“I couldn’t stroll away from the pen and ink factor,” says John Evelyn, creator of The Collage Atlas, a dreamlike storybook journey lately launched on Steam. The whole recreation is hand drawn, from tiny flowers and bugs to large buildings and the clouds that float over them. Exploring this world unwraps its dreamlike story, with environments folding out in response to your strategy.
“I had been drawing for a few years earlier than that […] and I’d at all times draw with ink immediately, with none type of prior pencil work or sketching,” he says. “I favored all of the incidental particulars and the accidents that come out alongside the way in which.” He compares it to improv music — “truly, generally it goes horribly flawed!” — however says that the sensation of getting right into a stride and being stunned by sudden outcomes was vital to the entire recreation.
It’s due to this that the artwork type underpins the remainder of the expertise. The place particular person items of recreation artwork can fall into the background, The Collage Atlas requests your consideration to element — and rewards it. On the very begin of the sport, a pinwheel seems from a grassy plain; take a look at it, and it begins spinning. It was one of many first issues that Evelyn created, for what was initially an app meant to accompany an image e book.
The e book, a follow-up to a self-published work referred to as Asleep As The Breeze, was supposed to discover themes of company and the sensation of disempowerment that may come from traumatic or chaotic life experiences. “You can begin to really feel like life is one thing that’s type of taking place to you quite than one thing that you’ve significant management or authorship of,” says Evelyn.
Whereas experimenting with that theme, “every part clicked into place,” when the pinwheel spun, he says. “It immediately made sense that, truly, this was the crux of what I used to be making an attempt to speak about. That, truly, even when it doesn’t really feel prefer it, simply your presence throughout the world is genuinely significant and truly does have an effect on it. Even your gaze and your statement can also be significant.”
“Even your gaze and your statement can also be significant.”
Evelyn constructed on the app concept for a brief artwork expertise, which he exhibited on the Leftfield Assortment at UK gaming conference EGX in 2016. On the time, he says, he had no intention of continuous to develop it right into a recreation that may ultimately make it to Apple Arcade after which Steam. As an alternative, he says, it was “one thing that I personally felt like I actually wanted to do.”
“I had gone by means of a fairly unhealthy run of years,” he says, “and I used to be discovering it tough to seek out media that spoke to me in regards to the issues I used to be experiencing.” Different media appeared deeply particular to others’ conditions, whereas Evelyn needed one thing broader. “Issues that simply nudge at common themes I discover actually helpful.”
On the present, individuals linked along with his piece. Particularly, Evelyn was swayed by the eye of “business-type individuals,” who would ask him how lengthy the total recreation would find yourself being. “In my thoughts, I used to be like, ‘Oh, do you truly assume that folks would need that?’” He says he was swayed by them as a result of, in the event that they have been coming at it from a “pretty chilly monetary standpoint” and thought there could be an viewers for it, he would possibly be capable to consider it himself.
Picture: John William Evelyn
He knew that he needed the expertise to be one thing that might “slowly soak up you” — that means a few hours, quite than 10 minutes. For the following 4 years, he threw every part at filling out that scope. Though he had expertise and information from a profession that included time making Flash video games, working in freelance illustration, and releasing music EPs, he additionally had lots to study. “The day that I began The Collage Atlas as it’s now, not the little demo model, that was the very first day I opened up [game engine] Unity,” he says.
With a purpose to convert illustrations to 3D, a course of he had by no means performed earlier than, he started by creating the fashions in Unity earlier than printing their maps and drawing within the particulars with pen. As soon as scanned again in, these textures have been readded to the mannequin to create the world of The Collage Atlas and every part that makes it up.
“Works don’t have any type of permanence — they’ll simply vanish.”
After practically 5 years of labor, in 2020, the sport was launched on Apple Arcade, however in 2023 it was delisted when the exclusivity interval ended. Not lengthy afterward, even individuals who had downloaded it weren’t in a position to launch it. “That is the unhappy factor about the way in which our type of artistic mediums are going: works don’t have any type of permanence — they’ll simply vanish,” he says. Evelyn felt he owed it to his previous self who did all that work to ensure the sport was nonetheless obtainable and lately launched it on Steam.
After the sport’s Apple Arcade launch, Evelyn thought he may be performed engaged on video games. “I spoke to certainly one of my mates who’s a AAA developer and I stated, ‘That’s it. That’s me performed. I’m by no means doing this once more.’ He stated, ‘I’ll provide you with six months.’” Virtually precisely six months later, he began engaged on his subsequent recreation, The Wings of Sycamore. Additionally hand-drawn, it’s one thing of a non secular sequel to The Collage Atlas.
“Atlas is making an attempt to discover the concept of falling inwards,” he says. “Wings of Sycamore is about flight. After you handle to climb again out of the depths, hopefully, that’s once you simply have the pure pleasure of flying.”