Time for a Patron only interview!
This time we talk with Bree Woodward, Art Director, North Star Digital Studios. The Studios behind Evolution, the Board Game and the newly released card based board game Oceans. Aside from the digital games, North Star has quite a nice collection of physical board games as well.
I reviewed the digital Evolution game back then on iPad, and recently on Switch. A wonderful game as you can read in my review!
Guided by the North Star
Tell us about North Star Digital Studios or North Star Games.
Our mission at North Star Games is to bring friends and family together for exciting and memorable experiences. Our board games bring about laughter, cheering, and creativity as they engage and enrich your mind. We launched North Star Digital with the intent to bring our board games to an even broader audience and harness the advantages that a digital format can bring to our players. If you anticipate, with excitement, each new North Star Games release, then we’ll sleep well at night, knowing that our mission is being fulfilled.
What’s behind the name of your studio?
The founder of North Star Games, Dominic Crapuchettes, captained an Alaskan salmon fishing boat for 12 seasons, but in his heart, he always dreamed about starting a board game company. One stormy night, his boat took on enough water to submerge the batteries in the engine room. All of the electronics went dead, including the navigation system and the bilge pumps. Dominic was forced to the outside bridge to guide his boat into the harbor by the North Star.
He vowed that if he survived, he would stop fishing and start the company of his dreams. In 2003, he started North Star Games.
A Change from the Early Prototypes
Evolution has been around for some time, first as a board game. What inspired this game?
Dominic came across a Russian game, Evolution: Origin of Species, and though it showed a lot of promise, it was a deeply flawed game and suffered some mechanical issues with gameplay that sparked his inspiration. Without even knowing if the game’s license was available, and after staying up late for weeks thinking about how this game could be made into something incredible, the inspiration for the new Evolution was born. You can learn more about Dom’s designer story here.
Did early versions/prototypes of the game look very different, or: has the game evolved? 🙂
I’ll comment on the Digital version of Evolution since that’s where my expertise is, within North Star Games. Early prototypes looked quite different! The original art director on the project had a vision for a more realistic game space and watering hole. The 3D environment and ground textures were more reflective of a natural environment with subdued colors, and the board game pieces, the species markers, as well as the interface, were more like paper and cardboard. There was a visual clash for me between the flat paper and cardboard like interface, the realistic watering hole environment, and the vibrant watercolor art on the cards.
When I stepped into my role as art director I wanted to unify the style of everything in the game and that meant starting with the card art. The watercolor art, from wildlife artist Catherine Hamilton, is absolutely stunning and I felt that everything else in the game, from the FX to the interface and 3D textures, should compliment that, not clash with it.
We started with an overhaul of all the in-game textures to a less realistic, more painterly and vibrant theme, and then changed the species markers from flat paper-and-cardboard aesthetic to a brontosaurus fossil footprint, which actually looks like it’s part of the environment. Then we overhauled the UI to also be in a painterly style, and feel like part of the environment, so your HUD, and all the huds for other players, have rock, gnarled wood, and leaves, which makes you really feel immersed.
How to Fit it All on a Phone Screen
Tell us something special about this game. (Or, what sets this game apart from others in the genre?)
There are a fair number of strategy card games out there on digital platforms, but ours has a ton of things that set it apart. I love that our game supports 4-player multiplayer. Many card games like Hearthstone or Star Realms are only 2 players. We also put a lot of time into developing all the ‘bells and whistles’ like in-game chat, a full campaign mode, pass and play, dozens of different AI opponents, asynchronous play, and best of all, our game is free on mobile. You don’t have to spend any money to have a full Evolution experience, nothing essential is gated behind purchases.
What was the biggest challenge in turning the board game into a digital game? How did you overcome it?
Our studio had so many challenges that it would be too much to get into here, so I’ll speak to my own challenges. The biggest challenge I faced was trying to take a game which had 4 players, 4 HUDs with vital information, 4 hands of cards, plus a watering hole with game information in it, as well as 5 species per player that could be created, and figure out how to fit all of these elements on a phone screen. This was by far one of the toughest UI challenges I’ve attempted — but with some creativity and compromise I think we really made it work well.
What part of this game sparks the most joy for you?
The sound design and music, by Island Styles, totally sparks joy! It’s incredible how the right sounds can totally bring something to life.
Oceans and Upcoming Games
I’ve seen Oceans on my iPad. Am I right that it is based on the same principle of Evolution?
Yes, absolutely, although it’s important to note that it is not Evolution reskinned with an oceanic theme. While there are some familiar mechanics (feeding in the reef is like feeding from the watering hole, you evolve your species with trait cards, etc.) it is an entirely different game with differing mechanics and its own unique strategy of play. Evolution players will feel familiarity, but will need to formulate all new approaches.
What other cool game(s) are you currently working on now?
We’re working on a couple of projects:
- Paint the Roses: A cooperative deduction game called Paint the Roses which is set in the world of Alice in Wonderland.
- Legends of the Deep: An expansion to Oceans which bring indigenous mythologies into the Oceans ecosystem.
What are your favourite recent games? (Not choosing your own games!)
In terms of the digital card game genre, I’m really impressed with Kards. I was just recently remarking on little details like the drag arrow and the well done tooltips and the snow FX that impress me. As a visual designer and a UI designer, I watch for this stuff — the little things — often overlooked but contribute to the overall polish and quality feeling of a game. I’m also loving Among Us because it’s been great for getting folks together during covid.
Learn Beyond Your Skill Set
In what ways do you try to maintain work-life balance at your studio?
We’ve been really good about not enforcing a ‘crunch’ and keeping our operating hours to a pretty normal amount, and keeping our weekends free. Honestly, this just comes down to setting realistic release dates and having really good project management.
What advice would you offer aspiring developers working alone or in a tiny team?
The best advice I can offer is to be willing to self-teach and learn far beyond your skill set. Small teams don’t have the advantage of a large variety of specialized artists and developers. We all wear many hats and have had to muddle through figuring out how to do things outside of what we’re comfortable with.
As an art director, I’ve done project management, community outreach, web design and webmastering, testing, marketing, PR, convention booths, and even expanded my art skills to things like animating in After Effects. Being willing to face something you don’t know how to do, and just go, “Okay, I’ve gotta figure this out, we don’t have the budget to hire someone who’s an expert in this” is absolutely crucial to working alone or in a tiny team.