PAX AUS is only a few days away! New Zealand is bringing 18 talented teams to this convention thanks to CODE. If you’re going to be attending PAX AUS, be sure to check out booth 1140 to see all the great teams and their games!
Continuing our coverage of the rapidly rising New Zealand scene, we spoke to Jevon, the founder and sole member of Stormcloak Games, about their debut title, Adaptory. We look into Jevon’s journey, the many elements of Adaptory and the growing game development scene in New Zealand.
Hi there Jevon, thanks for taking the time to talk to us, especially so close to PAX, how are you feeling? This will be a returning PAX won’t it?
PAX is less than a week away and we’re all super excited. My first ever PAX was last year and it really felt like I was turning up to a huge lounge of friends – I can’t believe I’d never been to a PAX before! Alongside PAX I’m also excited for some of the other events happening around MIGW that week. If you do see me floating around anywhere Melbourne next week, please do say hi! 😀
Please tell us about yourself and your studio, Stormcloak Games.
I’m the solo developer behind the studio and Adaptory. I’ve spent the majority of my life working in software and web, but I’ve always been making games in my spare time. In 2021 I decided to take the plunge and make my first commercial game – which is now coming to Steam as Adaptory, and I formed the company to help me deliver my first commercial game. My medium-term goal is to turn Stormcloak into a fully-fledged and sustainable indie studio, allowing me to hire and support an amazing and diverse full-time team to create awesome indie games that don’t have battle passes.
Can you please tell us about Adaptory, I see the game has had multiple alpha versions, with alpha releases also on itch.io?
I started playing around with some prototypes back in February 2021, and at the time, all it was was a multi threaded element simulation. It was turning into a lot of fun so in November I decided to become a full-time gamedev. With the support of my partner and some amazing friends on Patreon, I spent about a year adding systems and content, refining the design and identity a little bit, before I finally launched the first alpha on itch.io. Itch.io was a fantastic first platform to launch the game publicly because players on itch.io are looking for new games, and they’re not looking for perfection, so they’re very happy and willing to provide feedback. I’ve tried to do one alpha release every 2-3 months since then, and each release has helped me flesh out the design and identity of the game. I’ll also be releasing the Early Access version next year on itch.io, but for a lot of players Steam is still easier!
Adaptory has a lot of interconnected systems and you’re a solo developer! How has this process been?
In some ways it’s a TON of fun, and super easy – as I’m the only developer, I hold all of the information and game design in my head, so information sharing is super quick and simple. I get to balance everything, trying to make a game that is fun, possible to make, has decent performance, comes together in a coherent environment, looks good, and is commercially successful. I seem to love this project management aspect of gamedev. I’m also really lucky to be working with some amazing people as contractors for art, story, music and sound, and despite being a solo dev I hope I’m doing a good job at keeping everyone in the loop. I’m continually trying to over-communicate what’s going on in my head, but there’s a lot to try and balance at once 😁
It might be hard to choose, what was your favourite system to work on in Adaptory?
It is definitely hard to choose. Hmm. I think it’s the artificial intelligence and state machines of all of the explorers, buildings, and plants in the game. I still remember the first time I got an explorer to turn around, walk over, and open a door for the first time, it was magical! I love seeing how all of these simple rulesets combine into complex and emergent gameplay, and seeing each of the rules turn into life.
The wee explorers have great little personalities, especially with their own diary entries; some were quite emotional about missing home! Where did you get the inspiration for these little personalities, quirks and entries?
The explorers’ personalities and diaries are 100% the work of my amazing story designer Cass! She was inspired by both The Sims and personality types called Enneagrams to give the explorers life and personality, while still being able to create procedurally-generated characters that are interesting and unique. She’s delved really deep into a huge universe-building exercise for Adaptory – there’s a backstory for the entire game going back thousands of years, so there is going to be a ton of cool stuff that will be revealed as we get closer to release.
Adaptory is constantly evolving, what are you most excited to bring to the game, if we’re allowed to know?
Probably the next big thing that I can’t wait to add into the game is base automation. It’s a key part of the “Adapt” part of Adaptory – you only have a handful of explorers so you need to rely on your skills as a designer and builder to automate your base, to adapt to the random challenges in the world.
Were there any big inspirations for Adaptory?
The biggest inspirations have definitely been Oxygen Not Included, Rimworld, and Dwarf Fortress – three of my favourite games of all time. If you haven’t played these games, you should!! I love the simple complexity of ONI’s simulations, the random events in Rimworld, and the procedurally generated stories of Dwarf Fortress, but with each of them I felt like something was missing. I’m trying to pull them all together into a game design and vibe that I’ve never played anywhere else.
We’re currently at alpha 10! How has this alpha development process been with community feedback?
It’s been so so good, as soon as I got the game in front of some actual players I learned so much, and the community has been fantastic. I really feel like they’re coming along for the ride to make Adaptory into the best game it can be. Quite a few features and design elements of Adaptory have been inspired by their feedback and playthroughs! Things like accessibility options and tools for streamers are things I’d never thought of adding before, and the game’s also been tested on lots of different machines and platforms. Along with regular gamedev posts on our blog, this constant feedback cycle has found tons of bugs so I’m feeling relatively hopeful that our build for PAX next week will be bug-free! Thank you community testers <3
We are seeing more and more games start in early access to develop along with feedback, what do you think of early access and how it’s helped game development?
I think Early Access is maturing, especially for indie games. We’ve all seen dead and abandoned Early Access games but at the same time, some players expect Early Access titles to be 100% polished and bug-free. For base-building games though I think there’s a more consistent understanding that games released into Early Access will have some bugs and missing content, but that the game is fun, and ready for a first play through. The initial sales in Early Access also helps the studio to invest and add more content to the game than would otherwise be possible through a conventional release process, especially for base-building games where the focus is more on systems, and it takes quite a few years to add all of the mechanics you’d expect in a base-building game!
What do you think of the NZ development scene and how companies like CODE have helped game development progression in New Zealand?
I’ve only been in the NZ gamedev scene for a few years but it’s changed so much!! CODE is a national treasure. With the support of the NZ government they’re now able to support indie game studios all across New Zealand, through mentorships and workshops and grants. Larger studios are also now eligible for the GDSR (gamedev rebate), making it a bit more sustainable to stay here. Even with the disaster that has been the last year of commercial gamedev (all the studios shutting, etc), I’m feeling really confident with the NZ gamedev scene. We’re still a small but powerful community, making amazing games that the world needs more than ever, and we’re all supporting each other to make the best games we can.
Thanks so much for taking the time to talk Jevon! Is there anything else you’d like to add on how we can keep up with you and Adaptory?
Please do consider wishlisting Adaptory on Steam, and also joining our little Discord server, where we’re building an awesome and supportive community 🙂
Check out our previous PAX developer interviews including Burger Bois , Doomtide and Rose and Locket. Stay tuned for more interviews over the coming weeks!
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