How to Make a Game That Punches Above Its Weight
Before we get to the fat community update, here's a guest post from Adrian, our Creative Director, on the secrets of games that punch above their weight...
Most of Witchfire was done by a team of twelve people. When we revealed that, people noticed:
But this started earlier, with The Vanishing of Ethan Carter:
It sounds insane today, but one of the stronger marketing beats we've done was to give the press three very short GIFs from the game. Old-school, real, bloated GIFs -- not MP4 videos pretending to be GIFs. Not many games looked like this in 2014, and we got great coverage. The fact that such visual quality was achieved with a tiny team obviously helped.
Of course, we are not alone in making a fun, good-looking game with a suspiciously small team. Hades, Ori, Disco Elysium, or Manor Lords were all made by teams or even single developers that punch above their weight, creating games that feel like they were made with three, five, or ten times more people.
Lately, we got another contender, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. I have finished the game…
Click here to read the post
…and even with my 30+ years of experience in making games that look bigger than they should -- Painkiller was made with 16 people on average -- I'm still not quite sure how they pulled it off. I get 90% of it, but how to make seven hours of high-quality cut scenes, half of which feature extensive visual effects… I just cannot comprehend.
Nonetheless, even with that missing 10%, I'm pretty sure the recipe behind it all is universal and comes down to two things: smart choices and the team.
The first is simple. Well, simple to explain but hard to execute. With "smart choices," you avoid time sinks -- either dropping them altogether or replacing them with something quicker but at least just as good. Another approach is reusing assets, but in a way that's invisible or nearly invisible to the player. This, of course, requires a lot of thought and experience but is very doable for any game.
Let me give you one example from Expedition 33 and Witchfire. With the former, note how almost all enemies are not human and have no faces.
Faces are among the hardest things to get right in video games, demanding significant time and effort because humans are biologically hardwired to focus on them. Removing faces not only saves an insane amount of time but also provides an opportunity to create unique and exciting enemy designs, making fights more engaging. Covering some humanoids with creepy masks further enhances the atmosphere. This solution helped the team avoid a major time sink while making the game more compelling.
For Witchfire, well, see this enemy?
It's the first enemy we created, and Marcin Klicki from CDPR made it multi-layered, meaning the armor and clothes can be stripped off the character. Thanks to this, throughout development we created at least seven other enemies from this one model. Remove the armor and clothes, change the skin material to dead white, lengthen the arms, and make the model semi-transparent -- voila, now we have a ghost. Replace the helmet with a distinct new model and attach a small shield to the ghoul's wrist, and boom, now we have a Buckler Swordsman. You get the idea…
But here's the thing: this reuse doesn't look cheap because it makes sense. Our enemies are remnants of an old army annihilated by the witch, turning the dead into her minions. With a military background, it's natural that soldiers would have similar armor pieces or combat poses. A private and a captain have the same firing stance, right? By clever reuse, we've created more enemies than if we had built each from scratch, enriching gameplay variety. Moreover, since some originate from the same base model, the world feels more coherent.
These are just two examples, but there's more, like using external assets. Expedition 33 utilized Paragon's enemies (right) for its prototypes (left)…
…helping the team quickly grasp what made their game tick. Similarly, we purchased many assets from the Unreal Marketplace, like photoscanned ruins, allowing us to diversify our worlds.
Of course, you can't make an entire game this way. Hard work on time-intensive tasks and original content is essential. That's why Expedition 33 took six years, and why Witchfire is in its eighth year. Still, things would have been twice as tough without "smart choices."
The second key to success is equally easy to explain but more controversial: Every person on your team needs to be talented, passionate, and hard-working.
Why controversial? Because you must be extremely selective about hiring and ruthless if a mistake occurs and someone doesn't deliver 100%. Here's a quote attributed to Heraclitus:
You want your team composed of those real fighters, maybe even multiple instances of that one warrior. Maurice de Saxe, a renowned 18th-century French military commander, said it best: "It is not big armies that win battles; it is the good ones."
And here's Steve Jobs on the topic -- it's a long quote, but crucial to understanding how the best developers operate:
Talent matters, but why is passion essential? First, gamers intuitively sense if your game was crafted with love or from spreadsheets. Additionally, here's Jobs again:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
His point is especially relevant in a post-Covid world, where many developers work remotely. Only the best individuals self-organize effectively, making remote work viable regardless of how competent your producers are.
Honestly, this could be its own blog post, but let me quickly add two things:
First, I've led teams ranging from a single person to a hundred, plus hundreds of outsourcers. After over a dozen games, when we founded The Astronauts, we committed to working only with the best -- even if that meant smaller-scale projects compared to Bulletstorm or Gears of War: Judgment. Hence, our studio stayed at twelve people for so long. But with the success of Ethan and Witchfire Early Access, we're attracting more talent and have grown to twenty-six -- and I'd die for every single one of them. The policy remains unchanged, though.
Second, notice I didn't mention "experience". Talent, passion, work ethic -- yes. Experience? With these three traits, experience accumulates quickly. You need a portfolio of your amateur work -- ArtStation for artists, YouTube for programmers and sound engineers, etc. -- but experience remains the least important factor.
So there you have it. Those two pillars -- smart choices and a great team -- are key to games that look and play as if made by much larger teams.
But I still have no idea how Sandfall pulled off all those cut scenes in Expedition 33… It's beyond human comprehension.
Till next time,
Adrian
It’s been a while, and while we’ve been hard at work, you (the community) haven’t been resting on your laurels either. Which feels superb - it’s a reminder that Witchfire is landing in all kinds of ways - sometimes as a way to relax, other times as a source of creative fuel. So, before we get into the shenanigans, we have to see what sparks of ingenuity have jumped out of the Witchfire-powered furnace…
[h3]A surprise to be sure…[/h3]
I didn’t expect to see someone turn our game into a fully-fledged DnD campaign, yet here we are – Lex decided not to wait for someone else to imagine Witchfire as a tabletop RPG and did it himself. He created a playbook (damn nice work, by the way), which you can download and use to embark on your own adventure. If you’re a seasoned player and have comments or suggestions, don’t hesitate to hit Lex up on Twitter and share your thoughts on our Discord. We’d love to hear about your adventures!
[h3]…but a welcome one[/h3]
Another thing I personally didn’t have on my bingo card for this month – or even this year (clap four times) – was a fan-made audio drama set in the world of Witchfire. And yet, thanks to the efforts of Walber, we’ve got one: nearly fifty minutes long and available on YouTube. We recommend grabbing a comfy pair of headphones and letting the sound carry you to the world of Witchfire.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[h3]Builds, builds, builds[/h3]
One of the more recent additions to our ever-evolving Discord server is a channel dedicated to builds, allowing players to share and discuss their loadouts. Turns out Bananenklaus found a way to elevate the experience even further – enter the Witchfire randomizer. Now you can hit “random” to generate loadouts that might challenge you in new ways, even when you’re not playing! Want to offer suggestions or feedback? Visit the original Reddit thread.
[h3]Peak storytelling[/h3]
There are a lot of images and videos you post that make us laugh, but one post from April was spot on:
[h3]Sir, you cannot skate here. SIR.[/h3]
No matter what we do, some games and series are impossible to get out of our collective systems – you found a way to pay homage to the likes of Skate, SSX, and THPS while commuting in Witchfire. This clip from our Discord proves that even in places of research and worship, some of you simply cannot be contained. At this point, I’m honestly expecting someone to mod in a third-person camera, blast Pearl Jam's “Even Flow” in the background, and perform a Judas Air* on the steps of the Irongate Castle.
Click here to see the full video
* - The trick Christ Air has been renamed for accuracy within Witchfire universe.
[h3]A review that’s realer than real[/h3]
Our team is mostly made up of Poles, and as such, we confirm – that was the inspiration behind the game. You got us.
Source: Steam review.
[h3]*Considers dusting off the GH controller*[/h3]
The quest to find more optimized and/or exotic ways of controlling the game is eternal and inevitable. While we’re yet to see someone play Witchfire on a DDR mat, we have seen someone give it a go using… a flight stick and a gyro. The jury’s still out on whether this actually makes sense (though SiccFricc seems adamant that it does). We’ll update you if more people decide to give it a try.
Click here to see the full video
[h3]Speedrunning the labyrinth. Emphasis on speed and running.[/h3]
When the labyrinth under Witch Mountain was being built, we knew someone would eventually try to beat it against the clock – just like you made a hobby of harassing the Familiars until they weeped into their pillows. And you delivered – or rather, xdmuufo did, completing the maze before the clock hit two minutes.
Click here to see the full video
Fun fact: our team took that personally. There was a moment when we almost needed leaderboards, because the time differences were microscopic.
Wondering what the in-house Lab record™ was? Let’s just say there’s a lot of room for improvement for you – to the tune of tens (not tenths) of seconds.
Low-key hoping this reignites the rivalry and that you’ll show us what you can do – but I’m not holding my breath.
[h3]HR speaking, how may we help you, Mr. Dimacher?[/h3]
You know how it goes – we release an update with a boss that’s supposed to be a challenge, a real moment of reckoning… and then a player comes along and melts the boss in mere seconds.
But not quite like this. Hypnosis Goblin managed to obliterate Dimacher in three seconds.
Three.
Seconds.
Click here to see the full video
Granted, it took a whole lot of experience and knowledge of how to use mechanics and buffs effectively – but still. Three seconds. One twentieth of a minute. Unreal (Engine 4, pardon the pun). If you’ve already watched the video and are wondering how the hell that happened, Goblin also posted a peek behind the curtain on how to shoot so damn fast - head over to Reddit to learn about punchgunning.
[h3]Are you not entertained?[/h3]
We’re not going to tell you how you should feel while playing Witchfire. We only know what we have in mind while creating the game – but it turns out there’s a whole range of emotions you experience while running around eliminating the witch’s minions.
Some of you have been scared while exploring Witch Mountain. Some of you feel tense throughout. Others? Well, some are casually committing crimes against monstrosities (see: previous paragraph).
If you belong to the former two categories, we may have a solution of sorts: as part of our social media presence on X/Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and BlueSky, every Friday we post media designed to provide comfort and tranquility. Peaceful postcards from places you know from your crusades against the forces of evil.
A post shared by The Astronauts (@theastrocrew)
Feel free to join us – and, as a bonus, experience violence toggled to ON on Mondays, when we show you how havoc can be wreaked in Witchfire.
Hope to see you there, take care!
Piotrek
Most of Witchfire was done by a team of twelve people. When we revealed that, people noticed:
But this started earlier, with The Vanishing of Ethan Carter:
It sounds insane today, but one of the stronger marketing beats we've done was to give the press three very short GIFs from the game. Old-school, real, bloated GIFs -- not MP4 videos pretending to be GIFs. Not many games looked like this in 2014, and we got great coverage. The fact that such visual quality was achieved with a tiny team obviously helped.
Of course, we are not alone in making a fun, good-looking game with a suspiciously small team. Hades, Ori, Disco Elysium, or Manor Lords were all made by teams or even single developers that punch above their weight, creating games that feel like they were made with three, five, or ten times more people.
Lately, we got another contender, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. I have finished the game…
Click here to read the post…and even with my 30+ years of experience in making games that look bigger than they should -- Painkiller was made with 16 people on average -- I'm still not quite sure how they pulled it off. I get 90% of it, but how to make seven hours of high-quality cut scenes, half of which feature extensive visual effects… I just cannot comprehend.
Nonetheless, even with that missing 10%, I'm pretty sure the recipe behind it all is universal and comes down to two things: smart choices and the team.
The first is simple. Well, simple to explain but hard to execute. With "smart choices," you avoid time sinks -- either dropping them altogether or replacing them with something quicker but at least just as good. Another approach is reusing assets, but in a way that's invisible or nearly invisible to the player. This, of course, requires a lot of thought and experience but is very doable for any game.
Let me give you one example from Expedition 33 and Witchfire. With the former, note how almost all enemies are not human and have no faces.
Faces are among the hardest things to get right in video games, demanding significant time and effort because humans are biologically hardwired to focus on them. Removing faces not only saves an insane amount of time but also provides an opportunity to create unique and exciting enemy designs, making fights more engaging. Covering some humanoids with creepy masks further enhances the atmosphere. This solution helped the team avoid a major time sink while making the game more compelling.
For Witchfire, well, see this enemy?
It's the first enemy we created, and Marcin Klicki from CDPR made it multi-layered, meaning the armor and clothes can be stripped off the character. Thanks to this, throughout development we created at least seven other enemies from this one model. Remove the armor and clothes, change the skin material to dead white, lengthen the arms, and make the model semi-transparent -- voila, now we have a ghost. Replace the helmet with a distinct new model and attach a small shield to the ghoul's wrist, and boom, now we have a Buckler Swordsman. You get the idea…
But here's the thing: this reuse doesn't look cheap because it makes sense. Our enemies are remnants of an old army annihilated by the witch, turning the dead into her minions. With a military background, it's natural that soldiers would have similar armor pieces or combat poses. A private and a captain have the same firing stance, right? By clever reuse, we've created more enemies than if we had built each from scratch, enriching gameplay variety. Moreover, since some originate from the same base model, the world feels more coherent.
These are just two examples, but there's more, like using external assets. Expedition 33 utilized Paragon's enemies (right) for its prototypes (left)…
…helping the team quickly grasp what made their game tick. Similarly, we purchased many assets from the Unreal Marketplace, like photoscanned ruins, allowing us to diversify our worlds.
Of course, you can't make an entire game this way. Hard work on time-intensive tasks and original content is essential. That's why Expedition 33 took six years, and why Witchfire is in its eighth year. Still, things would have been twice as tough without "smart choices."
The second key to success is equally easy to explain but more controversial: Every person on your team needs to be talented, passionate, and hard-working.
Why controversial? Because you must be extremely selective about hiring and ruthless if a mistake occurs and someone doesn't deliver 100%. Here's a quote attributed to Heraclitus:
Out of every one hundred men, ten shouldn’t even be there, eighty are just targets, nine are real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one -- one is a warrior, and he will bring the others back.
You want your team composed of those real fighters, maybe even multiple instances of that one warrior. Maurice de Saxe, a renowned 18th-century French military commander, said it best: "It is not big armies that win battles; it is the good ones."
And here's Steve Jobs on the topic -- it's a long quote, but crucial to understanding how the best developers operate:
Most things in life have a dynamic range in which the ratio of “average” to “best” is at most 2:1. For example, if you go to New York City and get an average taxi cab driver, versus the best taxi cab driver, you’ll probably get to your destination with the best taxi driver 30% faster. And an automobile; what’s the difference between the average car and the best? Maybe 20%? The best CD player versus the average CD player? Maybe 20%?
So 2:1 is a big dynamic range for most things in life. Now, in software, and it used to be the case in hardware, the difference between the average software developer and the best is 50:1; maybe even 100:1. Very few things in life are like this, but [...] software is like this.
So I’ve built a lot of my success on finding these truly gifted people, and not settling for “B” and “C” players, but really going for the “A” players.
And I found something… I found that when you get enough “A” players together, when you go through the incredible work to find these “A” players, they really like working with each other. Because most have never had the chance to do that before. And they don’t work with “B” and “C” players, so it’s self-policing. They only want to hire “A” players. So you build these pockets of “A” players and it just propagates.
Talent matters, but why is passion essential? First, gamers intuitively sense if your game was crafted with love or from spreadsheets. Additionally, here's Jobs again:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
His point is especially relevant in a post-Covid world, where many developers work remotely. Only the best individuals self-organize effectively, making remote work viable regardless of how competent your producers are.
Honestly, this could be its own blog post, but let me quickly add two things:
First, I've led teams ranging from a single person to a hundred, plus hundreds of outsourcers. After over a dozen games, when we founded The Astronauts, we committed to working only with the best -- even if that meant smaller-scale projects compared to Bulletstorm or Gears of War: Judgment. Hence, our studio stayed at twelve people for so long. But with the success of Ethan and Witchfire Early Access, we're attracting more talent and have grown to twenty-six -- and I'd die for every single one of them. The policy remains unchanged, though.
Second, notice I didn't mention "experience". Talent, passion, work ethic -- yes. Experience? With these three traits, experience accumulates quickly. You need a portfolio of your amateur work -- ArtStation for artists, YouTube for programmers and sound engineers, etc. -- but experience remains the least important factor.
So there you have it. Those two pillars -- smart choices and a great team -- are key to games that look and play as if made by much larger teams.
But I still have no idea how Sandfall pulled off all those cut scenes in Expedition 33… It's beyond human comprehension.
Till next time,
Adrian
The Hermitorium Archives
It’s been a while, and while we’ve been hard at work, you (the community) haven’t been resting on your laurels either. Which feels superb - it’s a reminder that Witchfire is landing in all kinds of ways - sometimes as a way to relax, other times as a source of creative fuel. So, before we get into the shenanigans, we have to see what sparks of ingenuity have jumped out of the Witchfire-powered furnace…
[h3]A surprise to be sure…[/h3]
I didn’t expect to see someone turn our game into a fully-fledged DnD campaign, yet here we are – Lex decided not to wait for someone else to imagine Witchfire as a tabletop RPG and did it himself. He created a playbook (damn nice work, by the way), which you can download and use to embark on your own adventure. If you’re a seasoned player and have comments or suggestions, don’t hesitate to hit Lex up on Twitter and share your thoughts on our Discord. We’d love to hear about your adventures!
[h3]…but a welcome one[/h3]
Another thing I personally didn’t have on my bingo card for this month – or even this year (clap four times) – was a fan-made audio drama set in the world of Witchfire. And yet, thanks to the efforts of Walber, we’ve got one: nearly fifty minutes long and available on YouTube. We recommend grabbing a comfy pair of headphones and letting the sound carry you to the world of Witchfire.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[h3]Builds, builds, builds[/h3]
One of the more recent additions to our ever-evolving Discord server is a channel dedicated to builds, allowing players to share and discuss their loadouts. Turns out Bananenklaus found a way to elevate the experience even further – enter the Witchfire randomizer. Now you can hit “random” to generate loadouts that might challenge you in new ways, even when you’re not playing! Want to offer suggestions or feedback? Visit the original Reddit thread.
[h3]Peak storytelling[/h3]
There are a lot of images and videos you post that make us laugh, but one post from April was spot on:
[h3]Sir, you cannot skate here. SIR.[/h3]
No matter what we do, some games and series are impossible to get out of our collective systems – you found a way to pay homage to the likes of Skate, SSX, and THPS while commuting in Witchfire. This clip from our Discord proves that even in places of research and worship, some of you simply cannot be contained. At this point, I’m honestly expecting someone to mod in a third-person camera, blast Pearl Jam's “Even Flow” in the background, and perform a Judas Air* on the steps of the Irongate Castle.
Click here to see the full video* - The trick Christ Air has been renamed for accuracy within Witchfire universe.
[h3]A review that’s realer than real[/h3]
Our team is mostly made up of Poles, and as such, we confirm – that was the inspiration behind the game. You got us.
Source: Steam review.
[h3]*Considers dusting off the GH controller*[/h3]
The quest to find more optimized and/or exotic ways of controlling the game is eternal and inevitable. While we’re yet to see someone play Witchfire on a DDR mat, we have seen someone give it a go using… a flight stick and a gyro. The jury’s still out on whether this actually makes sense (though SiccFricc seems adamant that it does). We’ll update you if more people decide to give it a try.
Click here to see the full video[h3]Speedrunning the labyrinth. Emphasis on speed and running.[/h3]
When the labyrinth under Witch Mountain was being built, we knew someone would eventually try to beat it against the clock – just like you made a hobby of harassing the Familiars until they weeped into their pillows. And you delivered – or rather, xdmuufo did, completing the maze before the clock hit two minutes.
Click here to see the full videoFun fact: our team took that personally. There was a moment when we almost needed leaderboards, because the time differences were microscopic.
Wondering what the in-house Lab record™ was? Let’s just say there’s a lot of room for improvement for you – to the tune of tens (not tenths) of seconds.
Low-key hoping this reignites the rivalry and that you’ll show us what you can do – but I’m not holding my breath.
[h3]HR speaking, how may we help you, Mr. Dimacher?[/h3]
You know how it goes – we release an update with a boss that’s supposed to be a challenge, a real moment of reckoning… and then a player comes along and melts the boss in mere seconds.
But not quite like this. Hypnosis Goblin managed to obliterate Dimacher in three seconds.
Three.
Seconds.
Click here to see the full videoGranted, it took a whole lot of experience and knowledge of how to use mechanics and buffs effectively – but still. Three seconds. One twentieth of a minute. Unreal (Engine 4, pardon the pun). If you’ve already watched the video and are wondering how the hell that happened, Goblin also posted a peek behind the curtain on how to shoot so damn fast - head over to Reddit to learn about punchgunning.
[h3]Are you not entertained?[/h3]
We’re not going to tell you how you should feel while playing Witchfire. We only know what we have in mind while creating the game – but it turns out there’s a whole range of emotions you experience while running around eliminating the witch’s minions.
Some of you have been scared while exploring Witch Mountain. Some of you feel tense throughout. Others? Well, some are casually committing crimes against monstrosities (see: previous paragraph).
If you belong to the former two categories, we may have a solution of sorts: as part of our social media presence on X/Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and BlueSky, every Friday we post media designed to provide comfort and tranquility. Peaceful postcards from places you know from your crusades against the forces of evil.
A post shared by The Astronauts (@theastrocrew)Feel free to join us – and, as a bonus, experience violence toggled to ON on Mondays, when we show you how havoc can be wreaked in Witchfire.
Hope to see you there, take care!
Piotrek
