Restitched: Dev Diary | Team Interview #3 (Patreon)

Welcome back to another Team Interview Dev Diary! This time, we're joined by Project Lead Halston, Lead Writer Billy, Lead Programmer Michael, Artist Daniel, Animator Luke, and 3D Modelers Kyran and Matt.

This is the third Team Interview in the series. You can read #1 and #2 here and here respectively... but the latest one was nearly a year ago! Since then, both Restitched and Trixel Creative have undergone massive transformations. So, let's get asking some questions, shall we?

For those that have been with us since December, do you feel like you have learned anything since then? If you're new, what have you learned since joining?

Billy: Although I knew it before, this past year has truly shown me how professional our team is. Since becoming an LLC we've had to undergo several changes, and since the Reveal Trailer launching we've had a massive community response. Our team has handled both of these situations (and everything else) so professionally, and we remain so jovial and willing to tackle things head-on. I'm so proud of this team and our output.

Michael: There's so much I've learned thanks to Restitched that it's really hard to answer this without throwing several paragraphs of nerd-speak at you. As a developer, I've learned that taking a break can almost be more productive than trying to get something working. When you're writing code constantly, it can sometimes be easy for you to put your blinders on and miss a mistake you've just made. You'll end up wasting hours tracking down bugs in other parts of the code because you aren't aware you made a typo 5 minutes ago. The better thing to do is close the project for a bit. Play a game, eat, sleep, hang out with friends, whatever. Usually, a few minutes after I come back to the problem, the solution magically appears right under my nose. As a project lead, I've learned that passion is far more important than raw technical skills. You may have little experience in game development, but if you have a passion for it and learning the skills needed, you tend to excel here. I joined with barely any experience in Unity. I really enjoy working with people who enjoy learning new things and being given feedback on their work.

Kyran: So much! I've not really had much experience in the way of creating art for Unity prior to Restitched, so that's been new. Learning new ways of working, specifically in Blender, has been invaluable. Working in an expanding team with project coordination has been important too.

Halston: I'm always learning while being on the team. I'm challenged by everyone's feedback and seeing other developers' talent. I feel like being part of our own little creative community has positively pushed me outside of my comfort zone and I hope my work reflects that!

Matt: I have learned a lot! For instance, I learned several ways how to easily model pipes, wires, and anything that is shaped along a curve.

Luke: I've only been around since the start of September this year, but I have definitely learnt a lot already. I've been animating in Blender since 2017 but I had never worked on a game before, so my workflow was sloppy and whatever worked best in that given situation. After I had started working on Restitched, it taught me some optimizations I had never even thought of, and my workflow improved. When you are given a set goal to achieve and are meant to do it in the best way possible, you tend to sit up straight and figure it out. Now, instead of haphazardly making myself multiple viewports for whatever's kinda necessary, I have a very refined and set way of setting up my Blender program. All the windows are a certain size, keybinds to make my life easier, the such. So, if anything, joining the team has allowed me to refine my workflow and make me more efficient as an animator. I've learnt the function of around 16 more buttons since joining the team. For Blender, that's a huge deal!

Community Question: Is there a way to add audio or your own voice into a level?

Billy: We've not yet started to look at this possibility - and it definitely isn't in the game as of right now. We'd love to add something like this, but we're also very aware of the active moderation that would be needed in order to remove copyrighted content as well as inappropriate content. At the same time, we wouldn't want the negative actions of a few to impact the creativity of others.

Halston: I think there's an unspoken expectation that this sort of feature will be available at some point, especially once our logic system is working! However, we've not even approached the discussion properly yet and there may be some technical and moderation-based issues at play as Billy mentioned.

What has been your favourite part about working on Restitched so far?

Daniel: Working with the team has been so much fun, everyone is very communicative, productive, and positive. Seeing our ideas taking shape and coming to life is such a crazy experience, we can wait to share everything with the community.

Luke: When you think about joining a team, you have expectations in your head. Whilst I believe a lot of my expectations have been met, one thing I wasn't ready for was just how approachable the team at Trixel Creative was. Now, I did expect a friendly work environment, and I definitely received that. What I meant more was that I can hop into categories which are way outside my abilities, and able to have my own input. I could talk to people in the UI category and give my opinion on that, or head over to programming to give the programmers a bit of banter, maybe praise their work for going out of their way to make the game work more efficiently. I just love the freedom of it all. Whilst of course I mostly interact with the other animators and modellers on the team, I don't feel afraid to stretch my neck around a wall to check and see how everyone else is doing on the project.

Matt: My favorite part has been seeing the progress made and seeing all of it come together in our latest builds.

Billy: The team! Everyone is so welcoming, understanding and so good at what they do. We really have the best people working on this project.

Michael: The team and the community itself. The beauty of Restitched is it's not just us who make it what it is, it's the community. I absolutely adore the support from you guys, even for my own personal projects that I work on alongside Restitched.

Kyran: We have a fantastic community already, and the game's not even out! Seeing people excited to see what we make is a great feeling, the trailer we released made me so proud to be part of this.

Halston: Sharing updates with the community and seeing how people speculate is always fun. I think sharing the Reveal Trailer has been the highlight of the project so far, as it's the first time we all saw the game truly come together into one cohesive thing. The music, the effects, the editing... seeing it all put together like that is super motivating!

Community Question: How long do you think will it take for a Beta test exclusive for Trixel+ members?

Billy: A beta test is definitely something we want to happen - though we're against putting it behind a paywall such as trixel+. To quote the FAQ:

"Our current plan is to offer very selective external QA testing, and eventually a Private Beta.

At the moment we don't have any plans for an Open Beta, but we would love for the community to test the game while building up the pool of user-generated content for other players to enjoy at launch!

Restitched will not enter the Early Access program on Steam."

Halston: As Billy and our FAQ have mentioned, we have no intentions to lock playtesting opportunities behind Patreon. Our community often asks about the potential for a Beta program, but please keep in mind that we're still in early Alpha at the time of writing this. The possibility of community testing could still be another couple of years out.

Which work of yours are you most proud of, and why?

Michael: Last time I may have said I was most proud of Ornaments. But the prop editor tops that and performance fixes top that. It took me half a year to optimize the game as much as I did, and it was by no means easy. It was the most challenging project in my entire 10-year career as a programmer, I never want to do anything that daring again, but I'm still extremely proud of it because of how much I learned in the process and how that work will directly contribute to the game's success post-launch.

Thanks to this work, not only does the game run better on complex levels, but Stuffy can now stand inside a donut shape!

Daniel: I am proud of every illustration I create; it helps the team visualize and bring a lot of cool features that would otherwise remain in the concept department.

Halston: Sometimes I get a bit of imposter syndrome, so I struggle to truly feel satisfied with the work I do! If I had to pick, I'd say the Build Mode UI (especially the redesign we're working on)! I'm also really proud of the logo for the game, so actually, that's probably the better answer!

Billy: I mean, the story! It's been so carefully crafted over several revisions, and I can't wait until we're at the point where we can properly start getting our hands on creating the story's levels.

Matt: I'm proud of my work on the Harbor background because it is the best piece on my portfolio and has helped me get into the game industry and start talking to various people inside.

Kyran: There are two pieces I've made which I had a blast doing. One was the tractor in the Farmland background, there were so many little details in there and it was a great chance to do a vehicle. The other one is probably the piano in the Attic, it has such a cosy feeling to it and looks like it's been loved.

Luke: It's hard to say as I have not been on the team long enough to have a favourite piece of animation I've worked on. But if I had to choose, it'd be my wave emote animation. There's nothing too spectacular about it, but it was the first animation I worked on when joining the Trixel Creative team, and it was received incredibly well. My heart was beating when I first submitted it expecting an overwhelming "meh" and my animation skills judged, but everyone loved it, Billy even saying that he loved seeing Stuffy finally come to life with emotion. That is a moment I'm very proud of, and hopefully I'll be able to one-up myself yet when I make something stunning, maybe a really fancy emote with a lot of complexity.

Community Question: Will Story Mode characters be voice-acted?

Billy: At this stage, we're not entirely sure, and not much discussion has taken place on the matter. My personal preference would be something along the lines of 'Zelda: Breath of the Wild' where each character has a simple, brief noise when you begin a conversation.

Halston: There's been some light discussion on the matter in the past as far as the speech tools go, and I believe we brainstormed something along the lines of Animal Crossing where the NPCs on the island have a rambling and fast-paced voice. As for our story, we don't know. I would personally love to see proper voice acting to bring the characters to life! This could pose an issue when it comes to localization to other languages, though.

Which work of someone else's do you absolutely love?

Kyran: Ari's graphic design is AWESOME. I love everything they come up with and the style they've developed.

Billy: Being a technical whizz, I love the concepts and work behind our Logic system. It's taken a bit of a back seat in recent months, but I can't wait to see it in action and affecting levels in real-time!

Michael: I love Halston's concepts for the new Build Mode UI.

Halston: EVERYONE'S!! Seriously, I don't know how to pick. The concepts are amazing, the programming work is mind-blowing, the writing is inspiring, the animations are so fun to see, and the 3D modeling is never disappointing. I'm so proud of everyone that's contributed, and any piece of work that progresses the game has me in absolute awe.

Matt: I love seeing all the UI stuff that Halston works on.

Luke: What instantly jumps to mind is Ozy's art. He's the lead modeller of the team but he just blew me out of the water one day. So I made a concept animation for a thumbs-up emote, and then I received some feedback, and Ozy made some concept art for me about how it should go. I was expecting a stick-figure storyboard kinda thing, but he comes out with this beautifully made drawing with so much depth and emotion behind it. It can be seen in the September Recapped! here. I knew him as the main modeller for the group, so when he pulls his 2D art skills out on us like it's nothing, that threw me back for a moment. Sure, he's not drawing the Mona Lisa or anything like that, but from this one concept image I was able to perfect the thumbs-up emote, I could read all the emotion and motion he was going for. It was masterful direction. I trust him as the lead modeller as just from the drawing you can see the passion he has for the game, and the angle of Stuffy's personality.

Daniel: We give a lot of praise to new features and mechanics, but what about those who make sure everything is working properly and making sure pesky bugs don't get in the way of gameplay? This one goes to our chief programmer, Michael 🧃

Community Question: I’m extremely curious as to how far you guys are planning to go with logic in Build Mode.

Daniel: Oh don't even get me started, the build mode is such a fun and exciting look at what is possible inside Restitched. Personally, as a concept artist, seeing my ideas take shape in an interactive manner is such a fun experience; to see others using my creations and having fun while bringing their own creativity into the mix is insane; my job is to visualize ideas, and the team and I are eager to bring you and everyone in the community the best experience we can craft.

Luke: As one of the 3D animators on the team, it's beyond my comprehension what the plans are for build mode. Although! I do like to sneak a peak with the brains of the operation over at the programming section and the concepts they've been working on is quite interesting to say the least. There are definitely a lot of quality of life build functions that are being worked on.

Kyran: As far as we can push it whilst keeping it true to our original idea. My dream is giving the player the ability to create anything they can think of to inspire more creations along the way.

Halston: How far we'll manage to take the level editor is yet to be known, but I think we as a team share the common goal of getting the level editor as feature-rich as possible so that people can make their own platformer levels and possibly even mini-games. I think the editor's real potential will be seen once we properly add logic and get the community's hands on it.

Michael: My focus with Build Mode specifically is on performance, usability and accessibility. My dream is for anyone to be able to use Build Mode's tools to build whatever they want - regardless of skill, computer hardware or even whether they have a disability. If I can program the game while blind then you should be able to play it while blind as well.

Matt: With Stuffy's moveset I can't wait to see some awesome platforming levels that play to his kit!

What is your favourite aspect of Restitched?

Matt: My favorite aspect of Restitched is how intuitive the Build Mode tools are and how easy it is to create a detailed level.

Kyran: Working in a creative team which shares the same passions, vision and love for the game as you is an amazing feeling. It's also evolving every day, so I also like that we're very collaborative in that anyone can pitch in ideas regarding anything and they'll be listened to. We all pitch in and help one another!

Luke: It's very generic to say, but the reason why it's generic is because it's true in most cases: The community. Working on the game is fun, we have a good team, interaction is great. But nothing beats being able to show your work to the world and having countless people praise it, or just simply discuss it. Especially when I accidentally brought Stroofy into the world and people started making fanart of them? It melts my heart with how amazing that is. There's no other feeling like it. It's the community that drives me to keep on doing what I'm doing.

Daniel: Restitched is such a fun take on creativity; seeing what players are capable of creating with the tools we provide is an insane experience; the sheer amount of possibilities when it comes to user-generated content is by far the most fascinating and interesting aspect of everything.

Billy: Creating stuff! It sounds simple, but there are so many games out there with creative modes that I always get frustrated with because they allow creativity up to a certain point. This genre has so much to explore, and delving into this unknown territory and figuring out what does (and doesn't) work is so exciting when it comes to opening up new creative possibilities.

Michael:  Programmer answer, I love the Core. The Core is the part of the game that handles level saving and loading, undo/redo, and basic operations like creating, modifying and deleting objects in the level. I didn't write the Core but I definitely love working with it. My favorite aspect of the Restitched codebase is that it does its best to ensure stability, and the Core is a huge fundamental part of that. Non-programmer answer: I just love the community.

Halston: Stuffy! I think the character is so unique because you don't often see teddy bears as playable characters in video games. I love the idea that you can dress Stuffy up just like how you can find themed teddy bears in real life. The level editor is also really nice to use on PC, but Stuffy is the true star of this show.

Community Question: How are you? Are you eating enough? Drinking enough water? Can I get you something? I just want to make sure you are okay. Blink if you need help. I am here for you.

Billy: I'm doing well!.. I think I'm doing well?.. Am I doing well? Now I'm doubting myself.

Michael: Wouldn't mind an extra large french vanilla cappucino, a chicken bacon ranch wrap with crispy chicken, and 6 assorted donu----wait hang on a sec, this isn't the coffee shop! I'll go there soon though.

Daniel: I am literally hydrating as you read this.

Luke: All I need is a hug from Stroofy

Kyran: Aw such a sweet question; thanks for checking in!

Halston: I'm doing alright! No blinks here. Thanks for the very kind question. :)

Community Question: How are you going to optimize the game to run on computers with low performance?

Kyran: As I'm on the art side, I always try to optimise models and textures as much as I can without jeopardising the quality of the visuals. Ensuring models have a low tri-count with uniform texel density to have appropriate texture sizes are a couple of ways we optimise for performance.

Matt: 3D models are typically created in such a way to minimize polygons and draw calls in the engine where we can, so meshes tend to get combined together and are cleaned up before finally being put in the engine. Turning down the user settings can also assist in making sure that some details can be sacrificed as a trade-off for performance.

Halston: We're constantly looking at how the game runs on various hardware, and we're doing our best to keep steady performance by optimizing our textures, meshes, graphics settings, rendering methods, etc. In a recent example, we've just overhauled the way collision data is stored on things in the scene, which has helped performance tremendously.

Michael: The gist of it is optimizing physics. Physics are traditionally the most CPU-intensive part of a game, and UGC games have it worse off because we can't (easily) optimize objects created by the player. That being said, a big part of it is making sure static level objects (anything that shouldn't move) are treated that way at an engine level - this is up to you to turn on though.

Another part of it is custom collision boxes (colliders) on props. These can be optimized by Trixel Creative directly, so we can have props in the game that look stunningly detailed but are still simple shapes in the physics world. This goes a long way for levels with lots of props in them. 

Finally, though this hasn't been properly figured out, ensuring that multiple overlapping objects are treated as one physics object in the game engine. That way, the two objects aren't constantly trying to throw each other out of their colliders, and instead behave as one single entity in the physics world - as they should.

Is there anything that you would like to tell the community?

Halston: Remember that Restitched is a passion project for now, so we're all doing this as a hobby! We're learning as fast as we're creating. We take it very seriously and love the game we're building. 

Keep supporting us, as it means a lot to our team to have encouragement. It's also important to know that we're trying to build an experience you can't get anywhere else! :)

Michael: Keep the Restitched puns coming, because it's becoming a huge needle-threading exercise for me to keep coming up with them on my own. It takes a while for my brain to get all stuffed up with them.

Luke: If this game hadn't gained traction from the community, then I may have never been working on this project as I would have never found it. So in a way, it's the community that has given me this opportunity to work on this game, and I am genuinely grateful from the bottom of my heart. To all of you.

Daniel: We're putting a lot of love and dedication into the project, and I seriously can't wait to show you all the cool things we've been working on!

Billy: I can't wait to reveal more of the story themes!

Matt: Stay cool you crazy kids.

Kyran: We really appreciate each and every one of you. It's awesome to be creating something for a fantastic community that is just as excited about your game as you are. Your support is what it's all about for us and we can't wait to show you guys all the things we have in store for the future!

Community Question: Has there been any inspiration from other UGC games like Mario Maker?

Billy: I'm constantly getting inspired by other games. I'll be playing something like The Sims or Spiritfarer - or even something entirely different like Call of Duty or Assassin's Creed - and actively be thinking 'are there any features in here that would make sense in our game?' 'what if we did something like this thing?' Hopefully, these inspirations shine through in the final product.

Michael:  When it comes to user experience and the layout of Build Mode (not necessarily the visual design of it, but where things are positioned on the screen and how you interact with it), my inspiration comes from games like Cities: Skylines and The Sims 4. The experiences there are tailored toward PCs and take advantage of available screen space regardless of your resolution. I also think that it's best to look at these other games when it comes to supporting a mouse and keyboard.

Daniel:  Weirdly, I believe Garry's Mod was my first exposure to the true potential of user-generated content; it's a very open-ended and non-linear experience because you can pretty much do whatever you want, but thanks to the tools provided by the developers and workshop, you can virtually turn the game into anything you want; as a console player for the majority of my life, experiencing that for the first time was nothing short of amazing; when you have a dedicated community, the possibilities are endless, the skies are no longer the limit, your restraints are only bound to your imagination and engine crashes.

Halston: Yes! Absolutely. We're a diverse team with different gaming backgrounds, so some of us come from other UGC communities from games like Garry's Mod, Portal 2, The Sims, etc. We've really taken a look at how The Sims 4's UI allows its creators to easily swap tools, browse content, build scenes, and then upload them to a gallery. Likewise, we've also looked at how games like Garry's Mod lets users browse UGC in-game and how Mario Maker requires you to complete your creation before it can be shared.

Luke: Absolutely! With how the game centres around creativity and artistic vision, taking inspiration from all sorts of other games is necessary to expand the mind on what we want the game to be, and the ideas we wish to implement. As a 3D animator, I take my inspiration from other animators. I used to be in love with GMod & SFM animations. Even though I don't tend to watch them much now, I check in with my old favourite animators sometimes and they've improved so much. Especially in the bouncy squash n' stretch department. That's something I have been heavily inspired by and trying to make come to life in Restitched.

Kyran: I personally love Dreams and the creative freedom it allows and the community it's brought together. There's also Unreal Tournament, which broke so much new ground in video games when it was released in the 90s.

Matt: One game that never fails to inspire me artistically is the world of Overwatch. Overwatch to me is a masterclass in stylized 3D art, you can really see that they go above and beyond in making the final models look like they were directly lifted out of the pages of the concept art, this is my goal for the stuff I make for Restitched.

Community Question: How does everyone like their eggs?

Billy: I'm partial to a scramble. Milk, butter, salt and pepper. Bit of garlic and onion seasoning. Yum.

Michael: Born into a chicken, then barbecued or fried.

Daniel: Not a big egg fan, one of my friends actually has an egg for a head, quite peculiar fella. If I was forced to pick one I would say scrambled. (Please do not force me to pick eggs)

Luke: I know this is meant to be a fun question, but I take this subject VERY seriously. I like fried eggs, along with most other people, but ALL my friends like them soft and runny. I like mine sunny-side-down, or "Over well", whatever makes the yolk not runny. Oh my goodness, I've never seen such discourse from me preferring eggs that way. My friends like to use the runniness as a sauce for the chips, or just because it "tastes better". No, I want to eat my egg as an egg. Not as a literal sauce pallet for the rest of my meal. But they have a huge problem with that. And to add insult to injury, fried eggs aren't even my favourite. I think hard-boiled eggs are the most superior eggs.

To make a long story short, I'm now looking for some new friends with good taste in eggs.

Kyran: Scrambled with some pepper, chives and ketchup.

Matt: I like my eggs over easy with a dash of salt and pepper.

Halston: Any form is fine, but I do prefer scrambled or fried depending on the meal... but never without salt and pepper!

And there we have it!

Thank you so much for reading this Team Interview! It was super fun answering your questions and seeing everyone's responses. See you next month for another Dev Diary!