The hardest challenge was actually convincing people that this was a worthwhile game to make. What challenges did you face during the development process? I think it could’ve come out a much thinner experience had we not had all that content. There are a ton of quests, animals, clothes, recipes, etc. There was just so much information to pack in and it could have easily gone south had it not been for our very seasoned team.įinally, I’m quite proud of the sheer content in the game. This game could’ve had an incredibly complicated, unintuitive UI but instead, it’s really consistent, clean, and understandable. This may be a really boring thing to say, but I’m also really proud of the user interface (UI). The game looks better than I ever imagined. What aspect or aspects of the game are you most proud of? I’m hoping that it gives it that much more of a true feeling and artistic soul rather than something that panders to the casual audience. I’d like to say that I meditated on the story and setting for awhile and adjusted it to marketing’s requirements, but I think it just came to me.
At that point, we decided to revise charming to what you see now, which I think added a little bit of that feeling back in.įinally, I think the story and setting had to be something approachable. There was nothing where I was holding my breath to see the outcome. We were left with interactions that were only pass/fail. Removing combat out of an RPG actually left a gigantic hole in the game. Normally in RPGs, players just memorize this stuff. Also, if you hover over items, they tell you where they come from. It showed you who needed what items and how many. You don’t have to equip the watering can or select it from a menu.Īdding the task bar at the top to tell you what to do at any given moment really helped the game. When you click on an unwatered garden plant, you water it. Basically, every click should just do what you want.
I tried to make every click be context sensitive. I tried to make things as digestible and unintimidating as possible. How did you shape Wandering Willows to make sure it would appeal to the casual market? Who wouldn’t want a Turlie stuffed animal? I suppose I’m particularly fond of Turlie, the fat looking bird, and his cousins. Our two wonderful artists, DRP and Erin created all the pets. What were some of your favorite pets to create? I’m very functionally focused and I feel that everything that you collect should do something.Ī big part of Wandering Willows is the ability to acquire and train pets. A lot of these felt too complicated or it was collection for collection’s sake. After I came up with the idea, I checked out some similar DS games. I thought that if I just pulled out the combat that we could have a compelling casual game. When I came up with Wandering Willows, I had been playing a bunch of RPGs that had things like gathering, collection, and crafting. I’m definitely seeing some MySims Kingdom in there… Tell us about the inspiration for Wandering Willows. I’ll work on game systems, mechanics, tweaking numbers, writing stories, scripting events, or just thinking about new game ideas. I’m a game designer so that means my day to day responsibilities range from working on internal games to consulting on external games. First of all, please tell us a little bit about what you do at PlayFirst. Hi Dan, thanks for taking the time to speak with us. Dan sat down with Gamezebo to chat about how the game was made in our latest Behind the Game feature. When PlayFirst Lead Designer Dan Chao envisioned a role-playing game without the combat (but with all the other fun stuff, like collecting items, crafting and chatting with characters to complete tasks), the result was Wandering Willows, a unique title that’s at least twice as long as most casual games.
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