We had the chance to run a Pajama Llama Games Interview for Flotsam!
Here we were able to ask the burning questions gamers have for the town-building survival game.
But let’s take a look at how the development went and what is in store for the team.
Flotsam Steam Early Access Pajama Llama Games Interview
Q: What was the inspiration for Flotsam?
During his studies in animation, Stan, one of the artists, worked on a short film about people living in a flooded world in boats, underwater, and on top of whales. It was never finished, though.
Some of the sketches served as inspiration for Flotsam. One sketch specifically had a floating town connected with walkways. When we were looking for a theme for a building sim, a flooded world like in these sketches seemed interesting to explore.
During early development, it made sense to add the climate change and recycling themes, as these fit the flooded world theme and are important issues we care about.
Q: Is the relationship between the title and its meaning coincidental?
No, we chose it deliberately. Flotsam means floating wreckage and discarded items.
Since your town is floating and made with discarded garbage, it seemed like a perfect title. Flotsam was the first resource you collected in the game, so we used it as the title pretty quickly.
Q: What are some of the things you have learned since its early access release?
You need a good plan for updates after the early access release, which we initially didn’t have and resulted in a slow patch cadence.
Some big changes were needed to continue developing the game, like world map travel. We completely overhauled this in the first major patch, but it took a while, which made us lose some momentum.
Even from EA, players expect a fully functional game with lots of content and playtime, which is something we underestimated a bit. The community we had was really helpful with this, though, both before and during EA.
Q: How has the positive response felt since its release on early access?
Great! Seeing people make huge towns with populations far beyond what we imagined has been really inspiring.
We really love how involved some players get on our discord, testing the experimental builds or posting feedback and bug reports. It’s been a great help for our 3-man team.
Q: What feature is the team most proud of or excited about implanting into the game?
We’re looking forward to adding more depth to pollution gameplay in the coming patches, like dealing with polluted areas.
It’s something that has been central to the game concept for a long time, and we’re very passionate about it.
We couldn’t explore it more sooner because other designs were more important to implement first.
Q: What were some of the challenges the team faced during development?
It’s a challenging game concept to make with a 3-man team. Particularly with features like town movement.
Moving the town on a world map, with its changing footprint colliding with the world, has been a long time coming that took many different iterations.
We went from flotsam coming towards you that made parts of your town sink, which felt horrible and was a nightmare technically, to a world map where you just “teleported” to new areas.
With the current and last iteration, it feels more like you’re taking a journey with your moving town, and you have more direct control.
Q: Is there a core theme or message that you want to express to players through the game itself? If so, how?
We deliberately chose to make the game colorful and optimistic, even if it’s set in an apocalyptic world. While we face climate change, it’s important to stay hopeful and proactive, just like the drifters in Flotsam.
In their dire circumstances and with few resources, they still make it into a feel-good apocalypse.
Q: What does the future hold in store for Flotsam, and what other features are the team looking to add?
We want to add a couple more patches to streamline the food and water pipelines and introduce a difficulty ramp-up with pollution at the center.
To round it off, we want to add a clear goal and narrative to guide the player.
Q: What does the full version of the game look like to the developers?
With those added features, we want to focus on offering a longer full-playthrough with more direction towards a satisfying end.
Additionally, we aim to make additional playthroughs more engaging with the added difficulty that pollution adds and the endless randomized map we already added.
Q: What playstyle do the developers prefer when playing the game themselves?
One of the developers, Juda-Ben, plays very much like a greedy trash raccoon. He gathers every single piece of flotsam, amassing huge stockpiles in his massive ‘Mobile Waste Facility’ town that slowly cruises through every region.
In stark contrast, another developer, Ferry, adopts a more streamlined and efficient approach, gathering only essential items.
We had a great time with this Pajama Llama Games Interview. Check out Flotsam on Steam, Humble Bundle GOG and Itchio.
