DevLog 02: Designing Our First Settlement

Hey Explorers!

I am Patrick, the concept artist and in-house tortoise guy on Above: Colonies of the Mist, and I'm very excited to welcome you to our devlog this week.

It has been my pleasure over the 7 years of my career to have worked on games such as Call of Dragons, Guild Saga, Dark Sky, and to teach architecture at Syn Studio.

Over that time, I've specialized in environment design, and would like to share my love of architecture and what I've learned over the years with you.

How do you choose what it looks like, how the buildings come together as a complete settlement, and how do you expect the player to interact with the visuals?

Trying to create something to call home in the harsh land of survival is as much of a challenge for us as it is for the colonists. Just like them, we wanted to create something that would stand proud and survive the test of the elements.

The first steps are always exciting when you venture into the unknown, whether that’s for explorers trying to survive the mists or for us, adventuring into the architecture and visual look of the colonies.

So where do we start, with hyper focus on one idea or an open mind looking at the blue sky?

For us, it was the latter, trying out what felt to us as more exciting possibilities.

What if it's a solid base with changeable top portions, or a collection of stackable units with the ultimate modification ability? We wanted to highlight the importance of the cliffs, survival in the mist, and lend weight to the feeling of elevation.

A. Versatile and easy to produce, however can end up with very samey results for the overall feeling of the colony and the silhouette/footprint is a bit simplistic for the particular experience and feeling we wanted to convey.

B. It's fun but a little gimmicky. How do you reconcile things hanging over just regular ground inland but keep the very specific silhouette intact for the entire settlement profile?

C. Something that felt a little closer to what we were looking for, however, the issue of keeping either the base too simple or not having enough variety in the top pieces felt too limiting, and that the player would immediately start with something quite progressed. It doesn't convey surviving in a dire situation properly.

Which brought us to another issue.

Does this provide a feeling of evolution and player satisfaction from structural progress?

As a team, we all learned that buildings should be more than just hollow representations of game mechanics.

There's deep satisfaction to be gained from finally upgrading your colony and reaching the next level of progress as you journey through the world, just as you would your character.

This led us to a simpler architecture in the early stages to convey the sense of urgency and lack of resources, and to allow the buildings to really have a developmental arc.

So we started with something simple, a necessity and a base builder staple. A gathering hut.

Steam post imageThis allowed us to define what we wanted our starting line to be.

Steam post image Bakery design examples

Coupling architecture with gameplay

Is it more fun to plan your colony or place what you want where you want without a care?

Both of them are valid choices depending on what you're looking to do and what you want the player to experience, and sometimes that choice can affect more than just the gameplay.

Change is often a two-way street. Visual explorations can lead to gameplay "happy accidents," just as frequently as core game design dictates the necessary visual elements. Sometimes, the process is a balanced mix of both.

A good example of how this has affected us was wanting the placement of buildings to matter, if we made space on peaks somewhat limited. We could then use the building's footprint to create a planning task for where exactly to place these buildings, in a way that gets the most out of them.

Footprints and full design

Inside or outside, give-and-take between believable design and entertaining content for the player.

But sometimes we do things just for the visuals and player enjoyment, to make things more fun and pretty for all of you joining us on this adventure.

A big challenge in this is how to add a function to a building in an entertaining way without it feeling like it was just slapped on.

At times, it can really be just the building itself as more of a depot for the function, but we have put great effort into having the buildings really communicate their function, so you're both entertained and won't have to spend time looking for the right building.

Collection of 'half-interiors'

Stay tuned for more and join the expedition today!

Best,

The Docklight Games Team

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