Summary
- Play as a mouse and explore a snow-covered forest floor.
- A cozy take on the survival genre with forest animals and cake.
- Restore your childhood home and find your lost aunt.
When we were children, my mother took my siblings and me to a place in the woods called Fox Hill. We spent the whole day playing in the woods, building little houses out of twigs and leaves, and imagining that we lived there. That fascination and love for nature never left me. To this day, I go hiking and camp under the stars.
With Winter constructionI want to create the place that I imagined as a child. I wanted to stay there as long as possible. To be part of this miniature world and the enchanting life that takes place between the gnarled roots of the trees. As a father, I am happy to be able to give that back to my children. Both with trips into nature when they were very small and with what I see now when they play. Winter construction and lose yourself in this world.
It was a long and bumpy process from the first idea to what we are now. Our team is great and it is very important for me to emphasize that game development is a team effort. There would be no Winter construction without them. Their own experiences playing outdoors as children and their expertise in their respective fields have been an integral part of the game so far. No matter where we all come from, our childhood adventures feel like a universal experience that we all share.
When I started working on the game, I had just abandoned a project that had gotten way too big and taken way too long because we were trying to reinvent everything. While reinventing the wheel can be rewarding, I promised myself that next time I would make a game in a genre I already knew well, and that happened to be survival games. It will probably surprise some people that the initial inspiration for Winter construction was the zombie survival game 7 days to diewhich I had already invested hundreds of hours into at that point. I imagined a game similar to that, but with squirrels, hedgehogs, moles, and mice crawling around in trees and digging in the ground instead of humans surviving a zombie apocalypse.
I chose mice because they seemed like the animal species that had the largest and most appropriate range of abilities for this type of game. I also realized pretty quickly that everything would be much easier if the game was in 2D, which meant quick prototyping and a smaller production scale. But even in 2D, I wanted the game to feel like one big, endless world, so I chose an isometric camera angle to be able to easily create that.
These decisions led me towards David Petersen’s Comics Mouse Guard and Klei Entertainment’s Don’t starveone of the few 2D survival games I already knew. As part of my research, I started playing Don’t starve again, but was keen to keep my progress after I died. As it turns out, I wasn’t the only one looking for a similar experience that wasn’t as difficult, and thought, “There might be something to this” – a survival game that was challenging, but much more forgiving and accessible.
I also played Wild crossing and absolutely loved the game, but wanted the opportunity to explore and have a bit more challenge and consequence. Suddenly it dawned on me that Winter construction could be a hybrid of these two games. Something that combines the elements of both casual and survival games.
In early 2021, I was very fortunate to receive public funding for the game and started working on a simple prototype with a small team. We used all available third-party assets to quickly get an idea of what it could look like. Thematically, we wanted the game to be mostly about the contrast between safety and danger. That feeling of lying under a warm blanket when it’s raining or snowing outside. We wanted to explore that feeling and the connection between the safe, warm den and a cold, harsh wilderness.
From here, Winter construction practically formed itself. The more we added, the more things just seemed to make sense and the more we were naturally inspired to bring in the next things. We played around a lot with the balance between the hardcore survival genre and the holistic life simulation. In doing so, we tried different directions for the game and although they seem like detours today, we are glad we tried them because it helped us better understand the game and its core vision.
When we first showed the game to Noodlecake and Xbox, they immediately understood what we were doing. They supported us from the beginning and gave us the confidence to believe in the game and what we were doing. A huge thank you goes to them.
We are super happy to finally announce Winter construction and we look forward to telling you more. Feel free to add the game to your wishlist and visit our Discord for ongoing updates.
