At Piccolo Studio, we mean that we “make” games, not “make” them. Our logo features a needle and thread, symbolizing this very approach.
With After Us, our next project releasing on May 23, we tell the story of Gaia, a little fairy sent to explore the outside world for the first time. The universe is a surreal version of Earth in the distant future, after humans have destroyed all life on it. It’s a strange, unique, yet ultimately captivating world, where everyday objects float around, some small, others huge, and where a dangerous layer of oil is deposited. danger of contaminating the land.
This third-person adventure combines platforming, puzzles, and combat in an unusual way. Rich world, divided into 10 different biomes. Game co-director Jordi Ministral said: “Some parts of the game are more puzzle-based, some are exploration-based, others are combat-based, and we often change the sideways parts to The game is always fresh.”
An organic approach to foundation
We invest a lot of time in creating unique experiences. How do we do that? We start with a vision, a comprehensive idea of how we want our players to feel. Then we take the rules of a particular genre and twist them. At its core, After Us is a 3D platformer. However, we intend to have many features that are often avoided when developing a platform: a camera far away from the protagonist, a lush world filled with artistic content scattered around, and no numbers. whether strict. A designer’s nightmare, right? But we found solutions that work great to create the organic experience we envisioned.
Also, Gaia’s movements are simple to execute. They can be chained easily in a pleasant flow. She ran at a very high speed – about 70 km/h – so the scale of the world became very large! “Players scroll through the content so quickly that we end up with over 100 kilometers of environments!” Jordi explains. There’s a lot of verticality as well. The main character can double jump very high, with the right balance between agility and weight in the air. Combined with sliding, fall control becomes easy. These movement mechanisms have been precisely engineered to traverse an organic world without the need for rigorous metrics.
The innovative capabilities of the PlayStation 5’s DualSense controller also add another layer to this aesthetic experience – through the sense of touch. Animals can be greeted and petted by swiping the touchpad, and its triggers will provide drag as well as vibration when performing Gaia’s Burst of Life! The light under the trackpad will also reflect your vitality bar, showing green when you’re healthy and red when you’re lifeless.
Choice brings aesthetic opportunity
Due to our design approach, environmental artists have an important role and freedom to create the world: debris and garbage everywhere, floating objects and running cables. everywhere… Things you normally avoid in 3D platforms. To make things more difficult, dynamic camera systems often frame the world from a distance to emphasize the contrast of a small character in an epic environment.
“Games rarely use those cameras because collision handling is hell. But we decided to accept this decision because it gives the game a distinct personality,” noted Jordi. The camera system is smart enough to take a close-up of the main character when there is a problem. It allows us to emphasize world scope or focus on specific areas. But we had to iterate over and over with the right combination of camera bumps, dithering materials, and transitions to create a smooth, aesthetic experience.
environmental storytelling
In an overly organic world, without clear metric-oriented layouts to guide you, you might think that all you’re about to do is get lost. The reality is quite the opposite: we use many elements to suggest the way forward in a subtle yet recognizable way (lights, colors, architecture, statues, props…).
In addition, there are design elements and formal narrative. They tell stories while guiding players. A landmark example are the thousands of statues scattered around, representing humanity. They create a recognizable path without resorting to conventional solutions. But this involves dozens of repetitions for each scene. We had to place the content carefully and “compose” each part.
In the end, the game will constantly tease on the far horizon what you’ll be playing next, and use verticality to twist the way. Sometimes it’s like a maze and suddenly you’re in a vast landscape. The game plays with contrast all the time. And when it all comes together, players get a sense of freedom unusual for platformers.
After Us will launch on May 23 on PS5.
