A Giant Problem News

You can find the article here! Hope you can read Finnish.

Finland’s a small country, but it’s hitting well above its weight when it comes to video games. Granted most of the press goes to studios like Remedy, Colossal Order, Supercell, Housemarque, Frozenbyte, and Rovio - with good reason. So it’s nice to see a government publication taking the time to highlight some of the up-and-comers, in this case us!

Marjo, our CEO, spoke with them about our journey as a team, our plans for the game, and why we chose to work in VR. It’s all in Finnish, but Google Translate has come a long ways, so be sure to give it a read. You can find the article over on the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs publication Kauppapolitiikka.

This following on the heels of the Yle article from the other week is good for us here at home. It’s a small pond, but our eyes are set on the international market. They have to be when working in VR. So if we build some traction here, hopefully the hipness of the Nordics will work in our favor.

If you’re a journalist, regardless of location, and interested in writing about Critical Charm or A Giant Problem then don’t hesitate to get in touch. And don’t forget to wishlist A Giant Problem on Steam right now!

Screenshots in VR are not an easy thing to take, for a whole host of reasons. It’s meant that up till now we haven’t had the best screenshots. This has both let us down and you. Who wants to wishlist a game that looks like crap, or that doesn’t present a clear idea of what’s happening.

But all that’s changed! We’ve uploaded a slew of new screenshots to Steam, the website and everywhere else we’re sharing details about our game! All it’s taken is some very dedicated development on our camera system, and the team spending a lot of time trying to get that perfect shot.



When you go into indie game development you often don’t think about all the time and energy marketing a game requires. It’s not just the posting a video or livestream. Or writing a blog post. Often times it’s about developing tools that enable you to do just that. And it’s all the more so when it comes to VR game development.

VR poses a number of issues when capturing screenshots. The first of which is the laborious nature of just taking them on a PC. There’s keys to press, screen areas to select, paint programs to open and save in. And if you’re alone you’re having to do all of that either from within a headset or stop and take it all off.

The fact someone is wearing the camera and controllers is another factor that affects screenshots in VR. The field of view is so narrow that to make sure the controllers or hands are visible is difficult, because they’re then having to be held at a height that’s uncomfortable and unsustainable for long periods. There’s also a lot of shaking and quick movements that occur. It makes taking those beautiful action shots a lot harder. And pausing a game doesn’t always result in the best work.

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So our solution has been one that has benefits beyond just enabling us to take screenshots and make our game more enticing on Steam. Our brilliant programmers have created a camera system that makes the game more streamable and watchable. How? - We hear you ask. What magic is this? - We hear you say. Why it’s the beauty of computer programming that’s added in five additional cameras to the game!

Each camera can be controlled independently, and set up to capture what you desire. They all start parented to the player, which has a beautiful head now to really help sell the idea of being a giant. Four of the cameras are third person so you can capture all the action from a far and take in the whole scene. You can become quite the director composing your shots with these cameras. External cameras like these are perfect for anyone with an audience cause they can watch without getting motion sick, and have a better idea of what’s happening.



Sometimes you just want to show all the action you as a player see. That’s why we’ve included a new first person camera. What makes this one different is that it’s not based on what you see within the headset. Rather, it’s its own camera set slightly beneath the player’s head so it that it readily captures the player’s hands. This setup, along with some motion smoothing, gives viewers a much better feel of what it’s like to be in VR when not wearing a headset of their own. It also helps provide context for the player’s actions and prevents motion sickness created by fast movements.

It should be noted that we didn’t originate many of these ideas. We specifically looked at what other developers were doing. The team behind Fantastic Contraption had a great video about their own camera system which was a big help in developing our own.

All this was done so that we could take better screenshots, but what it also means is you’ll be able to do the same! A Giant Problem is going to be more streamable, more shareable because of the time we’ve taken to give you the tools to show off all the goblin smashing you get up to. So if you want to show off to your friends, family and fans then be sure to wishlist A Giant Problem on Steam now!

We’re heads down in production here at Critical Charm. And that means crafting a whole new world, we are creating a fantasy epic here and that’s just par for the course. A Giant Problem does pose some unique challenges when it comes to designing the world, not in terms of lore, but rather the physical (well digital) representation of it.

No, this isn’t the scope post we’ve promised. But we do touch on that a bit. To craft this world we need to consider the following: mission design, narrative design, usability, reusability, and aesthetics.


A Giant Problem is a combination of action and tower defense. That creates some unique challenges when it comes to mission design. Namely, how do you keep players from becoming bored by just having them stand around all the time and defending a single spot. Or conversely, how do you add in tower defense elements when the player’s on the move.

The level design has a lot to do with that. How the space is structured will help determine what’s possible, when it’s possible, and obviously where it’s possible.

We could have designed a world similar to that in Angry Birds VR, where it’s just the encounter put in front of the player that changes. That doesn’t work for this type of game though. It’s great for a puzzle game like Angry Birds, but when the challenge is as much about the environment as it is what enemies you’re facing then the maps need to be more varied.


Repetition gets boring. It also makes for poor storytelling. That’s why change is important. In this case it means making sure the player isn’t experiencing the same space all the time. It also affects the mission design, as repeating similar mission structures too often can result in the same issues. This is really important for campaigns, less so for arcade style modes where the point is to face increasing challenges.

But A Giant Problem is going to have a campaign. Part of a campaign is making the world feel real. Not in the gritty and grim Game of Thrones manner. Instead we want it to be a place that a player can learn and move about in, without it being the massive open world maps of Ubisoft. And that means designing maps with all of that in mind.


Which brings us to usability - how well does the map serve our purposes as developers, but also how well does it play for players. This means taking into account additional things like sight-lines, distances, scale constraints, movement issues, and even processing power.

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This is why we graybox. Which if missed you can see Greg working on one such level for Blocktober, over on our YouTube channel. Grayboxing lets us test for all of these issues and more, while being able to quickly change the map to solve these problems. It just doesn’t make for very good screenshots.


We’re a small team. That means we can only do so much. So if we can make our creations do more for us and players, all the better. In this case, it means maps that can be used for more than a single mission type or game mode. It’s why we’re going with this semi-open world structure, similar to games like Dragon Age: Inquisition.

There will be different maps, each with their own environ, effects and of course layouts. But each will be designed for use in both the campaign and other game modes we have in the works. And different areas of the maps will support different mission designs.


This is VR and it better damn well look good. That doesn’t mean we’re going for hyperrealism. Rather we have a solid low-poly cartoon-inspired art style our Art Director Minna has created. And that’s got to be reflected in the world as much as it is in the characters. This in turn reflects upon the narrative design and the usability. It’s also a matter of for reusability, because if our maps are too costly in terms of time it means we’d have to make fewer.

Ultimately, we’re going to be judged first on how the game looks so it’s vital we nail the aesthetics before a person even plays the game. The aesthetics also reinforce the gameplay. Just look at the differences between the early builds and the later ones when we’ve added particle effects.


So with all that in mind, how do we go about constructing a new map?

Just like we did when we were kids - with pens and pencils and big pieces of paper!

But you can begin by wishlisting A Giant Problem right now on Steam!

Yle, the Finnish state broadcaster, recently visited the Helsinki XR Center to do a news segment and web article. Which means they also got a look at our game, and to talk with Marjo!

There’s plenty of action going on in the news segment where you get to see Marjo playing A Giant Problem, and some of our friends from around the center. If you want to read more the article has it, even some choice quotes from our CEO.

Now Finland may only be a country of 5 million or so people. But for us it’s a big thing to be shown like this. It helps in a number of ways, some that can’t go into right now but hope to in the future. Recognition like this goes a long way in a small community. And for a small team we appreciate every time someone writes about or talks about us.

So if you’re a streamer and interested in playing A Giant Problem be sure to get in touch. And if you haven’t already be sure to wishlisht A Giant Problem on Steam now!

We promised players they’d get their hands dirty. They’d get into the nitty gritty of defending their village, and not just from the combat perspective. But that they’d have a say over how their defenses work, and where they are.

So that’s why we’re proud to share with you the new build phase!

This isn’t Fortnite, so there’s no building on the fly. Instead we’ve gone for a more focused approach, with a brief build phase before the beginning of a level. This allows you to place just about everything - except the village and naturally occurring elements. You can place allies, defenses and magic.

Want your Hedgehogs sitting up high to snipe at the oncoming hordes - you can place them on a ridge. Want the Gnomes guarding the treasures - you can set them right in front. Want some currently unannounced allies helping to funnel the enemies into a bottleneck - you can do that too.

The build phase is still a work-in-progress, as is much of the game, but we’re pretty confident in this feature for what it lets you do. And what that is, is control. Building on this board, in this manner gives you a level of control and ease that isn’t possible during the combat phase. It also allows you to be strategic in your placement of defenses and allies.

Yes you can still change things once you’re in combat. Just about every object in the game, and that includes defenses, traps and allies, can be picked up. Hell, they can even be used as a last ditch weapon if you need it. Combat is for tactical decisions after all.

Building in this way means we get to add depth to what you can build, and the allies you have available. Right now all we’ve shown are the basics. But we do have some other building types coming. To learn about them and stay up-to-date on all that’s happening with A Giant Problem be sure to wishlist the game on Steam!