The Historical importance of Vampire Therapist—and Why Vampires Are So Damn Horny

Vampire Therapist is a new narrative story game from Little Bat Games about a cowboy vampire learning the ways of Cognitive Development Theory as they practice their therapeutic skills on other vampires looking to live a better life.

Gameplay for the most part in Vampire Therapist is akin to an Ace Attorney title, except instead of pointing out people's lies you're calling them out on Cognitive Distortions, such as Polar Thinking or the Control Fallacy.

Earlier this week we had a chance to sit down with Cyrus Nemati, the solo developer at Little Bat Games, to discuss the inception of Vampire Therapist, what it was like working with licensed therapists on the characters, and why this game is so damn horny.

Origins of Little Bat Games

It's important to know that with the assistance of contractors, Nemati is the one and only 'full-timer' at Little Bat Games. He got his start in the games industry as a voice-over actor. "My favorite toy as a kid was my tape recorder, and I always wanted to be a voice actor."

While that wasn't possible early on in his career, he made the switch in his late 20s moving from a role in Public Advocacy in D.C. and moved to LA to follow his dream. Most recently you might have heard Nemati voicing Ares or Dionysus in Hades, Almer in Pyre, and Boris Petrovic in Duck Detective.

Coupled with his background in writing, it allowed for Namanti to continue voice acting while also transitioning into writing for games too. After moving to Germany, Nemati began working full time in a game studio but, according to him, "turns out that didn't agree with me either, so I started my own studio and this is what brings us here."

At Little Bat Studios, Nemati explained that he has "been doing all of the writing, most of the programming work, all of the design work, and generally running the whole thing." He also complimented his team of contractors who are able to help round out other areas of development.

In discussing the impending release of Vampire Therapist, coming out on Steam on July 18, Nemati spoke about how "all [he] wants to do is make more," revealing that he has a whole sequel already planned that the initial game will lead towards. 

Siring A Vampire Therapist

"One of the nice things about the game is that I think [what it is] is in the title," he said.

Nemati explained that in Vampire Therapist you "are a Vampire who is a Therapist who is treating vampires who need therapy.

"In doing so you are learning therapy concepts and applying them directly," he said. "The whole point of the game was the idea that the problems we have as humans are not new, they are quite old, and Vampires were a great way of jumping in and saying, 'Let's start working on these problems we've had for thousands of years.'"

To talk about his inspiration behind the game, Namanti laughed as he explained. "I've had a lot of therapy myself," he said, "and that a lot of it comes from the scene in Twilight where Edward Cullen starts playing the piano and the camera swooping over him and it's dramatic and it's meant to sound really great but really it's just doodley doodley doodley.

"We're supposed to be impressed because he's had 200 years to practice," Namanti continued, "but why should he be good? Just because he's had 200 years. That got me thinking about Vampires that you see in the media, they don't do a lot; they act sexy, they bite necks, they have their vampire society, they kill each other and humans, that's kind of it. If you have forever there's no reason we couldn't send a vampire to Mars, they don't die!"

The protagonist of this adventure is Sam Walls, a cowboy vampire. With the very traditional vampire Andromachus, I wanted to understand why it was such an unconventional hero that would be at the center of this story.

"Andy (Andromachus) was originally going to be the main character for a long time. I had written several scripts, the comedy was great, but Andy is very intelligent, very old, he's seen everything, he sucked the humor out of the room. It was just not working," Nemati said.

It was in understanding that Vampire Therapist is also a learning experience that Nemati knew he couldn't have someone all-knowing. "I needed a character who was more down-home, more relatable, not as intimidating but there were historical reasons for having Walls involved."

A lot factored into making Walls the best protagonist, including the Transcendentalism of the time, but also his time roaming state parks that would "allow him to appreciate life, even if he is dead."

Therapy Is In Session

On the other side of the couch, Walls will encounter a variety of characters, each with a different distortion that they're centered around. 

"Dr Drayne is a doctor who is trying to come up with a synthetic drug for 400 years [...] and is disappointed in himself for not making progress. Isabella d'Este has family issues and is in a major Italian dynastic family that's full of extreme drama. Another character is a child actor, and one has major internet issues which I think we're all facing now," he said.

"It's always come down to with each character, what is the punchline? What is the funny thing that I want to delve into?"

Later on in our talk, Nemati reinforced just how important the historical background of some of these characters is. An interesting fact that he learned while working with Isabella d'Este's chief historian at UC Davis was "that her body is missing, nobody knows where it went. So as far as we know the [Vampire Therapist] story is real."

Pulling From Therapeutic Experience

Throughout the process of creating Vampire Therapist, Nemati has also been working with a group of licensed therapists. "You know the thing is, people in academia [...] are really excited that brings ideas to the mainstream." Many of the therapists that he worked with were excited to work on the project because it meant that more people would get exposed to so many of the concepts that they find interesting.

Nemati went into further detail on the scope of his contributors as he didn't "just work with therapists but also with historians on some of the characters. They want to make it work, and that is a really good starting point."

While Nemati wanted to make sure that the experience for players was fun, it was also important that the core concepts were accurate. "It made the writing much harder, because I had to learn in clinical terms, and there was a lot that I learned that I didn't necessarily agree with.

"The idea of the game is that you're identifying Cognitive Distortions; these are ideas that we have in our head that don't align with reality. Where we're not respecting reality. For instance, there is a theory that if a Distortion isn't negative, it's not considered a Distortion," he said. "I respected that while making my own jokes on top of that.

"I have fought with therapists, I have fought with editors to figure out 'How do I do this right?' and 'How do I do this funny?'"

The focus that Nemati is going into this game with is that it should be a fun experience and that everything that a player learns along the way about cognitive behavioral therapy (or about themselves) is rewarding.

Writing For Cognitive Distortions

Detailing the writing process itself, Nemati explained that for each session the protagonist will go into, he has a list of all of the Cognitive Distortions in the game. As he's writing each session, he has to ensure not only that he hits each one, but that everything still feels "natural."

"It's a different style of writing," Nemati described writing to hit each of the Distortions. "I have to make sure that I'm writing with intention and that I still have a plot. The game part is a formula that I have to hit."

As the player learns about more Cognitive Distortions, of which there are 13 in the game, going into every session, players will get to pick five for their toolbar. He wanted to avoid a situation where you're essentially harassing a client "because they're doing all of them," but this way players can only actually call out five.

"Originally when I conceived of these ideas I talked to UI/UX people and asked, 'How do I get 13 buttons on the screen?' and they said, 'Don't.'"

Bringing These Characters To Life

Vampire Therapist has a well-known cast of characters, not just including Cyrus Nemati himself but recently announced additions to the cast, including Matthew Mercer and Sarah Greyson.

"I had two main elements that I really wanted to capture; one is that I need really impeccable comic timing. I need actors who know exactly how long to wait before letting something drop. I need the emotionality in there as well," Nemati said of the voice direction process.

"These characters go to the darkest places, it is a comedy game but in the fourth act you will see there are these revelations, there are breakthroughs and I needed them to go to those places," he said. "I really needed actors who were able to have that breadth."

Speaking of casting, Nemati didn't just stress how in-depth that process was, but also that it was something done privately. "I just knew I needed something special, and I aimed for those targets and I got them by the strength of the roles I was offering."

When Not In Session

Players won't just be spending time in session as they'll also be interacting with staff and patrons of the Goth Nightclub that sits underneath the Therapist Office.

Early on players get to meet Crimson, the bartender and blood partner of Andy, as well as a Goth couple, Reinhart and Maxi. It was very early on that the topic of drinking blood and being invited to vampiric threesomes came up, so I simply had to know from Nemati, why is Vampire Therapist so horny?

"Because it's vampires, it comes with the territory. Ever since Interview With A Vampire, the impact that that book and movie had on vampires cannot be undone," he said. "They will always be like this. I got a lot of inspiration not only from that, but the Key and Peele sketch, the sexy vampire sketch, where the vampires are acting all sexy and there's a new vampire who comes in and he's like, 'What are you all doing, aren't we just meant to bite necks, why are you all wearing leather?'"

Nemati continued that it wasn't just because of Vampire's horniness in pop culture but, "The horniness is funny, that's why I lean into it, and plus setting it above a Goth Club was a way of making it all consensual. Vampires drink consensual Goth blood and it means that there is kind of a horny environment below them at all times."

Vampire Therapist Demo Impressions

A demo for Vampire Therapist has already hit Steam, with it being in the hands of the public for the first time, Nemati has been getting a lot of positive feedback. "It has been really wonderful to see, they have been resonating with Sam and Andy, they have been recognizing these distortions in themselves, and feeling seen in a positive way.

"Of course they let me know of all the bugs that I don't notice myself [...] but really the response has been magnificent," he said. "I've watched all of the streams on Twitch, seeing people laughing and their audiences go wild when the big punchlines hit is exactly what I'm looking for."

In talking about the lessons and understanding that players will come away from the experience of Vampire Therapist Nemati explained, "From the start the idea has been that we all as humans all need Therapy in order to cope with this existence. To think that we don't need it, that is the biggest distortion of all." 

"Really, I want to destigmatize therapy, that is my approach here."

One thing that Nemati does really want people to embrace when playing Vampire Therapist is picking the wrong answers. Namanti related his humor to that of a game he grew up playing, Monkey Island. "I hope people will start clicking [the wrong answers] and I'm going to start thinking how I can give the players clear permission to click the wrong answers because there are some funny ones. If you talk to Dr. Drayne and you ask why you think he's there, just do the funny answer and see what happens."

You can check out to demo for Vampire Therapist for free on Steam. When the game fully releases on July 18th, it will be available on Steam as well as on GOG. Nemati joked that as you're typing in "Vampire The…" on Steam, it will come up right underneath Vampire The Masquerade, which is a good place to be.

You can also check out more from Cyrus on social media like Twitter or on his own website (that he admits he hasn't updated in a while).