With ‘Deliver Us Mars’, KeokeN Interactive took on a big challenge as an indie dev: to dive in headfirst into the world of performance capture, facial animation and cinematic film production of more than two hours of content. In this retrospective, I will go through our entire process and openly discuss what we achieved and what we learned from it. We will discuss some do’s and don’ts, how to approach such a high budget productional element in terms of mindset and innovation.

For over ten years before Arkenbout’s video game career started, he studied and worked in film and television in The Netherlands. Taking on every role on set, Arkenbout spent much of his professional career working on linear drama and comedy storytelling. Through acting, writing and directing, Arkenbout has steadily learned the craft of audiovisual storytelling from various different perspectives. A few years ago, Arkenbout pivoted to yet another perspective as he pursued to combine his passion for storytelling with his love for video games. Since 2019 Arkenbout has been working as the Narrative Director for KeokeN Interactive. Arkenbout was responsible for the narrative and cinematics for the narrative-driven puzzler/platformer Deliver Us Mars.