Interview: Canvas Infernum Dev Talks Setting, Inspiration, and Board Gaming

Canvas Infernum is a tile-placement puzzle game inspired by the likes of Dorfromantik , tasking players with dropping matching environmental tiles to score points and gradually realize their personal vision of Hell. While indie games of this style tend to be relaxing, mechanically simple affairs, Canvas Infernum has introduced a few twists that add some welcome layers of depth to its strategy. For example, players can choose "pacts" with one of the seven deadly sins that reward them for placing three lava tiles next to one another, or forming enclosed mountain ranges.

Game Rant recently attended Gamescom LATAM and spoke with Eduardo Saffer Medvedovski, one of the minds behind this cozy yet hellish puzzle game . Medvedovski weighed in about the game's artistic inspirations, its unique mechanics, and the team's plans as Canvas Infernum approaches its full release. This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Canvas Infernum Is a Roguelike Board Game Experience

Q: You describe the game as a "roguelike board game experience." Can you expand on that?

A: I'm a big board game player — I play a lot of three-hour board games for fun. I also have The Garden of Earthly Delights painting in my house, so I thought, "Why not try to channel both the kind of gameplay I enjoy most and a bit of my artistic side?"

We felt pretty comfortable designing single-player board games — they're kind of like puzzles, but with more systemic combos, similar to what you see in well-designed deck-building games that have also made a smooth transition to Steam. Slay the Spire is a great example — it has really strong mechanics and progression systems, like the different character "races" or classes in Dominion . That game went back to basics in a really smart way.

Now, I'm not saying I dislike traditional card games — every time you play a card game, it feels fresh. It's great that there are so many of them with deep mechanics on Steam. But in the tile-placement genre, that same level of systemic depth just isn't as common, so that's where we saw an opportunity to build something new.

There are also specific challenges we wanted to tackle — like what's often called "analysis paralysis." That's when you've got a huge board and you're stuck deciding where to place a single tile, which can be overwhelming. So we aimed to design tighter gameplay loops — smaller core decisions that still feel meaningful.

We also included this "joker" element, kind of inspired by Balatro , which lets you score based on your chosen skills and synergizes with different types or "races," like the Lava or Mountain factions. Because you're selecting a different "boon" each time you play, it changes your strategy and gives you a fresh experience every run.

Q: What made you choose Hell as the game's setting?

A: I don't think there are that many games set in Hell , not in the way we're doing it. What makes our approach unique is how we've used Hell as a canvas for incredible art. That was something very distinctive in Canvas Infernum . We weren't just trying to create our own version of Hell — we were channeling it through existing works of art, reinterpreting them in a new way.

For example, when we bring in these "tractors" — that's what we call them — we treat them as tributes. You're animating these artworks, giving them new life, and it's been amazing to see that process unfold. We've used over 100 pieces of art, not only from Hieronymus Bosch's paintings but from other sources too. And we want to keep adding more.

Beyond the visuals, we also wanted to explore the mindset behind these original works — to ask, "What were the artists thinking when they created their visions of Hell? What was the message?" A lot of documentaries dig into the symbolism of specific scenes in these paintings, and they're still inspiring today. I tried to blend that historical and artistic context with more modern ideas about sin.

For centuries, people were taught that sin leads you to Hell, and that fear was used as motivation. But today, sin is sometimes what makes people feel alive. That's a more complicated picture — sometimes "sins" are thrilling, but other times they damage your mind and hurt the people around you. That danger is still real.

Part of my personal mission with the game was to ask: what's the line between sin and virtue? How do we explore that in a meaningful way? That's where the narrative comes in. Every time you interact with one of the game's characters — these avatars of the seven deadly sins — they ask you questions about how to deal with those sins. You can respond with punishment, or with reflection — like Sisyphus pushing the boulder up the mountain.

There's something ancient in that. Even before the Renaissance, before Catholicism reshaped a lot of these stories, Greek mythology was already exploring these moral struggles. I wanted to connect that with what we know now from neuroscience and psychology. Like — why do we want to punch someone when we're angry? Why do we eat when we're sad?

By merging old and new, and offering players these choices — reflection or retribution — I hope people will reflect on themselves and the world around them. That's what I want to emulate: the same sense of responsibility those original artists had when they created their visions of Hell.

How Canvas Infernum Uses AI

Q: The Steam page mentions that there is less than 5% of AI used in the game, trained on royalty-free paintings. Can you discuss AI's use in Canvas Infernum?

A: I'm open to AI — I think there are ways to use it responsibly, and ways to use it poorly. So when we take artwork from 500 years ago and try to emulate that style — using AI to generate something inspired by those old paintings — I believe that can be a good thing.

Not everyone agrees with that, of course. There are legal gray areas, and we're not looking to break the law — but we do want to show people what's possible.

For example, there's one specific "tractor" in the game — it's Satan, and it's the first one you encounter. I really wanted to see how people would react to that, because I literally took elements from Bosch's art, ran them through a model, and tried to create something new.

Yeah, there was a lot of junk — a lot of nonsense results. But then there were a few pieces that made me go, "Oh my god, this can actually work." It was amazing.

So we're not trying to be rigid about it. Maybe in the end, the publisher will decide to play it safe, and that's understandable. But as I said before, I still want to show people what can be done — what's possible when you combine classical art, modern technology, and a creative vision.

Q: How is the demo coming along?

A: We want to release the demo on Steam officially, so we're preparing for that right now — figuring out which showcase it would be best to appear in.

That's kind of the standard thing in the indie scene: figuring out which showcase or festival gives your game the right spotlight.

In the meantime, though, the demo is already available on our Itch.io page . Anyone can go there and play it — it's very accessible. We've already started getting feedback, and we've seen that some players are spending more than half an hour in the demo, building really elaborate setups.

That's really exciting to see. I think we also need to add a Creative Mode , where you can pick exactly which tiles you want to use. That way, players can experiment more freely and create cool scenarios — not exactly like a board game, but more like a canvas for expression.

Right now, we're mainly focused on sharing the demo with potential publishers and partners. But soon, we'll start promoting it more publicly.

And especially within the board game genre — I think that's where it'll really resonate. Fans of games like Dorfromantik or Dark Archives — those kinds of tile-placement or atmospheric puzzle games — I think they'll see Canvas Infernum as a fresh take on that style.

Q: You mentioned you've been getting feedback from the demo. What's that been looking like so far?

A: I have some friends and publishers that play, and we have analytics that track things like how much you play.

Q: What does the journey look like toward the game's full release?

A: Since we're also doing other projects, like work-for-hire, the timeline really depends on whether we get funding. If we do get funded, we're aiming to release in Q2 next year. If not, it'll probably take about a year longer.

Q: What does that workload look like? What kinds of things are you working on finishing up in the game?

A: Right now, what we have is a pretty simple demo — it focuses mainly on placing tiles and trying to reach specific goals. But what we really want to add next is more of what we call a "vertical slice," where you can start to feel the full potential of the game.

That means adding more dialogue interactions in the demo, and also a skill tree. The idea is that every time you choose a dialogue response, you earn points toward a certain path in the skill tree. It ties into the game's morality system — sort of like karma.

I'm not sure if you've heard of it, but there's a game called Let's Build a Zoo that uses a similar karma system. Not many people talk about it, but it was a cool idea, and we were definitely inspired by it.

[END]

Canvas Infernum is currently in development with a free demo available on itch.io.