Developer Interview: Little Tails in Life

My brain is always full of these big ideas, whether it is for a story, a drawing, a game, or a cute little character. Sometimes I turn these ideas into sketches on my iPad. This game also started that way. I had this idea for some sort of adventure game with an animal going on a trip in the woods, so I made a sketch and added some colour to make it look better. I thought putting it on Twitter would be a good idea to see if people liked it (and also as an incentive to really make this game). It turned out that people liked it. Even if it was just a drawing, people were already asking on what platforms the game would release. So this one sketch definitely was the beginning of my newfound game dev journey.

Yes, that definitely helps me keep motivated. But I noticed a post has to be something visual because that is way more appealing to look at. So I haven't posted that much in the last two weeks because I was really working hard at coding the basic foundation of the game. But when there is something to show, I'll definitely post it online. I really like to share every step of the way because I myself really like to see other devs' journeys.

The other source of inspiration is A Short Hike. What I really like about this game is how it is such a light and fun game and that it is small enough to play in a few hours but still feels like a grand adventure of climbing up a mountain and exploring a whole island. I think the scope of that game is something I should aim for with my game.

I think so far, it is my knowledge of Unity and programming. I am a test engineer by day, so I do know some C# programming, but that is, of course, very different from writing code for a game. But I see making a game as a challenge, and I love solving all these little puzzles (that is how I see programming).

From the beginning, I have thought of names but haven't found one yet that stuck. I would like something with 'wood' in it or something with 'adventure'. I think the title should really reflect, in a few words, what the game is about. That is also something A Short Hike does really well.

The bear character with the backpack came from a needle-felted animal I made some time ago. That felted bear had a backpack with all sorts of items to go on a camping trip, and I really wanted to draw a more anthropomorphic version of it. But it could have been any other animal. I really like badgers and otters, so they are probably also going to be in the game as NPCs.

My vision for the game at this point is that it is going to be a 2D adventure/survival game where you are a bear going on a camping trip through the woods. In the beginning, I had lots of ideas, and I wrote them all down in a notebook. I wanted everything in there: puzzles, exploration, character customisation, but as this is my first 'big' game, I decided to keep it small and just stick to this plan of a bear going camping.

I actually did some game development when I was a teenager. We had to make a game as an assignment for school using Gamemaker, but that was just a platform game with four levels. After that, I never did any game dev again till I switched jobs in 2020. I only knew Java, but for my new job, I needed to know C#, so I figured it would be way cooler to learn that language if I made something fun with it. I followed some GameDevTV courses for Unity and made some tiny games for myself. At that point, I was also beginning to think that game dev would be the perfect combination of my love for drawing, coding, and storytelling.

Maybe someday in the future, I will. It would be amazing to sell some prints and maybe stickers from the game. But for the next few months, I have to divide my time between making the game and the art and also making lots of needle-felted animals because I will be attending the artist alley of the Dutch Comic Con (Netherlands) in November. I do, however, plan to make the bear from the game into a needle-felted version, so I will probably sell a few of those at the comic con this year.