On our Patreon Page, we publish Indie Dev Interviews for our Patrons. The last one published is our interview with North Star Digital Studios.
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.
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.
Want to Read More?
Would you like to read more about the early versions/prototypes of Evolution, did they look very different? What was the biggest challenge in turning the board game into a digital game? And what advice does Bree Woodward give aspiring developers working alone or in a tiny team to attain their goals?