Hey there đź‘‹ and welcome to our very first monthly dev diary. In this issue I will answer some of the questions you may have, tell you who makes up Grand Duck Games (GDG) and do a deep dive into the development process for those that are curious.
About the game
So you might be wondering what exactly will the game be about. Well, it is a cozy exploration game where you:
- Explore an island full of bugs & treasures
- Observe & Catch different critters to complete your encyclopedia
- Discover different plants and grow them to lure new bugs
The game offers pressure free exploration on a summer island, allowing the player to relax and de-stress. It is still early in the development process so we can’t go too much into detail about the systems in the game just yet as a lot of it is bound to change.
Q&A
What is the release date?
Sometime 2026
Will there be a demo?
Yes! The team is currently working on a demo to be released Q1 next year. (I hope this doesn’t age poorly)
Can I wishlist the game on Steam?
Not yet, but we are hard at work to get everything ready for our announcement. This is a very important step for any game and needs to be done right to gain some crucial momentum. We will let you know when the Steam page is going live.
Will the game be released on other platforms?
We would love to release the game on Switch eventually but that will be something to work on after the Steam release.
Presenting the Crew
| name | what they do | about them |
| Alex | how is this guy our boss?, code monkey | scared of bugs (the software kind) |
| Florent | annoy people about our game, constructive doom scrolling | big D&D nerd (forever DM) |
| Franky | orthopedic necromancer, landscape architect | has a rabbit shrine |
| Lionel | wannabe Spielberg, does terraforming sometimes | can make a perfect right angle with his index finger |
| Nora | ambitious pixel sniffer on the hunt for the perfect colour | likes to communicate with ducks (quack quack) |
| Rua | meddles with stuff, shouts at people | “something with expired yoghurt and smoke detectors” |
Development Deep Dive
Meet Yourself
Or well… the character you will be playing.
In this section our artists, Franky and Nora, will show you the development process for the main character up to her current iteration, their thought process and the challenges they faced.
The early Design(s):
Franky:Â We weren’t sure if we wanted to go for more Animal Crossing and/or Cozy Caravan kind of style (mostly anthropomorphic characters with only a single human as the player to make them stick out)Â
Fun fact: The early designs have no colours as I still had to figure out how to apply shaders/colours to objects in blender
Second design (in colour):
I tried colouring with a method called “gradient texturing” though at this point I did not know much about it so tutorials were very helpful with learning how to do this properly.
Originally the main character was meant to be an androgynous. Then I switched to tend more towards a boy main character, I think it was due to the haircut, which is something I struggle with to this day. Stylised hair, especially in low poly is quite the challenge. In the end we chose to make the main character to be female.
Hairstyles and details: The thing with 3D is that it can look great from one angle, but terrible from another, which the example here shows. It’s too symmetrical as well, as I tried using symmetry to get a base and move on from there.
- The symmetrical haircut served as base. To break the symmetry I simply turned off the symmetry tool and sculpted the haircut by hand.
- Asymmetry gives the whole shape a better silhouette and more personality.
Around this time of the process our second artist Nora joined the team. She helped Franky by giving input on the character design with a fresh view.
Nora: I wanted to experiment with the scarf being over-dimensionally big and explore a cute but kind of confident looking design that still holds a lot of casual essence in it, focusing on the explorer side.
Environmental Art
Beach
Nora also worked on environment concept art. I will let her tell you more about it.
Before I was officially part of the team, I developed concept art for a designated area in the game: the beach. For this task, I did a small, demo-like artwork to get into the mood of the game, followed by a bigger conceptual work for one whole area, thinking of fun spots and possible interactions.
I not only wanted to make a nice beach area but also wanted to implement explorable hidden gems, Easter-eggs or little “secrets” that the player can potentially discover. The beach is a nice vacation paradise but also keeps a touch of mystery due to its placement. Being framed by the cliffs with a lighthouse planned on, meant for me that I could incorporate some atypical beach assets like the rundown row-boat. This also avoids a potentially boring and standard looking beach.
I also quickly thought of a list of animals that you could face there. This also brought me to the Deckelsmouk, which literally translates to “Lid Toad” in Luxembourgish.
What’s Next?
- We are currently finishing up the release trailer. We are in the last parts of recording and cutting and will need to finish up with sounds and music from an external sound designer.
- After that the team will continue focusing on the demo so you guys can play the game ASAP. But this will take some time.
- In the meantime we are working on launching the Steam page.
Thanks for reading! We are truly thankful that people are already curious about our game and we can’t wait to share more details with you guys. Follow us on our socials to stay up to date and witness my attempts at marketing.
Please feel free to contact us directly on our socials. We would love to chat with you directly and answer any questions you may have. I had to cut this post short but we have a lot more to share so let us know which part of the development you want to hear more about.
-Flo
🌀You will follow our socials. You will like every post and share them with your friends.🌀
Grand Duck Games 