Being a husband and wife team ourselves, we’re always interested in couples who work in some capacity in the video game business. So, of course, when we discovered Andrew & Hana from Journey Bound Games, we felt it necessary to talk to them.
Not only has this married twosome made a successful leap from gamers to game developers, but their first title is an adorable relaxed paced, puzzler, perfect for the casual gamer, called Path of Giants.
We asked the first time devs about their recently released title.
This is what they had to say.
Tell us about yourselves and how/why you made the leap into game development.
We are a creative couple that can’t sit still and are always on the hunt for something fun to work on!
We live in Vancouver BC, Canada. Andrew used to work for VFX companies as an Animation Lead and Hana was a Motion Graphic Artist. Since the beginning of January, we’ve both been pursuing game development full time.
{As for our start in game development}, we’d always loved playing games together, whether it’s multiplayer games or just taking turns playing a single player title. We decided it would be fun to try and make a game together.
Though we both have art backgrounds, it was the technical aspect of game development like programming and using Unity that we had to learn.
Tell us about your game, Path of Giants.
Path of Giants follows three little bundled up explorers who are on a quest to find a lost treasure.
They’re confronted with puzzles that were built to protect this treasure and must work together to pass through them.
The player takes control of the three characters and must switch between them, which adds an element to the puzzles, by making the characters themselves puzzle pieces on top of the environment and landscape.
Not only does the player have to get to the other side, but they must use teamwork between all three of the characters to get there.
The artistry in the game is quite striking and unique. What inspired the game’s look?
We love the Uncharted games and the way their puzzles fit together, making you think ahead to the next step.
We wanted to capture that essence in our own puzzles as well, along with the feeling of encountering the puzzles in an enormous space.
Knowing, up front, that our puzzles were going to be small and fit to a mobile screen, we represented that feeling in the large backgrounds. This created a contrast between the giant landscapes and the small, intricate puzzles.
We envisioned so much for our game but, releasing it on mobile first, had its limitations, so our low poly art style was born from that.
Lara Croft GO was a big inspiration in terms of its approach to low poly. We worked to capture the spirit of its foggy environments.
Since our mobile release, we’ve been working on the Steam build and, apart from having to redesign most of our levels (from portrait aspect ratio to a landscape one), we had the opportunity to upgrade our graphics and add a lot of finesse.
The music perfectly sets the tone of an enthusiastic, but relaxed paced adventure. How did you & composer, Clark Aboud, work together to come up with what that sound would be?
Music was the one aspect of our game that we didn’t have any experience with and knew it was too important to try ourselves.
Clark Aboud did such an amazing job. We trusted his musical instinct and gave him very little instruction.
Our initial pitch to Clark was to make it ambient and cute, with a little bit of Nordic influence.
He took that and created our amazing soundtrack!
Clark went above and beyond for Path of Giants creating a dynamic setup for our music. It builds as you progress through each level, timed to the player’s arrival at {various} points. There are also little hints of fun melodies that are triggered by things in the environment.
Tell us about the puzzle gameplay.
All of the puzzles revolve around needing all three of the explorers to solve them. They’re overdressed and their snowsuits are bulky so they need help from each other to get up and down higher platforms.
This was our original mechanic and once we introduced the player to it, more mechanics got layered on top of this, from moving platforms and color-coded bridges to levers that shift the environment and weighted pulleys. There are also coins scattered throughout the levels.
We wanted to provide a fun and different way for the player to unlock a level that wasn’t just finishing the previous one to get to it.
From a suggested tutorial that doesn’t force the players hand, to an undo button that quickly snaps the character back a step without having to restart, we did our best to put player experience above all else.
Accessibility was also a big concern for us as our game is heavily reliant on color. We added in color adjustment features that the player can choose between to help them see the characters better.
The ability to zoom in and adjust the camera shake amount has also been added for accessibility reasons.
What was the process you went through when designing the game’s puzzles?
Each puzzle took about 2-3 weeks to create from start to finish.
We had puzzle creation days where we spent the weekend coming up with puzzles individually, making them out of simple cubes and then hooking them up for movement, for a quick play test.
We would then try each other’s puzzles and see what did and didn’t work.
After lots of adjusting, we would then take the puzzles that were the most fun to solve and merge them into the levels.
Once the basic blocks of the puzzle were ready, we would go into photoshop and sketch out what the landscape and puzzle would look like. This was then taken into Blender and modeled in 3D and then finally color scripted and lit in Unity.
This is your first journey into game development. Has anything about the process been
surprising?
We were surprised by the community! There are so many game devs and they’re all so helpful and supportive of each other. Everyone is really in it for the passion of games and creativity.
As for releasing a game, we feel like every day is a surprise. There are no guarantees with what you’re creating, as far as other people’s reception of the game. It’s so exciting to see how people react to what you have spent so long creating.
What’s your secret to having both a happy marriage and a good working relationship?
We’ve always worked on things together in the past whether it’s a creative side project or home oriented tasks. We just enjoy doing things together.
Overall though, balance is the key!
Working on a game takes a lot, and making sure to stop and take time to do other things keeps everything flowing smoothly.
Because we work together, it’s very hard to not talk about the game when not working on it. So, it’s important to always have something else happening in your life, whether it’s planning a trip, a different hobby or just taking breaks and going out to nature.
What’s your best piece of advice to fellow developers who are creating their first game?
Deadlines are your friend.
It’s so easy to constantly re-do what you’re doing over and over because you know it can be even better.
Giving yourself deadlines really pushes you to be able to move on to other parts of the game that still need to get done. It keeps you progressing.
Also, don’t make your game in portrait if you’re planning to do a PC or console release. That one hit us the hardest, making our Steam build take so much longer.
Path of Giants is out now for PC & mobile. Any chance it will come to consoles down the road?
We are really happy with how our PC version turned out and are looking into consoles to see if our little game will be a good fit for them.
What’s next for Journey Bound Games?
With Path of Giants coming to an end after a 3 and a half year journey, we’re really excited to start working on something new, with everything we’ve learned.
We have a box full of ideas for our next game and plan for it to be a much more elaborate concept, as we are now full time game developers.
We do hope to return to our little explorers in the future though, with a possible sequel and maybe some co-op that players have been asking for.
Besides Path of Giants (of course), what casual games would you recommend to our readers?
We would recommend Overcooked, Tricky Towers, Snake Pass and Bloons TD!
End Interview
Thank you Andrew & Hana for answering our questions. We wish you much success with Path of Giants and look forward to future titles from Journey Bound Games.
Path of Giants is available on Steam, Google Play, and the App store.
See a trailer & read more about the game on the title’s official website.
Keep up with the latest news from Journey Bound Games via Twitter & Facebook.
