Woven is a passion project to create a game built around creating a variety of creatures from different limbs. Using a yarn aesthetic, the team from Alterego Games and Digital Forest have turned to kickstarter to try and get the project funded. While the kickstarter is going on now, they were kind enough to answer some questions about the game and kickstarter project.
The following interview was answered collectively by the teams of Alterego Games and Digital Forest.
- For people reading this for the first time, what is Woven about?
Woven is a game where you join Stuffy and Glitch on their adventure. Stuffy is a stuffed animal elephant and Glitch is a robot firefly. The game is relaxing, and story driven. You have to solve puzzles en will meet lots of special creatures. The game also has a dark side, which will become clear as the story unravels.
- The concept for the game sounds very unique, where did the idea to create a game in style come from?
The central mechanics came first. These were based on a game that Vincent made 15 years ago. In this game you could combine creatures to make a super creature. Their limbs would have their own abilities, by combining the body-parts you could combine abilities. This mechanic is the core gameplay in woven. To make the combining of creatures more appealing the knitted, quilted and patched world was born. The idea of using metal objects and creatures came from wanting to create a big contrast with the soft world.
- In terms of an audience, who is Woven aimed for?
We try to make a game that will appeal to young and old. The game, however, has a dark side to it, so don’t be mistaken that it’s an innocent game for your three year old. We consider our target audience to be the same as most DreamWorks animation movies. No gore, swearing or adult content, but it can get scary at times.
- And continuing from that point, could you talk a little bit about what the gameplay or mechanics of Woven are going to be?
It’s a game where you don’t have to rush. You can just enjoy the game in your own speed. You can freely explore the world and discover more about the story as you go. What makes Woven different is that you can create your own creatures by encountering other creatures. Once Glitch has scanned them you can combine body-parts which each give unique abilities.
An elephant with rabbit legs would for instance be able to push things with his arms, but also jump over rocks with its legs. Our controls come closest to a good old point and click adventure game, but then in a 3D environment there you can move freely with your characters.
- To wrap things up, let’s talk about the kickstarter. For the people reading this, do you have an estimated time that you’ll finished Woven after a successful kickstarter?
Yes, we’re aiming for 1 year development time. It all depends however on if we reach our Kickstarter goal and with how much difference. If things go really well, we can add more worlds and a longer story, but it could mean it will take a bit longer. We will always aim for our original goal of 1 year however.
- How long have you been working on Woven in preparation of the Kickstarter?
The concept itself has been evolving for more than a year. When we decided to do a Kickstarter campaign we spend a full 4 to 5 months on preparation to get a really good demo out on Steam, making the Kickstarter page look the best we could and promoting the game.
- I noticed that your page didn’t have any stretch goals set. For people reading this who are planning their own kickstarters, what was the strategy behind this?
We do have stretch goals, but these will be revealed only when and if we hit our target. Our primary focus right now’s getting funded.
- You have a lot of cool looking physical rewards set. How did you come up with the rewards that you wanted to offer?
We feel that our main characters are really cool as actual toys. That’s why we have a real stuffed animal of our main character Stuffy as a reward! We also have Glitch our robot to offer and the creepy robot spider! This was the main focus of our rewards.
- For the people reading this, what platforms are you aiming to release Woven on?
We will release the game for PC, Linux and Mac. If we get enough funding however we are interested in supporting it for other platforms.
The game will allow you to mix and match parts to change your abilities
- Lastly, do you have any final thoughts or something to say to the fans reading this?
Yes, please support us if you can! We have a long way to go and need all the help we can get, especially from our fans!
People can help by spreading the word about Woven, on Facebook, Twitter or to anyone you think would enjoy it, and of course supporting our Kickstarter campaign by pledging. So far the reactions we get are extremely positive, but we don’t have enough exposure yet. This will help us most to make Woven a reality!
Thank you for your time and good luck on the kickstarter.
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