Our POV Switch

Humble Beginnings

As with many games, Woebegone Woods underwent many big transformations. The core feeling we’ve wanted to convey throughout the entire development cycle has been cozy. We struggled for a long time with how to make the act of assigning furry creatures various tasks cozy. The method for delivering a cozy setting in the context of managing your friends has always lied in the perspective the player takes when assigning tasks to characters. At first, we gave the player a first-person POV of Bean’s office, seen below.

Bean’s office.

The fireplace and warm colors are in place to create a very cozy environment for the player to inhabit. And this journal on the left of the desk is where all the task assignment gameplay would take place, with characters arriving in the office to inform Bean, the player, about what they would or would not like to do for the day and general friendly conversation, giving the player a more intimate relationship with them with direct face-to-face interactions. 

A mockup for the task assignment in the journal.

However, this enclosed space felt too administrative and disconnected from the feeling of community we wanted to create. It was very tight and constrictive, even claustrophobic, with a desk literally separating the player from the other characters. Their relationships only existed in the context of how the player assigns them work. We then decided to bring the game more out in the open, with a community board.

Into the Expanse

Here, we were happy with the recontextualization of the same idea. The open environment felt more freeing and less restrictive. And with the community board, characters would be able to approach Bean, still the player character, in a closer space with nothing between them. All the characters would be able to post things to the board, whether it be a cute note of encouragement or someone asking that people stop stealing the yogurt they have in the fridge. The same face-to-face interaction is there, but with a more communal approach where everyone gets to participate in what’s presented on the board instead of one authoritative figure.

A Bird’s Eye View

That perspective still felt awkward as far as the task assignment gameplay was concerned. So we made and even bigger shift to an overhead map overseeing the entire community, with everyone’s houses and the locations of where each task takes place. With this new perspective, we lose some of the intimacy of being on the ground with these characters, but we gain a more encompassing view on the whole space, letting the player become familiar with everything in this little community.

Overhead map with draggable character icons for placement at tasks.

In this view, instead of a stiff list in a book or on a board, there are instead character icons that are dragged to different locations on the map where the player wants to assign them to work. This also allows for some more expressive feedback for the player to inform them about a character’s happiness or how they’re performing at the task.

We still wanted a more intimate way of interacting with the characters that was lost from this change. So we designed a way for the player to get these personal conversations through a relationship system where pairing characters together will make them better friends and showcase conversations between them as they’re working and their friendship is improving.

Conversation between Sassafras (left) and Bean (right).

In a visual-novel style, characters are shown on the ground in a face-to-face conversation. But not every conversation is a happy and perfectly resolved one. Sometimes characters get in a fight, and sometimes their relationship will worsen. However, this presentation of these events gives the player a glimpse into what is actually happening down where they’re placing their characters and giving them a stronger attachment.

That’s where the game is today! We changed it up quite a bit over the course of development, but the game is much stronger now than it was before, and we’ve found ways to compromise between each iteration and build a game we love despite all the changes!