Crashlands
Game
Documents about Crashlands
Game Developers Conference30 min
Crashlands: Design by Chaos
The development philosophy behind the action-crafting RPG Crashlands centers on a bottom-up, iterative approach that eschews traditional planning, game design documents, and long-term forecasting.
- Butterscotch Shenanigans achieved a 93 Metacritic score and over 500,000 units sold in the first year of Crashlands by prioritizing rapid, bottom-up iteration over rigid planning.
- The development process rejects traditional game design documents and long-term forecasting in favor of a brief, high-level directional anchor.
- The 'Goodenough' principle prioritizes immediate progress and player experience over perfection, which the studio credits with preventing crunch and burnout.
Game Developers ConferenceJan 2020
Game Developers Conference57 min
The Last Game I Make Before I Die: The Crashlands Postmortem
The development of the crafting RPG Crashlands emerged from a profound personal crisis, serving as a creative anchor for lead developer Samuel Coster following a stage 4B Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma diagnosis.
- To ensure long-term studio sustainability, developers must prioritize building infrastructure like email lists and marketing tools rather than focusing solely on individual game development cycles.
- Differentiating a game from existing genre competitors requires moving beyond incremental improvements to create a unique value proposition, such as integrating a strong narrative into a crafting RPG to distinguish it from titles like Terraria or Don't Starve.
- Building direct relationships with platform holders at Steam, iTunes, and Google Play through consistent updates and press coverage is essential for securing critical launch-day featuring.
Game Developers ConferenceMar 2017