Reprinted with the permission of our friends at DownloadAstro, Akupara’s narrative kingpin Kyle Holmquist gave a great interview on the development of Whispering Willows! As always, you can feel free to pick Kyle’s brain yourself by following him on Twitter or joining our Discord!

Did you have any prior development or coding experience?

We’d gone to school for Computer Animation and Game Development at CSU, Chico, but this was our first commercial project.

What was the most challenging aspect of developing mobile app?

Getting funding was probably the most challenging aspect of developing Whispering Willows. As a bunch of young professionals recently out of college, it was difficult to find investors, and we were so new to the process, we didn’t even really know how to go about doing that.

Name a few of your favorite apps and reason you love them.

The apps I use most are probably the Steam app, which lets me check out games on their platform, and an app for Dungeons & Dragons called Complete 5e Reference that gives me tons of easily searchable information when I’m playing D&D.

How long have you been working on this app?

We worked on Whispering Willows for about two years.

What need of the user did you have in mind when developing this app?

We definitely wanted to bring the feeling of the console game we’d created and intended for people to play comfortably on their couches. Additionally, the game’s absolutely full of gorgeous art, spooky sound effects, and haunting music, and we wanted to ensure players would be able to experience those things in their full splendor because they’re a big part of what makes the game so special.

In what way do you think your app is better than similar apps on the market? Please describe in detail what innovation you think you bring and what you are proud of in your app.

Whispering Willows mobile really lets players share in the experience that we as game developers designed the game to provide – a dark, surreal, emotional experience that you won’t forget.

What are your future plans and expected features of the coming new versions of this app?

We will continue bringing Whispering Willows to new platforms – mobile and otherwise. We want to share the story with as many people as possible.

Assuming new users of your app are reading this page. What do you want to ask them to do (contact you about X, Share the app, etc.)?

We’d love for fans to join us on our Discord where you can ask us questions about the game, and talk with the community. You can also find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.