From years of working in the animation industry to spending nights and weekends building their first game, Lapsus Games is a story of persistence, learning, and quiet determination. Node: The Last Favor of the Antari has been in development for almost seven years, crafted by a two-person team balancing full-time jobs with their passion for creating a narrative-driven puzzle-platformer that feels both thoughtful and visually rich.
With backgrounds in 3D animation and film production, Alfonso Caparrini and his co-founder brought their experience in lighting, storytelling, and disciplined pipelines to the world of game development. Along the way, they taught themselves programming, adapted cinematic techniques for real-time performance, and found creative ways to achieve an ambitious vision with very limited resources.
In this interview, we talk with Alfonso about the challenges of building a game as a small team, the lessons they carried over from film, the struggles of learning to code from scratch, and what it takes to keep a long-term project alive while working in their spare time. It’s an honest conversation about creative persistence, technical problem-solving, and the reality of making an indie game when you have no roadmap but your own determination.
All the questions
Could you briefly introduce your studio and the game you’re making?
Our studio is called Lapsus Games. It’s essentially just the two of us, my co-founder and I, and we officially started it a couple of years ago. However, we’ve been developing our first game for almost seven years now. That game is Node: The Last Favor of the Antari, a puzzle-platformer with a strong narrative focus. It combines atmospheric environments, story-driven design, and mechanics that require players to think strategically rather than rely only on quick reflexes. The long timeline comes from the fact that we’ve been working on it alongside full-time jobs while also learning many of the necessary skills as we progressed.
You and your co-founder both come from an animation background. How has that influenced your work in games?
We’ve spent most of our careers in the film industry, mainly in 3D animation, and that experience has shaped almost every part of our approach to making games. Visually, we are very focused on composition, lighting, and detail, even though we are just a small team. From a production perspective, the film world taught us the importance of pipelines, structure, and meeting deadlines. And then there is storytelling, which is something we have done professionally for years. Even though a game is an interactive medium, the fundamentals of engaging an audience through a story are the same.
What skills or lessons from animation do you think translate best to game development?
Discipline is probably the most important one. In film production, missing a deadline is simply not an option because the costs of delays are massive. We brought that same mindset to game development. Even though we have been working on Node in our free time, we have always set milestones, tracked progress carefully, and kept ourselves accountable. On the creative side, principles like lighting, framing, and color theory apply to both film and games. And because we are so familiar with visual storytelling, we naturally think about pacing and mood when designing levels.
Your game is quite narrative-driven, right?
Yes, very much so. The script currently has around 30,000 words, which is a lot for a small indie project. We wanted the story to feel like the core of the experience rather than something added on top. Every puzzle and environment is designed to reflect that narrative and to make players feel like they are slowly uncovering a larger world.
And it also includes puzzles, correct?
Exactly. Node is a puzzle-platformer, but instead of directly controlling the character, players set a path that a small robot will follow from one checkpoint to the next. It creates a different pace than most platformers because you have to plan ahead, observe how each space works, and find the safest route instead of just reacting quickly.
Did your background in animation shape the game’s mechanics or style in any way?
It didn’t influence the mechanics directly. The core gameplay came first. While experimenting with Unity, we tried several prototypes, and one of them felt fun enough to build on. Once we had the mechanic, we began adding the visual style and the story around it. Our animation experience definitely influenced the look and polish, but the actual gameplay ideas came more from experimentation than from our film background.
How big is your team, and what roles do you each handle?
The main team is just the two of us. I take care of programming, lighting, effects, and UI design, even though UI is not my favorite area. My co-founder handles modeling, texturing, sound design, and level building. He also composed the music and created the audio effects. We’ve received help from friends for character animation and rigging because those are areas where we didn’t have the expertise or the time to reach the quality we wanted. Apart from that, we handle almost everything ourselves.
You’re the programmer, but you didn’t have a coding background. How did you tackle that challenge?
It was difficult. I had very little experience with programming. As a kid, I had played around with BASIC in the 1980s, and years later I learned some Python for fun, but Unity and C# were completely new to me. I spent countless hours watching tutorials, trying things, making mistakes, and figuring out how to fix them. Over time, I went from creating simple experiments to handling all the core systems in the game, including save files, puzzle logic, and a custom UI. It has been one of the hardest parts of this journey but also one of the most satisfying.
Lighting seems to be a key part of your game’s atmosphere. What’s different about lighting for real-time games compared to film?
In film, you can use as many lights and effects as you want because everything is pre-rendered. In games, you need to make it all work in real time, which means you have to be extremely careful about performance. At first that felt like a limitation, but I now see it as an opportunity. You are forced to think about what really matters in each scene, strip away unnecessary elements, and find creative ways to achieve a strong look with fewer resources.
Are there any unique techniques you’ve developed that could be useful for other developers?
Yes. One method I use is placing hidden pieces of geometry with emissive materials to simulate the way light bounces and fills a space. Instead of adding more dynamic lights, which are expensive, these shapes give the impression of soft, natural illumination. It’s a trick I adapted from how I think about lighting in film, and it helps create a cinematic atmosphere while keeping the performance stable.
What have been the hardest challenges during development, areas where you really struggled?
Almost everything felt like a challenge at some point because we were teaching ourselves as we worked. UI design was particularly frustrating for me, and I ended up rebuilding it several times before reaching something I could live with. Another major challenge has been optimizing the game. We’re using Unity HDRP for its visual quality, but that makes performance more demanding, so balancing the look we want with the technical limits has been an ongoing effort.
On the flip side, which parts of the game are you most proud of?
I’m very proud of the lighting and the atmosphere. Even though we are a small team with limited resources, we have managed to create environments that feel alive, cohesive, and polished. Seeing those spaces come together and actually work in real time has been one of the most rewarding parts of the process.
After working on this project for seven years in your free time, what kept you going?
Mostly passion. Both of us still have full-time jobs, so Node has been something we’ve worked on during nights, weekends, and even holidays. There were moments of exhaustion and frustration, but we always believed in the game. That belief, and the excitement of seeing it slowly improve, kept us moving forward.
You’re using Unity HDRP, which can be tricky for consoles like the Switch. How are you approaching optimization and porting?
HDRP gave us the visual quality we wanted, especially for volumetric lighting, but it definitely complicates porting to less powerful hardware. We’re working with an external team to handle console versions and performance optimization. We know we’ll need to make sacrifices, but we hope future hardware will make that process easier.
Do you outsource any parts of the development process?
Yes. Our publisher connected us with external teams for porting and QA testing. That support has been essential. We’ve also brought in friends to help with character animation, rigging, and trailer editing—areas where we lacked the skills to reach the quality we wanted on our own.
Coming from the film industry, is there anything you think game studios could learn from that world?
I think the biggest lesson is production discipline. In film, deadlines are strict because missing them has serious financial consequences. That forces teams to plan carefully, stay organized, and respect schedules. Bringing that level of structure to game development, even on a small indie project, can make a huge difference.
At any point, did you consider bringing in outside specialists to handle things you didn’t enjoy or weren’t confident about?
Definitely. For example, we quickly decided to outsource animation and rigging because we knew our results wouldn’t match the quality we wanted. For UI, we didn’t get help, mainly because we didn’t have contacts in the industry at the time. Looking back, I think hiring a UI specialist early on would have saved us a lot of time and frustration.
When is the game planned for release?
We’re aiming to launch later this year. We are currently finalizing content and focusing heavily on polishing, optimization, and QA to make sure the release goes smoothly.
Do you have a publisher, and how did that relationship come about?
Yes. Finding the right publisher took time, but eventually we partnered with one that not only believes in the project’s potential but also respects our creative vision. That was very important to us because we see a publisher almost like a partner. Trust and shared goals matter as much as financial support.
Do you see yourselves making more games after this one?
For now, our focus is entirely on finishing Node. After seven years of intense work, we need to take a break, recharge, and see how this release goes before deciding what comes next. We both love making games, but we also know how demanding this process is.
You tried to seek investment at some point. What was that experience like?
We did. At one stage, when we already had a few hours of gameplay ready, we looked for external funding to grow the team. Unfortunately, it was during a difficult economic period for the industry. Publishers were cutting costs, there were layoffs everywhere, and we didn’t have the network or the timing to secure support. It forced us to rethink our plans, reduce the scope of the game, and finish it with just the two of us. In the end, it slowed things down, but it also made the project very personal.
Chapters of the Interview:
- 00:30 — Who is Alfonso Caparrini and what is Lapsus Games?
- 01:14 — From animation to games — The studio's origins
- 02:14 — Node: The Last Favor of the Antari — Game concept
- 03:08 — Industry background: Blue Sky, Pixar, Ilion
- 04:00 — Cinematic lighting techniques applied to Unity
- 06:33 — Technical tricks: geometry and indirect lighting
- 10:08 — Solving complex lighting without ray tracing
- 11:45 — Game systems and player interaction
- 14:09 — Creating state machines in Unreal
- 17:00 — Atypical communication between animation and game logic
- 19:04 — Making a game solo: art, programming, design
- 21:45 — Internal pressure and the weight of perfection
- 24:11 — Self-imposed limits and overproduction
- 26:30 — External support and publishing strategy
- 29:32 — Procedural narrative and its challenges
- 33:00 — UI, saving systems, and technical learnings
- 36:00 — Reflections on Unity, HDRP, and custom tools
- 38:42 — Will there be another game?
- 39:40 — Thoughts on generative AI and the industry
- 45:18 — Final lessons and closing thoughts
