod Cards work together?

Hell Maiden’s card system is meant to provide players with unique skills throughout each run. There are two types of Spirit Cards — Weapon and Mod Cards.

Weapon Cards empower players with unique skills and abilities. For example, Dante’s signature Weapon Card, “Blazing Quill’, unleashes a close ranged attack upon players’ targeted enemies. Other Weapon Cards include different abilities such as periodically summoned lightning bolts and spikes, energy spheres that surround Dante’s character sprite and damage surrounding enemies, projectiles, among others.

In order to enhance the chosen Weapon Cards, players will be able to equip them with Mod Cards which, as the name suggests, modify that weapon’s attacks — from increasing attack speed, damage and area, to imbuing them with status effects such as poison, burn, slow, etc.

We’re also developing other ways players can influence and diversify their runs with meta-progression mechanics, Spirit Cards you can acquire after defeating certain bosses, a perk system and more! We believe Hell Maiden’s deck-building will be exciting for players to tinker with and explore.

The Poets of Limbo, like Homer and Ovid, provide Blessings and Signature Weapons. What do these characters bring to the gameplay?

In one word — complexity. All Poets of Limbo have their own Signature Weapons which are unique to them. These open up a myriad of possibilities throughout each run by allowing players to experiment and tinker with different card combinations. The same applies to their Blessings which are character-themed card pools which offer Mod Cards that are unique to each Poet.

As such, players will be able to mix and match Weapon and Mod Cards from various different pools to create truly unique combinations. The more Poets players rescue from the depths of Hell, the more cards they’ll have at their disposal!

Do you plan to make Hell Maiden highly replayable to keep players returning, and since it’s releasing in Early Access, how often do you intend to update it?

Yes, we’re focusing a lot on replayability and making sure the game remains fun throughout with new cards, features and characters to unlock!

This also applies to the narrative’s progression — from side quests that further expand on the lore, to new interactions with the Poets of Limbo after each run and even new dialogue every time players revisit bosses they’ve already defeated.

Our plan for Early Access is to update the game regularly and keep a close relationship with our community to make sure we’re maintaining a good pace while simultaneously addressing players’ concerns, bug reports and suggestions. At this point in time, we cannot say how often we’ll be making updates, but we’ll most definitely keep everyone updated!

Is there a unique mechanic you’d like to highlight, something you’re particularly proud of?

Just like all our other titles, Hell Maiden is very near and dear to our hearts.

One of our flagship features for the game is its deck-building elements which bring a new and fresh take into the horde survival genre. We’ve been having a ton of fun playing around with the different combinations of attacks, buffs and enhancements this system allows for. It’s a really magical experience when the game you’re making turns out to be genuinely fun and compelling!

The addition of a complex and gripping narrative is also one of Hell Maiden’s unique features we’re most proud of as it’s something we haven’t seen being done before in the genre.

Dante’s Divine Comedy is the perfect fit for something like this and we’ve been having a lot of fun deconstructing and redesigning its narrative into something that’s playful and lighthearted while also retaining all the passion, earnestness and sincerity we’ve weaved into our previous titles’ storylines. All in all, we’re very excited about Hell Maiden as it’s allowing us to explore new possibilities while still retaining 100% of our identity, self expression and signature style.

Why did you decide to go with Early Access? What can you tell us about bosses and enemies we’lll face in the game?

There are two main reasons why we think Early Access is the right choice for Hell Maiden.

Having worked alongside publishers for previous two titles, we’ve reached a stage in which we feel ready to follow our own path and release a game independently. As such, our fans’ support is now more essential than ever as we’re relying solely on our growing community to take AstralShift further.

In that same vein, working alongside our community is priceless to us and Early Access allows us to do just that by involving players in the development process to a certain extent. As independent developers we’ll be able to freely take in and implement feedback from fans and keep a closer relationship with everyone on our own terms.

As for the opponents you’ll fight throughout the game all we can say is that we hope you’re good at bullet hell games!

What’s your view on the gaming industry overall? Are you seeking a publisher for Hell Maiden, or will you self-publish it?

Our goal is to self-publish Hell Maiden for both the sake of independence and autonomy, but also for financial reasons.

Game development was never easy, but it has recently become even tougher to stand out even when we do our best every day and we’re very glad that AstralShift’s charm continues to reach so many people even in today’s climate.

Now more than ever we need our fans’ support to be able to further grow our studio and continue to deliver what’s expected from us and what we love doing the most — creating immersive, visually stunning and narrative-driven gaming experiences!

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