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Get Packed: Creating a Game for Google Stadia

Developer Moonshine Studios provides insights into the development process of their first game, which was recently released exclusively on Stadia.

The Developer Moonshine Studios is located at the tail-end of Cornwall which is the westernmost part of the South West Peninsula of the island of Great Britain. The studio was founded in 2018 and their first game is Get Packed, which has just been launched exclusively on Google Stadia. In this context we had the opportunity to talk to Dr Marcus Gardner and Jamie King, who are both founding members of the studio. The two share details about the advantages of developing a title for Stadia and how it came to the decision to release their first game solely on Google’s new platform. We also talked to them about the ongoing Corona crisis and how the current situation is affecting the work of developers. In this last section of the interview, they also give a few tips on how small studios can engage funding providers and publishers even in these difficult times, for example with a ‘contactless’ pitch.

Every step should be thought through so that no item gets damaged while moving it.

Making Games: How did the idea for Get Packed came to life and since when is the developer Moonshine Studios working on the chaotic co-op party game about a calamitous removals company? Moonshine Studios: Get Packed is out now, first playable on Stadia, but it has been quite the journey since we first started. Our four co-founders met in May 2017 as part of an EU funded university incubator/accelerator programme based in the digital tech industry called Falmouth Launchpad. As the programme name suggests, it was based in the far South West of Cornwall, run by Falmouth University. The programme focuses on creating and developing a team with the intent of incorporating as a company at the end of the year. This is underpinned by a Master’s degree in Entrepreneurship, which we study while developing the product and company. Out of a cohort of 20, the four of us were partnered together to form one of the games teams. Without going into detail of our market research, we came to the conclusion that we should develop a game focused on the interaction between players. Whether in the form of a co-operative experience such as Overcooked, or competitive like Gangbeasts. Or a mixture of both like Crawl. We started brainstorming ideas to create a co-operative game that combines competitive elements to create these fun interactions. At the time, our artist Callum had recently helped a friend move from campus and remembered the clown-like challenge of cramming everything into this tiny car. Moving objects is something a lot of people can relate to, and a goldmine for comedy. Our earliest prototype involved moving Tetris-shaped objects into a van, where the players would maximise their score based on how tidily they packed everything. Conversely, we found that just piling everything in anyhow using physics was far more comical, and then ideas just started flowing from there. We found that many multiplayer co-operative games have quite a similar cartoony style, and didn’t want Get Packed to get lost in the mix; we wanted to make it more visually different than other titles on the market. The overall style and environment design take inspiration from miniature models and the work of director Wes Anderson. Selective colour palettes with muted tones and bright lighting are utilised to create a playful but stylish look to the game. 3D models follow a sharp, low poly topology to increase performance and visual clarity. Lightly chamfered edges and PBR texturing differentiate the visual style from conventional low poly games to create an almost miniature model aesthetic. Now that we had a basic game loop, art style and a bunch of level ideas, we wanted to introduce a narrative to wrap it all together. Neither physics-based games or party games tend to have much of a story, so we felt this was another area which we could make Get Packed stand out. We took all our wacky level ideas and grouped them into themes, which we then converted into narrative beats. As time went on, more and more layers were added to the story, which resulted in a very silly, but surprisingly intricate narrative. The game is set in the fictional town of Ditchlington; imagine an Americanized version of Cornwall and you’d be close. Ditchlington has been purchased by the sinister Industrial Salt Company who intends to obliterate it for the sake of an enormous salt mine. Player’s take the role of up to four Ditchlington residents who have just been evicted thanks to the Salt Corps greediness. While packing their own belongings, they begin to realise they have a real knack for it and decide to take advantage of the town-wide evictions and create “Last Ditch Removals”. This sees Last Ditch Removals packing up homes, businesses and other dubious locations to make sure it’s citizens are safe, and hopefully, along the way, come up with a scheme to stop the city from being demolished. The cutscenes are delivered via a top-down shot of an animated scrapbook which details Last Ditches’ journey, and this was again a nod to many of the shots seen in Wes Anderson’s films. To create unique and silly characters, we looked to some of our favourite animations such as Wallace and Gromit and the Simpsons for further inspiration. While the majority of the story is told through the animated cutscenes, the levels are full of hidden references and nods to Ditchlington’s history to help bring the world to life.

If too much damage accumulates you get fired and the round is over.

Are there features in the game which were may easier to realise on Stadia compared to other platforms? Working with Stadia has been an amazing experience. Unity has fantastic integration, so the whole development cycle hasn’t been too dissimilar from that of a console game. However, thanks to the power of Stadia, we’ve been able to push the graphics and wacky physics that much further. During development (pre-Stadia), we encountered a number of challenges. Get Packed is played from a birds-eye perspective, and often you can see the entire map. That means it’s a huge area to render, exacerbated by the sheer amount of physics objects which can be manipulated by the player. Knowing the specifications of the target hardware was incredibly useful, allowing us to pack each area to limit without affecting performance. Accurate lighting was another challenge pre-Stadia development. Baking the lighting would’ve been the ideal solution, and would have allowed for faster render times. Still, with all the moveable elements, it became clear that realtime lighting was the only viable solution. Even then, it was tricky balancing the requirements of the shadow system with the destructible meshes and explosions. It looks great, but that level of chaos began to push the hardware. Fortunately, these limitations pretty much evaporated when we focused on Stadia development. Thanks to the power of the Stadia servers, we could push the wacky physics and gorgeous lighting much further than we anticipated.

Does co-op gameplay thrive on players sitting together in the same room? We’re thinking of usual real-life interactions you would expect to see between players gathered together, such as funny scuffles, yelling, and swearing. Over the past few years, there’s been a massive resurgence in couch co-op. Long gone are the days of gaming being seen as a solitary activity. Now it’s just another way for family and friends to spend time with each other. Local-only co-op games – such as Overcooked and Crawl – perform extremely well, so there’s clearly an audience. When we started development on Get Packed, one of our core pillars was to create a game which encourages these types of engaging social experiences, whether online or together in the same room.

Coatsink developers working on the game in their office in Cornwall.

Does the co-op mode support online gaming in case your friends live in a distance where you rarely meet each other? Friends and family can invite each other to play through Stadia and jump into a game with no hassle at all. It features both local and online play, so whether you are playing on the couch with a partner or want to play with someone on the other side of the world, that can easily be done. You can even mix the two, with a few people playing locally and connecting with others online.

Is it possible to communicate with your friends via headset during an online match? Most definitely! You can easily invite your friends to a party on Stadia to start a voice channel with them before starting up the game. Jumping on a voice communications channel with your friends as you are chaotically packing things adds an extra layer of comedy as things go wrong. Part of the game’s experience is being able to enjoy the naturally occurring comedic interactions between you and your friends during gameplay!

What was the motivation behind releasing Get Packed first on Stadia? The game looks like it would also work fine across other popular platforms like PC, PS4, Xbox One, and of course Nintendo Switch. Over the last several years, there has been a huge shift in the way games are marketed, which has led to a massive boom in the development of games from smaller independent studios. Smaller Indie titles can gain massive traction through content creators streaming games content to their audiences. With the Games Video Content market growing at a very fast rate, and both streamers and viewers looking for new ways to interact with one another, Stadia offers a number of interesting features that can make the most of the shift in games entertainment culture. When we were designing the idea for the game Get Packed, we already knew that we wanted to make a game that was not just fun to play, but also fun to watch. When we were later presented with the opportunity to be a ‘First on Stadia’ title, the decision was a no-brainer. Stadia offers an extremely innovative and ambitious new platform that has the potential to change the way in which games are played drastically. As technology continues to grow rapidly, more people have access to faster and more affordable internet, making it even easier to play games than ever before. It is incredibly exciting to be a part of this new pioneering technology as one of the first ‘First on Stadia’ titles. In terms of gameplay, Get Packed is a very physics-heavy game, which can typically be quite intense on hardware. Not everyone has access to such hardware; however, by utilising Google’s high-end systems through games streaming, we can really see how far we can push the physics systems, while still allowing people to enjoy smooth gameplay at the highest graphical settings. Although the game focuses on couch co-op gameplay, in this day and age, social gatherings may not be possible. This makes online play incredibly important, and any developer who’s dipped their fingers into online physics will know how challenging and performance heavy it can be. Thankfully, Stadia can alleviate a lot of the typical performance problems that could come as a result of players connecting to the internet with different levels of hardware.

The developers showed their game at several events.

Are there any differences between online and local matches regarding gameplay? The local campaign is complemented with the animated story of our Ditchlington heroes, but in regards to gameplay, they are exactly the same. The online mode consists of a multiplayer playground similar to that of Gangbeasts, where players can join their friends or strangers in a lobby where they can select any level and mode that they have unlocked. The only differences are that players may have access to levels they haven’t unlocked yet by joining a player who has unlocked it, high scores and challenges won’t be saved for players who haven’t unlocked them in this case. The story cutscenes currently aren’t present in online play. However, we are considering bringing back that option, as many players dive straight into online games without ever learning of the backstory behind the game.

Does the game have features that only Stadia can offer? If so, what happens to these features in case of a future release on other platforms? Post-release, we will be looking to add Crowd Play to Get Packed and exploring other Stadia specific features. When designing Get Packed, one of our core design goals was to create a game which was not only fun to play, but fun to watch. Having the ability to instantly switch from watching your favourite streamer to playing with them is a brilliant idea and would be perfect for our game. These features are a massive bonus for both streamers and viewers. The growing video games content market has shown a rapid increase in the number of people who enjoy watching and interacting with their favourite content creators to the extent where it is considered a staple in the lives of the younger generations. Get Packed was designed to promote fun interactions between players, and this greatly matches what Stadia is also trying to achieve between streamers and viewers. While these Stadia specific features would be a massive addition to the entertainment value of the game, they aren’t crucial to the core game experience, and would not affect development in the case of a future release on other platforms.

Moving can be quite the chaos, but at least it’s a funny chaos.

Finally, some questions regarding the current Corona crisis: How does the worldwide pandemic affect the work of developers and publishers? Has your work changed significantly in this context? Did some of your employees or maybe entire departments have been working decentralised in their home offices even before the crisis occurred? Many large developers and publishers are based in cities where the Coronavirus has had a much larger impact, increasing the likelihood of employees becoming sick or self-isolating out of precaution and care for others. Depending on the company, this could quite easily result in many delays while the company sets up a remote work infrastructure for its employees. Older companies may have a more traditional structure, so they may have found it more challenging to move everything digital in comparison to a small indie developer who has remote employees dotted around the world. Many companies hold their new game titles in secrecy and very close to their chest. Creating a secure environment for employees to work remotely without running the risk of information leaks can be a very costly exercise. For us at Moonshine Studios, which is located at the tail-end of Cornwall, the impact of Coronavirus is quite minimal in comparison. Our small office has been closed since the lockdown; however, it has been very easy for us to adapt to a remote office environment. Since starting up, we have always had a flexible approach to remote working and work hours. While we do have a core office where the majority of us work, people have the freedom to work from home whenever they choose. Graham, one of our programmers, lives quite far away from the office compared to the rest of us and finds it much easier to work at night due to the lack of distraction. As such, we’ve made sure our work infrastructure has been able to accommodate this. Not only that, but some of us have also been in more long-distance relationships, and being able to work remotely for a month or two at a time has been great in fostering them. With the onset of cloud computing and the availability of a plethora of digital management tools for every situation, it has never been so easy to collaborate and set up a remote office network than ever before. Utilising digital collaborative tools such as Slack, Github and Trello alongside Unity indicated that we already had the infrastructure for working from home, which meant that our productivity hadn’t been massively affected by the lockdown. Some slowdown is inevitable; however, as we are all working from personal laptops and desktops that aren’t as powerful as our office workstations. We mostly communicate through Slack, which enables us to easily group topics and direct message to each other. However, conveying complicated ideas or issues can be a struggle via text, in which case we hold quick video chats, especially when they relate to the design of important gameplay features. The biggest difficulty for us with the current lockdown is that we simply miss the office and the company culture. We are all good friends, so to be isolated for weeks can be challenging. We recently started an online coffee chat every other morning to catch up with each other to make sure everyone is doing well, considering the current climate.

Is there a chance that digital products could perhaps achieve an increase in sales as a result of the crisis? Historical video games sales data has shown that more people are moving from physical to digital media, and the current situation will only strengthen this. We have seen the highest unemployment numbers we will probably ever see in our lifetime, with millions of people off work on furlough or having lost their jobs completely. With limited options, while waiting for the economic climate to move back towards normality, those that are currently stuck at home with their loved ones (who may also be in a similar situation) need to find ways to entertain themselves as a form of escapism. Video games are the perfect form of media to do this. They not only act as a form of entertainment, but are also used to create and strengthen social bonds, and can often be a way to stimulate or destress the mind. There have already been multiple reports of increased game sales, game streaming viewership and concurrent players. The World Health Organisation has even recommended playing active video games while in isolation. There is no doubt this will have a big impact on the video games industry, whether that would be introducing gaming to a whole new audience that has previously stayed clear of it, or making it a social staple like board games nights once were. While we could have never predicted what has happened, since right from the start of development, making the game available for online play has been a key goal. Although Get Packed and similar party game experiences shine the most in a setting where players are sitting around the same screen, we know that a large portion of the audience can only play games with others online. It has always been important to us to have both online and local co-op in Get Packed, so that family and friends could enjoy the gaming experience together, wherever they are in the world.

No item is too big or weird to move.

We notice that developer conferences all around the world get cancelled at the moment, which is a big problem for small developers. Usually visiting a developer conference helps to get in touch with publishers quickly and allow multiple pitches in a short amount of time. For many indies, pitching at the publisher’s site (with flights, hotel, etc.) is too expensive. So do you have any tips for a ‘contactless’ pitch? Which information should be part of the first email, and how should a future webcam presentation look like to raise the interest of a publisher? We feel a great deal of sympathy for the developers who had made plans to attend these conferences, some who will not get their money back. In those early pitching phases when you are still looking for funding, every expense is crucial and to not get anything back from it could cripple a company. That’s why it’s been amazing to see the support of places like WINGS who spearheaded the GDC Relief Fund, allowing people to recoup some of their costs. My hope is that this situation will encourage more publishers to focus on online pitches, so future developers don’t feel the need to attend these events. When sending pitches to publishers, it’s important to catch their attention. For us, we knew our game shined brightest when you saw people playing it, so we made a semi-public game night at a university and invited people to come to play the game in exchange for some free food. We recorded them playing and mixed their reactions into the trailer. It was clear that everyone was enjoying playing the game themselves as well as competing against their friends for the highest score. Everyone likes a bit of friendly competition and being able to capture the emotions of those interactions was fantastic. Even before the lockdown started and the games expos were cancelled, it was still very important to have a strong ‘contactless’ pitch. When you attend an event, there are many occasions where you just aren’t able to set up those essential meetings or miss the opportunity to show the game to a potential publisher; you may have to make that first contact by email. Perfecting that is even more important in the current climate. Keep in mind when sending emails to publishers, that they probably get hundreds of messages a day. We found being brief, transparent, but informative with all your needs, the funds required, and an eye-catching trailer was what worked for us. While the first contact is very important, being able to follow up with a realistic view on scope, sales, budgeting and planning is a large bonus. Publishers want to know whether they can trust the team to deliver the game they are pitching in a specific time frame within budget. Ultimately though, if you have something playable to show, this experience can speak a thousand words, so make sure to pitch at the right time with the best possible build you can provide.

Dr Marcus Gardner Co-Founder & Programmer

Originally specialising in mechatronics and robotics, Marcus switched careers to utilise his experience in systems design, programming, project management and independent research to create memorable experiences in games.

Jamie King Co-Founder & Designer

Specialising in games design, Jamie has previously created games and interactive exhibits for award-winning visitor attractions. While primarily a designer, he also assists with art direction the 3D asset production.

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