Renee Gittins’ Potions: A Curious Story debuts quickly after almost 10-year gestation

Potions: A Curious Story is debuting on March 7 on Steam after almost 10 years of growth work by indie sport developer Renee Gittins and her group at Stumbling Cat.

It’s a ardour undertaking if there ever was one, as Gittins had loads of different work throughout that point. She is the previous govt director of the Worldwide Recreation Builders Affiliation and former basic supervisor of Phoenix Labs, maker of Fae Farm.

I met Gittins again in 2016 on the Cube Summit, the elite sport trade convention the place she was a Cube scholar. She instructed me in regards to the sport and stated she was engaged on it with 5 different folks at her studio. Over time, greater than 19 folks contributed to the undertaking, together with her vital different Zak Whaley.

The title is a 2D journey and crafting sport the place wit is your biggest weapon and fight isn’t all the time the reply. You play as Luna, a younger witch who overcomes obstacles with the potions she brews, as she gathers objects from enchanted lands and conquers devious puzzles on her quest.

Because the sport was a part of the Steam Subsequent Fest, I performed a demo of Potions. It’s a charming and nostalgic story the place you must study lots about potions and pursue quests. You discover a fairy story world and also you don’t must spend all your time slaughtering folks and animals in it.

Gittins had a demo prepared in September and he or she received loads of suggestions. The title is launching on March 7, a day earlier than Worldwide Ladies’s Day. She’s been selling Potions and considered one of her movies on TikTok went viral, capturing greater than 1,000,000 performs. Sadly, her Stumbling Cat was named after her real-life cat, who lastly died from most cancers lately as Gittins was within the closing levels of the launch.

“It’s been very arduous to steadiness taking good care of his well being and my well being within the sport on the identical time. It’s all significantly darkish,” she stated.

On the lighter aspect, Gittins stated she was happy to see a powerful response to the inclusion of folklore from world wide within the sport.

Getting began

In 2014, Gittins fashioned her personal indie sport studio, Stumbling Cat, the place she served as artistic director with a group of six. Since girls made up solely about 22% of the sport trade on the time, Gittins was one thing of a unicorn as the pinnacle of a studio.

She grew up on video games like Wolfenstein, Doom, Duke Nukem 3D and Pokémon.

“What’s attention-grabbing about my entry into the trade is that I wasn’t conscious that it may very well be a risk for me till it was proper beneath my nostril,” Gittins instructed me again in 2016. “It wasn’t till I used to be discovering all of my associates have been within the sport trade that I noticed there was a path for me. It doesn’t actually make sense on reflection, as a result of I used to be all the time a passionate gamer rising up. I used to be a great pupil – valedictorian in highschool, actually good at math — and but no one talked about programming to me. No person talked about sport growth, even supposing I spent a lot time having fun with video games.”

Inspirations

Earlier than she began the sport, Gittins made some technical video games within the biotech trade. They have been response or pattern-matching video games geared toward serving to to guage folks’s cognitive talents.

“This was my first extra vital sport. And I truly began it with solely with plans for it being a portfolio piece. It’s not one thing I deliberate to convey to ship,” she stated. “However there was a lot curiosity round it that I invested increasingly time till I ran that Kickstarter marketing campaign [in 2016]. After which I locked myself into it since then.”

Since she didn’t have any true time stress for transport it, Gittins caught to her precise imaginative and prescient for the sport, she stated.

“My inspiration for growing potions as a design was truly a frustration with video games the place arriving at issues early or progressing too rapidly may very well be disadvantageous in video games that have been primarily based on expertise factors,” Gittins stated. “So I wished to create an journey sport that rewarded you for figuring issues out early, and for getting forward of issues. And that’s the place I got here up with the thought.”

Whereas growing that concept, she notice that loads of video games “reward you for each fluffy bunny you kill, which doesn’t really feel very heroic.”

She added, “So I wished to determine a option to make the participant really feel extra in steadiness with their aggression. So there’s positively nonetheless fight within the sport, however it prices sources and you may see as gamers are encountering monsters, they’re making the calculation.”

That makes you concentrate on whether or not you need to interact with the enemy or run away. Do you might have the substances to assault with a potion, or must you ignore it? It’s geared toward encouraging artistic downside fixing and makes you concentrate on utilizing the surroundings in your favor.

Potions got here simple as an concept as Gittins was a part of the Harry Potter era. However potions simply appeared like a magical option to take sources and make them into one thing enjoyable.

A protracted haul

Whereas the Kickstarter was profitable, it barely earned sufficient to rent contractors for the sport. And Gittins needed to pay hire.

Throughout the undertaking, Gittins targeted on sport design, engineering, writing and management. Different core contributors included Jake Neal (surroundings and UI artwork), Zak Whaley (engineering), Atlas Lin (character artwork and animation), Main Burno (SFX and composition), Kristen Scherer (sport design), Gregor Smith (sport design), Wesley Eldridge (character artwork and animation), Joshua Du Chene (SFX and composition), and Roma Jensen (character artwork and animation).

The one different full-timer was Lin, who contributed probably the most character artwork and animations. Gittins took a brief break from the sport after he graphic designer handed away. She wanted time for a psychological restoration that lasted a few months.

“And his passing additionally helped impressed me to proceed to work on the sport,” she stated.

It has painterly backgrounds and cel-shaded foregrounds. The artwork model reminds her of Studio Ghibli.

“I wished the world to really feel immersive, however the characters to nonetheless have the ability to be simply acknowledged and personified. So I believe that’s why I went with the painterly backgrounds and people related characters as a result of it permits them to be extra expressive extra simply, significantly once they’re small in your display screen,” Gittins stated.

The end line

She stated she had been near the daylight of ending the sport for some time. However previously yr, after leaving Phoenix Labs, she buckled down and labored on the sport full time.

“I’ve felt reinvigorated by returning to indie growth by stepping into the code, one thing that I missed enormously,” Gittins stated. “It’s actually this final yr that has made leaps and bounds of progress. All the base techniques have been arrange previous to that, however loads of the second half of the sport when it comes to content material growth has actually occurred over the past yr or so.”

You may make greater than 100 potions within the sport. And the sport has greater than 18,000 traces of textual content, that means its story is deep. The sport has 15 chapters with loads of puzzles and aspect quests. The sport takes perhaps 10 to fifteen hours to play, although some beta testers spend much more time exploring it.

Knowledge

In hindsight, Gittins acknowledges she might need completed sooner if she had made a smaller sport.

“Like I stated, I wasn’t aspiring to ever publish this. However I felt so in love with the idea and I’m horrendously cussed,” she stated. “I caught it out to see it by way of the tip. It’s not all the time been simple. Definitely, after engaged on one thing for nearly a decade, it’s arduous to all the time really feel impressed and inventive. So while you’re creating that content material, working by way of issues, having the encouragement of my associates and different builders and of the Kickstarter backers or play testers has been very useful.”

Gittins spoke with some sport publishers however because it was a ardour undertaking, it didn’t make sense to go together with a writer who might need demanded exact milestones and revenue sharing. She has a associate for the higher China area. The sport will probably be in 10 languages, together with English, conventional Chinese language, simplified Chinese language, Japanese, Korean, French, German, Brazilian Portuguese, and Russian, and Spanish.

The full price range is beneath $100,000 “as a result of my time is value zero,” Gittins stated.

Gittins stated she needed to study lots about the whole sport growth course of in making the sport, from studying enemy AI tech to system design structure and communication between these techniques.

“As as I grew my profession, I additionally gained the flexibility to higher develop this title and so each the title and my expertise grew collectively,” she stated. “The help of the sport growth neighborhood has been nice. A big a part of my profession has been each receiving help from and offering help to different sport builders. So definitely, this undertaking wouldn’t achieve success with out that great community that I’ve.”