Treehouse

2019

Perspective is a peculiar thing. Sometimes the largest things are right in front of you hidden in the details.

Experience

After learning about the death of his parents a traumatized kid runs away to his treehouse during a storm to escape inside a fantasy world where he's a giant (the adult) who has to save the forest from the evil Raven (the bringer of the bad news). Think Narnias and Alice in the Wonderland.

Story aside, you are locked into a treehouse (that you progressively open up and upgrade) and given a telescope to explore the world outside. It is a game of observation and exploration. As you uncover several item, they start to connect into an overarching fantasy story that eventually meets real life in a happy resolution.

Behind the Scenes

I've had tons of ideas for the gameplay and a lovely story. The eager early start was accelerated by many things being much easier, than the previously used Unity engine. Getting basic building blocks in was easy. The telescope zooming, mocking out the scene, all of that was the easy part. As I got more into the development, I realized the minimum scope to make the experience I was after with the target gameplay.

Opening sequence

your door to the game world

Practically this was my very first Unreal Engine game. After a month or two I saw that this was too much. Too much story, that required research on heavy topics of losing a parent. While that made it more serious, also felt making it more valuable. Ultimately it felt it wasn't my place to tell a story like that. I thought about changing the story around, only to realize the scope of the gameplay wasn't something easy to make either.