Good day! I’m Phil, Recreation Director on Tchia. Following the thrilling announcement that the sport can be coming to PS4 and PS5 at launch, I’d prefer to take you on just a little journey to New Caledonia, Awaceb’s homeland, and let you know how its cultures are influencing each facet of the expertise we’re creating.
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Awaceb is a younger studio based by my accomplice Thierry and myself, two childhood pals from New Caledonia, a small archipelago in the course of the Pacific Ocean. As a result of we grew up there, the extremely wealthy and diversified cultures of New Cal are deeply rooted in what we do. For instance, the identify “Awaceb” itself is native slang for “It’s all good”, or “No worries”.
Due to that, it felt good to attract from that heritage and insufflate these sensibilities in our subsequent recreation, Tchia.
Honoring the tradition, and making it accessible.
The method we’re taking with Tchia is before everything to construct one thing anybody can perceive, get pleasure from, and immerse themselves into. Making one thing too tutorial or aimed immediately at locals would utterly defeat the aim for us, which is why the world, story and characters we’re creating are completely fictional. This additionally permits us to incorporate some fantastical parts within the combine and construct a really distinctive world the place the cultural inspiration isn’t a constraint, however fairly an extremely wealthy and stable spine for the sport.
We’re drawing inspiration from the wealthy and diversified native landscapes, wildlife, cultures, music, languages, folklores and traditions and bringing our personal sensibilities to every little thing. Bringing folks from all around the world to the staff additionally helped rather a lot in ensuring what we’re making is fulfilling for anybody who isn’t aware of the nation.
A good comparability for our method is how Studio Ghibli treats Japanese tradition in a few of their movies. They’re fantastical locations however positively “really feel” very japanese in some ways, and that makes for some tremendous fascinating worlds.
Working with native expertise
It was additionally necessary for us to work with locals as a lot as doable to ensure that the soul of the expertise is deeply rooted in these native cultures. All characters are voiced in conventional languages by native expertise. We additionally document Kanak (indigenous melanesian inhabitants of New Caledonia) choirs and musicians for the sport’s soundtrack, giving it a novel power that I believe has hardly ever been seen in video video games.
However above all, it’s a online game!
Making one thing culturally related is extremely fulfilling in and of itself, however before everything we give attention to making a recreation that’s enjoyable and performs nice.
Tchia is a really analogic and bodily recreation. It was my motto from the very begin to give it a “Toy Field” feeling, harking back to enjoying with toys as a child.
Locomotion is tremendous necessary for any recreation providing lots of exploration, and we wished to make shifting round enjoyable in and of itself. You may climb any floor and glide throughout the map with ease. All bushes are bodily simulated and climbable, and Tchia can catapult herself by way of the air utilizing the springiness of a coconut tree for instance. We even have a methods system that allows you to do cool flips and dives whereas leaping round! And for longer distances, you need to use your boat to sail away!
One necessary characteristic is Tchia’s Soul Leaping powers. You’re in a position to take management of any bodily object or animal on this planet. All of them supply distinctive controls and a few particular talents that you need to use to journey, resolve puzzles, uncover secrets and techniques…
The sport additionally includes a totally playable Ukulele that Tchia will use at key story moments throughout rhythm sections. You too can play unlockable melodies at any level within the open world to set off particular occasions resembling attracting animals, triggering rainfall…
I hope you’re excited to take a look at Tchia when it comes out on PS4 and PS5. There’s much more we’d like to indicate concerning the recreation, together with customization, story, open world actions and challenges, fight… So keep tuned!