Into the Ebb
My very first interview at Gamescom 2025 took place at publisher Raw Fury’s booth, where I sat down with Paul Wilson to talk about Esoteric Ebb. My wife joined me for the session — she jumped straight into the hands-on demo while I fired off questions, and Paul guided us through the strange, satirical world of Esoteric Ebb.
It’s an isometric, Disco Elysium-like, TTRPG-turned-CRPG (wow, that’s already a lot of letters!) where bureaucracy can be deadlier than a sword, and dice rolls echo like voices in your head. But let’s not rush it, and unravel this mysterious indie game slowly — bureaucracy has its pace, after all. The story begins with how Christopher Bodgard, the mind behind the project, shaped his unusual vision into a full-fledged game.
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A Game Built Around One Vision
At the heart of Esoteric Ebb stands a single name: Christopher Bodgard. As Paul Wilson, producer at Raw Fury, explained during our talk, “Chris is the designer, the developer, the writer — essentially the center mass of the whole project.” What began as a one-man endeavor in 2018 has grown into a small team, yet every aspect still bears Bodgard’s imprint.
He set the original art style, prototyped the audio, and still writes every single line of dialogue. Paul described him as “extraordinarily hands-on,” the kind of creator who can spend a morning revising text before switching back into design or audio adjustments.
“Esoteric Ebb is Lord of the Rings in terms of words,” Paul laughed, comparing the sheer volume of text to Tolkien’s trilogy. It isn’t just about scale — it’s about the singular voice threading through every scene.
Paul clarified the scale: if you read every single line, the script could stretch to 80 hours of gameplay. In practice, with branching paths and skipped dialogue, an average playthrough will land closer to 20 hours — long enough to feel epic, but not endless.
“Esoteric Ebb is Lord of the Rings in terms of words.”
That central role makes Bodgard not only the creative spark but also the metronome of production. The systems are nearly feature-complete; the pace of development now follows the rhythm of his writing. Such singular vision can be both a strength and a weakness. Many projects collapse when everything rests on one person’s shoulders, their world existing only in a single head. For Chris, it meant years of trial, error, and exhaustion — but also the persistence to finally shape Esoteric Ebb into a finished identity. That persistence, however, came at the cost of scrapping and rebuilding, a journey we turn to next.
From Failed Prototypes to Esoteric Ebb
The road to Esoteric Ebb didn’t begin with triumph but with a holiday gone wrong. Back in 2018, during Christmas, Chris Bodgard sat down to draft the first paper prototype.
That version lasted six months — long enough to take shape, too long to save. He hated it, scrapped it, and started again. And again. “This Esoteric Ebb we see today is the result of several starts and restarts,” Paul Wilson, producer at Raw Fury, told us, noting how rare it is for a developer to throw away so much work rather than push a flawed idea to completion.
Where many projects would collapse under that cycle, Bodgard pressed on until he found something that worked. The breakthrough came when he locked onto an art style that could outlast shifting tech trends and an offbeat tone that matched his sense of humor — “everything from Life of Brian to Seinfeld,” as Paul put it. From there, the shape of the game finally solidified.
Art That Defies Time
If writing is the backbone of Esoteric Ebb, its survival hinged on the art. For Chris Bodgard, the decisive breakthrough came when he finally found a style that could carry the game across years of development without looking dated. “If you saw this game in 2018 and you saw it today, you would say it’s perfectly reasonable for it to look this way,” Paul Wilson explained.
That choice wasn’t just aesthetic. Chasing cutting-edge 3D would have demanded a team of 20 artists and left the project obsolete before release. Instead, Bodgard aimed for something “somewhat ageless,” scalable to a small team, and resistant to the churn of technology.
The result recalls the longevity of titles like Hades — stylish, immediately readable, and likely to hold up a decade from now. As Paul put it, one of Chris’s great strengths is knowing his limitations and designing within them (not just art).
Technically, the solution is clever. Esoteric Ebb builds its world in a 3D gray-box scene, complete with colliders and depth, but projects 2D illustrations over the top. Shift the camera and the illusion collapses — what looks like a solid barrel or column has no “other side.” These elements aren’t meant to be rotated; they exist only from the perspective the player is given.
That hybrid approach naturally sparked a question about whether such a framework could ever evolve into a kind of “constructor” — a toolset for others to build maps and stories of their own. Paul hinted at that possibility, though it’s a subject best saved for later when we turn to modding and community.
For Bodgard, this was the moment when Esoteric Ebb transformed from fragile prototype into something real. With an art style he could trust, he finally had the foundation to match his writing and humor.
Voices in Your Head
If Esoteric Ebb feels text-heavy, that’s because it is — by design. Every choice is narrated not just by you, but by the six familiar D&D stats, each turned into a voice in your head. Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Constitution, Dexterity, and Charisma all get their say, often uninvited. They don’t just influence rolls and outcomes — they heckle, advise, argue, and joke, giving even the smallest action a layer of commentary.
And then there’s Snell — the goblin companion glimpsed in trailers. Far from a cosmetic sidekick, Snell also chimes in as another “voice,” shaping both story beats and combat interactions. He joins the chorus in your head, reminding you that in Esoteric Ebb, even companions become part of the conversation.
This design is why the game’s script sprawls to Tolkien-like proportions. With multiple voices speaking on every move, text balloons into debates, detours, and punchlines. It’s not just a mechanic — it’s the heart of Esoteric Ebb’s satire and the reason the world feels so alive with commentary.
Combat as Comedy and Narrative
When most RPGs talk about combat, they mean swords clashing, spells flying, and health bars evaporating. Esoteric Ebb means telling a zombie to stop and seeing if it listens.
Chris Bodgard learned early that he couldn’t compete with AAA spectacle. “As soon as you move into that pillar, player expectation goes too high,” Paul Wilson explained. He could never match Baldur’s Gate–level polish, so instead he bent combat back into the one thing he could control: narrative.
That means fights aren’t always about damage output. You might cast Cure Wounds or Shield of Faith like in a traditional D&D encounter, but the results loop back into dialogue, choices, and rolls. Sometimes, the best tactic is less “critical hit” and more “emotional breakdown.” Cry a little, and the zombie just might back off.
Paul admitted the design is still in flux, but the ambition is clear: a player should be able to talk their way out of most conflicts — maybe even complete the entire game without killing anyone. It’s a design philosophy that knowingly nods to Planescape: Torment, where “What can change the nature of a man?” mattered more than how many you could cut down.
It’s funny on the surface, but also consistent with the game’s personality: comedy bleeding into mechanics, parody stitched to tension. Combat isn’t an escape from the narrative; it’s an extension of it. And yes, technically, you can still try diplomacy mid-fight — though whether the dice gods reward you is another matter entirely.
And that brings us to the larger clash at the heart of Esoteric Ebb: the meeting of classic D&D traditions with satire, where bureaucracy and politics replace the usual swords-and-sorcery heroics.
The Bureaucrat as Hero: Humor, Politics, and Player Choice
Most RPGs hand you a sword and call you a hero. Esoteric Ebb hands you a desk, a stack of parchment, and the powers of a bureaucrat. Chris Bodgard deliberately built his game around what Paul Wilson called “the class nobody plays” — a decision as funny as it is radical.
Originally, Chris tested combat-heavy approaches, but quickly realized he couldn’t match the cinematic spectacle of Dragon Age or Baldur’s Gate. His solution? Turn the spotlight onto a cleric — the most undervalued class type in D&D — and reimagine them as a pencil-pushing bureaucrat. “I’m gonna make a game about the class that nobody really cares about,” Paul recalled him saying. The absurdity became the point, giving the game a personality no budget could buy.
From there, satire seeped into everything. The design trifecta, as Paul summed it up, is simple: provoke, amuse, and build a world. Dialogue trees swell with politics and bureaucracy, asking players to wrestle with choices that feel uncomfortably close to real-world debates. Paul admitted the tone was deliberate: “Yes, it’s going to provoke some interesting conversations. The world’s dialogue is very political, and that’s not what players expect from this type of game.”
But that discomfort is part of the fun. Instead of guiding players down a safe storyline, Bodgard throws them into messy, branching conversations where decisions ripple outward. It’s both ridicule and homage to tabletop RPGs: the freedom to act, but also the responsibility to live with the paperwork afterward.
Paul wouldn’t commit to a final number of endings (the writing is still ongoing) but he confirmed there will be multiple outcomes shaped by political choices, bureaucratic blunders, or outright satire. In typical fashion, even the “game over” might count as an ending. So I asked right away: since the game leans so heavily on dice rolls, does it allow save scumming? Paul’s answer was blunt: “If you’re going to kill a player, you should probably just respawn them right where that interaction started.” In other words, yes — whether through a mid-fight retry or a quick save before a decisive roll, the game won’t punish you for failure.
Symphony of the Trash Folder
If the art made Esoteric Ebb timeless, the music made it unforgettable. Paul Wilson still grins when telling the story of how the game’s composer joined the team: his email was found in Chris Bodgard’s trash folder. Not spam filtered — the actual bin. Greatness, apparently, sometimes arrives with the junk mail.
“Chris was literally going through his deleted mail when he spotted it,” Paul recalled. The message was written in Danish, hard to parse, but heartfelt. It wasn’t the usual “here’s my portfolio” pitch — it was a plea, full of ideas and passion for Esoteric Ebb. That persistence struck a chord, and soon the soundtrack was in motion.
The result is anything but generic fantasy fare. Chris specifically didn’t want lutes and medieval clichés, or what Paul called “just D&D music.” Instead, he asked for something with a modern edge — classical foundations threaded with electronic tones. The opening track sets the emotional key from the very first moment, pulling players into the story before a single word is read.
For Paul, the soundtrack has the power to become a “core memory” for players, the kind of music that lingers for years. He compared it to his own attachment to the Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex OST, which he’s listened to weekly for two decades. Esoteric Ebb aims for that same emotional imprint — music that doesn’t just accompany the story, but becomes part of it.
The DLC or DIY Question
Back when the hybrid art style came up, the thought naturally arose: could Esoteric Ebb ever work as a kind of “constructor,” a toolkit for fans to tell their own stories? Paul Wilson didn’t dismiss the idea — in fact, he sounded intrigued.
The reason is simple: the game already looks like a framework. Add a 3D map, throw in 2D environmental assets (or remix the existing ones), write some dialogue with rolls and branching outcomes — and suddenly you have a new story. It’s not just a candidate for quest modding, but potentially a foundation for a whole new genre of narrative-driven RPGs.
Paul pointed to the example everyone thinks of, Disco Elysium. Its internal-dialogue system was so distinctive that the developers themselves said they didn’t “own” it, yet the community still calls anything similar a “Disco-like.” Esoteric Ebb could end up in that same space, only more accessible. “We could probably be more open source in that way and allow more mods and stuff like that to take place,” Paul noted.
But there’s a catch. Building robust modding tools takes time, and Chris may want to hold onto parts of the framework for himself. As Paul admitted, the system could just as easily power more games or DLC, and that might outweigh the benefits of opening it up too soon.
Still, the appeal is obvious. “People could tell amazing stories in small spaces,” Paul said. “And maybe you could create some more game developers.” Anyways, it’s too early to tell anything before the game’s release — and whether players will one day build their own bureaucratic adventures depends heavily on how successful that launch turns out to be.
Raw Fury’s Role as Partner
The success of a game launch is never just about making a great game. It also depends on everything that happens around it — production, QA, marketing, community outreach, and distribution — the kind of work that ensures a brilliant idea actually reaches players. That’s where Raw Fury’s role kicks in.
For Chris Bodgard, this partnership means focus. While he pours all his energy into the creative core of Esoteric Ebb — shaping its world, dialogue, and identity — Raw Fury handles the routines and logistics that might otherwise steal his bandwidth: scheduling, testing, promotion, and the long grind toward release.
This isn’t traditional top-down supervision. Raw Fury embeds deeply within a project, as part of the team itself. Paul Wilson described how closely they stay in touch — several calls a week, constant back-and-forth — not to dictate, but to keep the project healthy and realistic. Sometimes that means helping Chris rethink a design ambition; other times it simply means reminding him that burning out helps no one.
What struck me most was how Paul represented the game. It wasn’t the polished, distant pitch you often get from PR managers. He knew the details, answered every question, and spoke with obvious enthusiasm. It felt less like a sales presentation and more like someone genuinely invested. Passionate people make passionate projects — and Esoteric Ebb has clearly found the right kind of partner in Raw Fury.
The Demo Bureaucracy
The initial release is set for PC on Steam. I was so excited to talk with Paul Wilson that I completely forgot to ask about other platforms, but my guess is simple: fire it up on PC first and then see how it goes. With system requirements listing a humble Intel Core 2 Duo and just 2 GB of RAM, even my five-year-old TV could probably run it. It’s refreshing to see a new game that doesn’t demand the latest hardware — kudos for that.
The demo we tried at Gamescom wasn’t a cut-down show build, but the full game build. Paul explained they had literally updated to version 6.6.0 just ten minutes before our session.
As for a release date, Paul’s answer was short: no date. What we do have, though, is a free demo since September 18, 2025. Play it, laugh at it, make silly choices — and if you enjoy it, tap that little wishlist button on Steam. It helps both the developer and publisher push the project over the finish line.
The Closing Stamp
Esoteric Ebb, despite being text heavy — and you know I’m usually more of an action person, a munchkin — instantly grabbed my attention. From the first 20 seconds of its trailer I already knew: I wanted to meet the makers of it at Gamescom.
It captured the thrill of dice rolling I had in BG3, and of course the stats commentary — voices in your head mocking your decisions, arguing like a D&D party, except they’re all crammed inside your skull. At the very end of the interview I asked which stat Paul liked most, and he picked Strength, since it often lets you bulldoze through both physical and social obstacles in the funniest ways.
Christopher Bodgard brewed a really solid indie game, something that began as a solo journey and grew into a collaboration of talented people — just like a classic RPG, where a loner starts the adventure and makes friends along the way. I hope this assembled party of creators gifts us more projects in the future, but I can’t wait for the release of Esoteric Ebb.
But for now, affaire classée!
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