We are Splashteam, the studio responsible for Splasher and Tinykin. After releasing a 2D platformer and a 3D platformer/exploration game, we've decided to embark on something completely new and different!
Alva the squirrel grew up in the family bakery at the heart of the peaceful village in the Great Tree snowglobe. But when the Tree fell ill, the villagers had to move to other snowglobes and the shop was abandoned.
A decade later, armed with nothing but the power of her cheeks, Alva is ready to take a new start. She's determined to save the Tree by fighting against the Duramen, a dark force emanating from it, and bring old friendships back to life!
Project Acornia is a management and village simulator game with dungeon crawling elements. There are two parallel dimensions that can be explored : The Great Tree, where the management part takes place and where the shop and village can be rebuilt, and the Duramen, where the dungeons can be explored and the fighting takes place.
One is the mirror version of the other, and they can be traveled from and to at any point !
In this post, we are going to briefly introduce you to the different parts of the game in a little bit more detail.
The shop is where the management part of the game takes place. In the past, it was owned by Alva’s family, and it’s the place she uses to bring the villagers back.
The shop is where Alva can earn money and gain reputation, by collecting and crafting more and more complex recipes and serving more and more clients. What’s more, the shop can be upgraded and decorated.
The shop and many other places in the game can be decorated, allowing you to tailor your experience to your tastes. Furniture can be purchased, crafted or obtained by other means. There are a ton of furniture sets to collect and complete!
Employees are a core feature of the game, useful to automate tasks. We’ve decided to include them to simplify the gameplay loops and allow the player to focus on different tasks as the game progresses.
There are four spots an employee can work in : the fields, the enclosures (see below), the crafting area and the service room.
Employees need a house to rest after a good day of work! You can give resource to the village’s carpenter to build them. Here you can see some of the research we did on employees’ houses.
Just outside the shop, Alva can access farming platforms, in which she can grow plants and breed animals to create ingredients.
In future posts, we will go into details about how it works. For now, let us show you the cute animals you’ll be able to breed.
The village perched on the Great Tree’s branches is huge! At first, only part of it is accessible. As the game progresses, more and more of it can be explored. There are houses and stores to unlock and rebuild, characters to discover, quests to complete and a ton of secrets!
Time flows in the great tree, with events taking place and the day-night cycle along with the weather bringing it to life.
In order to unlock the areas of the Great Tree, Alva needs to travel to the Duramen, a spiritual dimension parallel to the Great Tree, and to clean dungeons by defeating enemies.
These enemies are the representation of inhabitants and customers negative emotions. Defeating them allows to release the Great Tree from its sickness and make it more habitable.
The fights take place in thematic dungeons.
For instance, to unlock the ability to build the farmer's shop, Alva needs to access the farm dungeon in the Duramen, which is themed around agriculture, and defeat its boss.
This cleans the area from sickness in the Great Tree world and allows her to unlock the farm’s shop and then upgrade it by offering resources to the village’s carpenter Honna.
How can Alva defeat angry spirits? By using her two most unique abilities : cooking delicious treats, and spitting them onto them using her powerful cheeks!
We hope you enjoyed this little preview! We can't show you everything just yet, so don't miss our upcoming posts! We are very dedicated to this project and can't wait to introduce you to this world!
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