JOURNEY TO THE SAVAGE PLANET
We discuss Journey To The Savage Planet with Typhoon Studios
Devs Alex Hutchinson and Reid Schneider reveal how to create an alien world.
While Journey To The Savage Planet is the first game to blast off from Typhoon Studios, a lot of the staff behind the game have a history of successful missions. Between them, co-founders Alex Hutchinson and Reid Schneider (creative director and executive producer respectively) have worked on Batman, Far Cry, and Assassin’s Creed. Savage Planet might seem quite different from those globallyknown franchises, but Hutchinson explains it’s not really.
“Exploration is core to all [those titles], and it’s still one of the things that fascinates me most about games,” he says. “With Savage Planet to take it out of the real world and into a more fantastical sci-fi style interpretation was exciting: not being bound by reality gives us the opportunity to try all kinds of weird and wonderful design ideas for creatures or tools or challenges that we couldn’t do in a more realistic game.”
Schneider adds, “It’s really refreshing to work on something that is bright and colourful; for most of the team (myself included) this is the exception rather than the rule.”
Exploring this strange world, which you’re unceremoniously dumped onto by your employer, provides plenty of bizarre experiences. The world is alien, after all. Your role is more to uncover the mysteries of this planet than shoot it up. “At first we didn’t even want a gun!” explains Hutchinson. “We set ourselves an early goal of having other tools that were more interesting or more useful than the gun.” Eventually, the gun did make its way into the game, but only alongside other gadgets. “We only have one gun in the whole game and it’s a strange solar-powered device that can be overclocked (if you upgrade it), kind of like a supersoaker, to gain extra functionality.”
INSPECTOR GADGET
Those other tools will get plenty of use as you chart this zany corner of the galaxy. “I’m a fan of the grapple seed,” says Hutchinson. “You can throw it onto weird purple fungus
WE HAVE A POINT TO MAKE, BUT WE WANT TO LAUGH ALONG THE WAY.
that you see in the world and it will instantly grow into a flower which you can use with your grapple, allowing you to chart your own path through some of our puzzles.”
Schneider’s favourite tool is literally more flexible: “I really like our bounce pads. These are pads you can throw down anywhere which allow a player to bounce themselves to higher elevations.”
You can use these tools to change how you approach exploring the environment and find your own solutions to puzzles and traversal. “It’s been really interesting to watch players use them in unique ways,” says Schneider. “One of the really fun parts of JTTSP is that there are often many solutions to a challenge, and it’s the player’s choice to come up with his/her solution.”
Overall, your challenge is to assess the planet to see if it’s fit for human habitation, a job assigned by your employer, Kindred Aerospace. Proud to announce it’s the “fourthbest interstellar exploration company”, it’s led by the comedically wheeling and dealing Martin Tweed, who sends you video messages as you progress.
“Humour is hard,” says Hutchinson. “People also think that funny games or movies can’t hide serious themes, and people want to be serious artists generally, but I don’t think this is true. We have a story to tell and a point to make, but we want you to laugh along the way.”
SO MUCH TO SEE
Journey To The Savage Planet doesn’t take itself too seriously, but still feels rewarding and has a tonally consistent message. “In the past when we’ve had really strange or out-there ideas (that typically involved humour) the reality was this was ‘off-brand’ and could not be done,” says Schneider.
But soon we will be able to do it, because Schneider and Hutchinson struck out for a new frontier, and Typhoon’s explorathon is nearly here. We’re keen to make landfall.
Launch countdown begins for Journey To The Savage Planet on 28 Jan.