Mixing Gameplays & the Challenges of American Arcadia

Hi American Arcadia fans!

American Arcadia is out now, and we couldn’t be happier with the reception it is getting, especially now that we hit the Overwhelmingly Positive on Steam!

When we were developing American Arcadia we thought it’d be interesting to play with someone escaping but also with someone helping him from the outside. To have two different views of the same story, with completely different gameplay. But two different gameplays meant making two games in one. It was a design challenge as well as a technical challenge. And on top of that, we intertwined both perspectives in a CCTV system view. A system we had to design and develop from scratch.

That is the reason why the transitions between both worlds (the side-scrolling and the first-person perspective), are completely seamless. The screens, which have a really important presence in a game like ours, behave like portals where we move from one world to another and, consequently, from one character to another with what appears to be a simple zoom-in or zoom-out, but behind the scenes, it involves a complex system.

But not only that. Trevor’s escape brings a more physical kind of gameplay, despite Trevor not being exactly the kind of action hero you would imagine.

Following that principle, Trevor’s escape is full of action, chases, and physical efforts, things that really take him out of his comfort zone. Even Trevor’s puzzles will be more affected by timing and quick thinking.

Angela’s gameplay, on the other hand, represents her more chaotic, messy and daring personality therefore the contrast comes from exploring, moving stealthily, hacking devices, and using her deductive skills to solve puzzles.

But more than that, our main objective when developing American Arcadia was to constantly surprise the player. Using those three gameplay modes, we tweaked it in different moments to create a thrilling, immersive cinematic playable experience.

 Don’t be a Fool and stay tuned because we have one more special thing to share! And this one is going to be quite… catchy!

Out of the Blue