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Baptiste Developer Interview: Haunted Dolls, Grief, and Slow-Burn Horror
Upcoming psychological horror game Baptiste places players in the shoes of Tom, a young boy who moves into the mysterious mansion at Jagged Shore Cliff with his mother, Sara, following a devastating family tragedy. While Tom is already struggling with grief and his deteriorating emotional state, the discovery of a disturbing doll named Baptiste begins to transform their new home into something increasingly dangerous and difficult to understand. Rather than building its horror entirely around jump scares, the game uses unsettling environmental changes, quiet sound design, liminal spaces, and the uncertainty surrounding Tom’s perception of reality to create a slower sense of dread. In our interview, the developers discuss approaching horror through the perspective of a grieving child, the personal story that inspired Baptiste’s design, the mansion’s role as a character, and how the positive response to the playable demo encouraged the team to embrace the game’s B-Movie horror identity.
Justin (Imaginative Visions): Baptiste puts us in the shoes of Tom, a young boy who is already dealing with grief before the supernatural horror begins. What interested you about presenting this experience through the perspective of someone going through trauma, and will his medication play some role later? How did that change the way you approached fear compared with playing as an adult protagonist?
Nic Iglesias (Firenut Games): An adult protagonist can rationalize a lot of what's happening to them. A kid can't. That gap is basically the whole game. Tom is already carrying something heavy before a single supernatural thing happens, so fear stacks on top of grief instead of showing up on its own. Not going to spoil the medication question, but yes, it matters, and it ties pretty directly into the whole "is this real or is this in his head" thread running through the story.
Justin (Imaginative Visions): You've cited everything from P.T. and Layers of Fear to Annabelle and Night of the Living Dummy as inspirations. How did you take those influences and make sure Baptiste developed its own identity rather than simply feeling like another haunted doll or haunted house story?
Nic Iglesias (Firenut Games): Honestly, the doll itself is what keeps this from being generic for us. It's loosely inspired by a real ventriloquist dummy from 1960's Spain that haunted the childhood of a relative of one of our team members, so there's a very personal, very specific fear underneath all the references. On top of that, we lean hard into liminal, wrong-feeling spaces (we made Backrooms Level X for a reason) and tell the whole thing through a grieving kid instead of a paranormal investigator. That combination is what we think keeps it from blending into the pile.
Justin (Imaginative Visions): Jagged Shore Cliff feels like more than just a backdrop, especially with the idea that the house and even reality itself begin changing around Tom. How much of the storytelling is being communicated through the environment, and what do you want players to learn simply by paying attention to the mansion?
Nic Iglesias (Firenut Games): A lot of it, honestly, more than the dialogue does. The house is basically a second character. It reacts to Tom instead of just sitting there looking spooky, so if you actually stop and look around, you pick up on things going wrong before the story spells them out. We want players who pay attention to feel like they're piecing together the truth themselves, not being handed it.
Justin (Imaginative Visions): Horror is one of the toughest genres to make a game for because fans of the genre are expecting unique scares. What are some of the challenges of keeping horror up to expectations and your approach to atmosphere?
Nic Iglesias (Firenut Games): The biggest trap is chasing bigger jump scares to keep up, and that always backfires. We'd rather earn dread slowly, quiet sound design, small details that feel off, spaces that feel liminal and wrong, and save the big hits for when they actually mean something. It's a lot harder to pull off than it sounds, but a scare you saw coming is worse than no scare at all.
Justin (Imaginative Visions): You've already released a demo and have openly asked players for feedback, with updates addressing things like models, textures, quality, and optimization. What has surprised you the most about the response to the demo, and has any player feedback actually caused you to rethink or change something in the full game?
Nic Iglesias (Firenut Games): The positive reaction genuinely caught us off guard; we went in bracing for the usual demo pile-on. What really stuck with us is how many people specifically called out that fun, slightly cheesy, B-movie horror feeling and loved it for exactly that. Turns out that's the flavor people actually want from us, so we're leaning into it and keeping that same B-movie spirit in everything we make going forward.
Justin (Imaginative Visions): Beneath the supernatural elements, Baptiste is also dealing with grief, family trauma, and the question of whether what Tom is experiencing is real or coming from his own deteriorating state of mind. When players reach the end, what do you hope stays with them emotionally after the scares themselves have worn off?
Nic Iglesias (Firenut Games): More than any twist or reveal, we just want players to feel like they genuinely lived those hours as Tom, and actually felt what a scared, grieving kid goes through. If someone walks away having really felt that, rather than just remembering a few good jump scares, we did our job. We'll let you find out for yourself where it all leaves him.
Baptiste launches on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Switch 2, and PC via Steam later in 2026. Fans of horror games can wishlist Baptiste today and follow Firenut Games on Instagram, X, and YouTube for the latest updates.
PlayStation Store: https://store.playstation.com/en-us/concept/10013181
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