I’m Sander Vanhove, a computer scientist working in game development since 2022. But I’ve been doing hobby games since I was 15. Back then I started out with creating little games on my graphical calculator during math class. Now I use Godot to make way bigger projects, but the spirit of having fun and messing around still remains.
Koira is a poetic adventure game where you rescue a little puppy in the forest and learn how to work together. There is no written or spoken text in the game, so everything in the game has to be clearly communicated through the art, music and game mechanics. This makes the game have a very natural flow to it and people feel very immersed into the world.
Ben Lega, the studio founder and lead, came up with the idea after trying multiple art styles and seeing how people reacted on Instagram. The final artstyle, the hand drawn illustrations and animations, provoked the most emotions and stories within him and people seeing the posts.
The journey creating this game was long, almost 4 years in total. We took a long time to discover how to properly convey the emotions we wanted to provoke within the player through the evolution of the gameplay mechanics, art and music. It was great to sit together with the whole team and brainstorm the different aspects of the game. Seeing the whole team come together to overcome all the design challenges we set ourselves was amazing.
In Studio Tolima we use the Godot Engine. This is mostly because it is the game engine that we personally prefer to use the most. Of course we love the open source part of it, but at its base we use it because its workflow aligns the most with how we personally like to create games.
One of the biggest hurdles was very much self imposed and that was the fact that we didn’t want to use any text in the game. It is very hard to explain gameplay mechanics without any written explanation, especially if you don’t know how much background the player has in playing video games. And it’s doubly hard if you want the player to be immersed into the game at all times. To get over this we just did a lot (a looooot) of playtests, saw what worked and what didn’t and did a lot of iteration on all aspects of the game. In this stage it was very important to not be too attached to what we created and be able to start over when needed.
Do a lot of playtests! It will show the flaws and weaknesses of your game. Nothing is more humbling than seeing a player not understanding your game design or break your game in ways you didn’t believe possible. On top of that, seeing people actually play your game is such a motivating experience. All of a sudden you remember again why and for who you are creating this thing!
Keep creating games! If not for a job then for personal expression and fun. I strongly believe that the medium of video games is an artform and that we always need more of them! Each game can bring a personal story or experience in the forefront that otherwise would have been forgotten or pushed aside.
-Sander
❤️
