Hello Voyagers! Michael / Spacenorth here with an exciting peek behind the development curtain!
Dev Stream Highlights
We recently had a fantastic dev stream featuring Christina (our Design Director) and Kyle (Senior Environment Artist) who walked through our process for building an entirely new biome. If you missed it, they shared a sneak peek of what we've been crafting for the last two months – the highly anticipated Reef biome!
From Concept to Reality
The Seed of an Idea
Every great environment starts with a vision. Our Creative Director created concept art to inspire something truly different from what you've seen in the Embrace:
- Drawing inspiration from canyon landscapes combined with larger-than-life reef structures
- Designing a multi-level biome with a lower level of sand and water, and an upper level of towering coral
- Adding a new element of vertical traversal through air updrafts
These initial concepts evolved into detailed layouts and encounter designs that set the stage for the entire biome.
Mapping the Adventure
Before a single 3D asset is placed, we build a 2D top-down layout map where we:
- Split the biome into distinct zones
- Map out major points of interest like Ruins
- Plan difficulty progression and sightlines
- Design completion objectives and unique mechanics
- Establish connections to other biomes
Only then do we start bringing it to life in-engine!
The Reef Takes Shape
During the stream, we revealed the latest in-engine version of the Reef - it’s starting to look gorgeous!
Our actual implementation stayed remarkably close to the original 2D layout from our earlier design planning. The biome is roughly separated into three zones with escalating difficulty and new encounters. And throughout the Reef, you will encounter vast vertical spaces designed for exploration with gliders and geysers.
We also shared a deeper look at some of the techniques we’ve used to build it:
- Procedural content generation (PCG) to extend our efforts – using rules we've created to place art assets and resource nodes
- Complex node-based programming that governs how everything fits together
- Carefully sculpted landscapes with height visualization to define where you can run or sail
- How we set up encounters with enemy volumes, spawn points, difficulty levels, and stat balancing
Coming Soon to Discord Playtests
The next Discord playtest will let you experience:
- The first section of the Reef biome to explore with gliders on geysers!
- Dangerous razor coral that puffs out, damages players, and knocks them back
- Increased jump height to address traversal challenges
We Need Your Thoughts!
As always, we can't wait to hear what you think of these new additions. Your feedback shapes everything we do, and the Reef is our most ambitious biome yet!
Be sure to check out our Feature Upvote Feedback Board to see the most updated feature requests and progress!
Thanks!
- Michael and the Treehouse Team