Image courtesy of Stairway Games
Coral Island: Inside the chill farm sim reinventing the genre
Brian Crecente |
December 15, 2022
Soma Wisnu Putera is a game producer for Coral Island, and co-founder of Stairway Games. He has spent more than 12 years in game and web development.
An unrelated meeting in Jakarta, dreams of making the next Witcher game, and a love of farm sims brought together the founders of Indonesian-based Stairway Games to create Kickstarter darling and Epic MegaGrant recipient Coral Island.
Released in Early Access on Oct. 11, Coral Island was designed from the beginning to be the reimagination of a traditional farm sim. The game, which takes place on a colorful Southeast Asian island, goes beyond simply building up and tending to a farm. You can go on dates on the island, restore nearby coral reefs, explore caverns packed with gemstones and monsters, and even play mini-games.
We chatted with Game Producer Soma Wisnu Putera about the studio’s first game, the title’s inspirations and goals, and what it’s like working in the remote region of Yogyakarta, located about eight hours from Jakarta.
Released in Early Access on Oct. 11, Coral Island was designed from the beginning to be the reimagination of a traditional farm sim. The game, which takes place on a colorful Southeast Asian island, goes beyond simply building up and tending to a farm. You can go on dates on the island, restore nearby coral reefs, explore caverns packed with gemstones and monsters, and even play mini-games.
We chatted with Game Producer Soma Wisnu Putera about the studio’s first game, the title’s inspirations and goals, and what it’s like working in the remote region of Yogyakarta, located about eight hours from Jakarta.
How did Stairway Games come about as a studio?
Soma Wisnu Putera, game producer for Coral Island: Before Stairway, (studio co-founder) Jeremy Bramble and I were engaged in another project in a different field. The idea to create a game was formed when we met in Jakarta to discuss this other project. We were both gamers and had the same dreams of making a game. At that time, we talked about how cool it would be to create something like The Witcher eventually. Being massive fans of the game, that’s our ultimate game dream.
We independently financed the studio and started the process of hiring the key developers. Some of which we found from Artstation. After doing further research, we had full confidence that Indonesian talents had the talent to tackle great games. We got very excited.
Stairway was immediately formed, and we decided to open our first studio in Yogyakarta because most of our talents are based there. The town is about an hour's flight from Jakarta.
One thing led to another, and here we are.
What made the studio decide to create a farming simulator as its first game?
Putera: On top of being fans of The Witcher, another interest that Jeremy and I share is our love for the farm sim genre. We both grew up playing Harvest Moon games, and after discussing the idea with the team, the excitement for this genre echoed.
Were there any particular games that inspired the team during development?
Putera: Yes, the Story of Seasons series, Harvest Moon series, and of course, Stardew Valley.
Image courtesy of Stairway Games
Coral Island doesn’t just have players grow a farm, you also participate in town life and can work to revitalize the surrounding coral reefs. How did you come up with the idea of intertwining an environmental message into the game?
Putera: As parents, we want to make something that is fun but also can be beneficial for our children. We aren’t trying to save the world or anything like that. We want to see something we love, which is a farm sim game, and instill something positive into it. Things like, “Hey, why don’t we clean up the ocean beds and be rewarded for it?” Hopefully, by incorporating diving mechanics into Coral Island it doesn’t just make the game more fun but also educational. Little things like bringing home our own trash when we go to the beach would make a difference in Coral Island, and who knows, maybe if we try it in the real world, it might make a difference too. At the end of the day, we just want players to have fun.
What made you decide to use Unreal Engine to create Coral Island?
Putera: We’ve been a fan of Unreal Engine for a while, even before we started the studio, so we chose Unreal Engine immediately. Unreal Engine just has been the industry standard for many top AAA games, and we feel right going with Unreal Engine.
How did the engine help with prototyping and evolving your ideas for the game?
Putera: There are too many to count! Unreal Engine has been central to how we developed Coral Island. A big thing that we use a lot is Blueprints. With Blueprints, we can prototype gameplay ideas fast without coding.
Image courtesy of Stairway Games
The game also includes a robust dating element. What made you decide to expand the typical farming sim to include the ability to date, and how did that evolve over time?
Putera: The dating feature in other farm sim games is one of our favorite features. It’s fun to get to know the NPCs through their heart events and dialogues. With that in mind, we see the dating element as a standard must-have for Coral Island. Over time, we added things like dynamic dialogues to make things a little more alive. The team’s been having a lot of fun working on it so far.
There’s so much built into this game, even beyond the farm sim, dating sim, saving the coral reef. You can, for instance, play minigames. How did you come up with your list of what to include and not include in this sim?
Putera: We reflect back to what we wanted to make at the beginning of the development. Now that we get to create a game–and not just play them–we get to ask ourselves questions like, as farm sim players, what is it that we want to see in Coral Island? What would be fun? What can we do to make it better? At the end of the day, we try to make it and test it in-game. If it’s fun, then it stays.
Putera: The dating feature in other farm sim games is one of our favorite features. It’s fun to get to know the NPCs through their heart events and dialogues. With that in mind, we see the dating element as a standard must-have for Coral Island. Over time, we added things like dynamic dialogues to make things a little more alive. The team’s been having a lot of fun working on it so far.
There’s so much built into this game, even beyond the farm sim, dating sim, saving the coral reef. You can, for instance, play minigames. How did you come up with your list of what to include and not include in this sim?
Putera: We reflect back to what we wanted to make at the beginning of the development. Now that we get to create a game–and not just play them–we get to ask ourselves questions like, as farm sim players, what is it that we want to see in Coral Island? What would be fun? What can we do to make it better? At the end of the day, we try to make it and test it in-game. If it’s fun, then it stays.
Image courtesy of Stairway Games
How did Unreal Engine help you scale development to deliver all of these different, complex facets of the game?
Putera: Overall, Unreal Engine is just a very scalable engine from the get-go. One thing that is super useful for us in the optimization phase are the GPU and CPU profiler; this helps our engineers to find bottlenecks in our system and optimize. Another thing that we really appreciate is how relatively painless Unreal Engine version upgrades are. Typically it takes one week of one programmer’s time to upgrade the version.
The game’s art style is absolutely wonderful. How did you come up with the look of the characters, and capture the vibrant feel of the island and its surroundings?
Putera: From the beginning, we knew that we wanted to make a farm sim with Disney-style characters. We love all kinds of art styles–anime, chibi, things like that. But as gamers, we haven’t yet played a farm sim with Disney-style art! So we thought we should give it a go. Then our path crossed with a character designer that shared our passion, now the Art Director of the game, David Lojaya. With his clear direction of where we should take the portrait, environment, and art in general, we get to where we are now.
The game started out as a Kickstarter, raising more than $1.6 million about a year and a half ago. How did Kickstarter influence the design of the game and expansion of the studio?
Putera: We are beyond grateful for our Kickstarter success. It gave us a glimpse of what other farm sim players like, and that gave us a boost of confidence in developing this game. That said, Kickstarter also allowed us to realize our plans for Coral Island and beyond. For instance, we always wanted to customize the building interiors, but due to the size of the team at the time, we were going to design them using common furniture to cut down on the budget. Now we have personalized each building's interior based on the tenant’s characteristics. Not only are the building interiors getting revamped but so are the character models and many more!
Image courtesy of Stairway Games
Image courtesy of Stairway Games
How important is your communication with the more than 35,000 backers, and others interested in the game? What sort of influence have they had on the design process?
Putera: Extremely important, we are very blessed to have such amazing backers and community members. We looked into and implemented plenty of feedback from the community during alpha. It has made Coral Island a better game, and we’re looking forward to continuing to do so during Early Access. On the other hand, we also maintain the balance to ensure that Coral Island stays in line with Stairway’s vision of the game.
Coral Island and Starway Games received an Epic MegaGrant in the summer of 2021. What sort of impact did that have on the game and team?
Putera: It validated and boosted the morale of our team. All of the funds went into development, and we managed to hire a few more key roles. Being an Epic MegaGrant recipient was just a pipe dream when we started the studio, and we can’t believe we’re selected as one of the recipients. We’re really grateful for the great support from Epic Games for our game. It was a good day; the whole team was stoked!
How has Unreal Engine helped the process of bringing the game to so many platforms?
Putera: It has been very helpful. We managed to complete Xbox Game Pass in time for release thanks to the existing plugin for WinGDK for Unreal Engine. While some customization was needed, the work was minimal as a result.
How has the studio’s location in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, and its multinational team helped shape the game’s look and message?
Putera: While I’m personally a believer in remote work, I do recognize that having an office can be beneficial for some people. That said, it seems like we’re adjusting nicely, and with our varying locations, being in the groove of doing work remotely has been great so far. It does help to get together now and then, though, which we did several times–we went for karaoke, dinners, and things like that. Not work, haha.
Putera: Extremely important, we are very blessed to have such amazing backers and community members. We looked into and implemented plenty of feedback from the community during alpha. It has made Coral Island a better game, and we’re looking forward to continuing to do so during Early Access. On the other hand, we also maintain the balance to ensure that Coral Island stays in line with Stairway’s vision of the game.
Coral Island and Starway Games received an Epic MegaGrant in the summer of 2021. What sort of impact did that have on the game and team?
Putera: It validated and boosted the morale of our team. All of the funds went into development, and we managed to hire a few more key roles. Being an Epic MegaGrant recipient was just a pipe dream when we started the studio, and we can’t believe we’re selected as one of the recipients. We’re really grateful for the great support from Epic Games for our game. It was a good day; the whole team was stoked!
How has Unreal Engine helped the process of bringing the game to so many platforms?
Putera: It has been very helpful. We managed to complete Xbox Game Pass in time for release thanks to the existing plugin for WinGDK for Unreal Engine. While some customization was needed, the work was minimal as a result.
How has the studio’s location in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, and its multinational team helped shape the game’s look and message?
Putera: While I’m personally a believer in remote work, I do recognize that having an office can be beneficial for some people. That said, it seems like we’re adjusting nicely, and with our varying locations, being in the groove of doing work remotely has been great so far. It does help to get together now and then, though, which we did several times–we went for karaoke, dinners, and things like that. Not work, haha.
Image courtesy of Stairway Games
Were there any particular challenges you faced while working on the game that you’d like to walk us through?
Putera: My main focus for the game is release management and quality assurance. One of the main challenges early on is how slow it is to “build on my PC,” and upload it to Steam to have the team test it. Initially, this process takes around three hours or so with home internet. We reserved a build server and created a bot to automatically push to our office Discord server to notify once the build is done and ready. We managed to upgrade the server and secure a higher bandwidth; now, the build process takes around 15 to 30 minutes.
Later on, we also managed to use a more proper build server, and now we have an auto builder every hour that flags the file that caused the build error and automatically tags the right developers who worked on the file that caused the error. Previously, it was very common for programmers to push new features and have them break on build only to be known by the end of the day. Within less than one hour, we’ll know if somebody breaks the build and auto-tag them most of the time.
What are your thoughts about Unreal Engine 5 and the features it will be bringing to the development process?
Putera: I loved it and can’t wait to work with it. There is a built-in grid system that will streamline a lot of our work right now. The improved sound workflow is also really promising. We hope to eventually upgrade to Unreal Engine 5 for Coral, and if that’s not realistic, definitely for our next game.
Thanks for taking the time to chat with us about Starway Games and Coral Island. Where can people find out more about both?
Putera: To find out more about us, you can check the Stairway Games website. For Coral Island, I’d say it’s best to check us out on Steam and Xbox Game Pass.
Also, we would love to have you join our Discord community.
Putera: My main focus for the game is release management and quality assurance. One of the main challenges early on is how slow it is to “build on my PC,” and upload it to Steam to have the team test it. Initially, this process takes around three hours or so with home internet. We reserved a build server and created a bot to automatically push to our office Discord server to notify once the build is done and ready. We managed to upgrade the server and secure a higher bandwidth; now, the build process takes around 15 to 30 minutes.
Later on, we also managed to use a more proper build server, and now we have an auto builder every hour that flags the file that caused the build error and automatically tags the right developers who worked on the file that caused the error. Previously, it was very common for programmers to push new features and have them break on build only to be known by the end of the day. Within less than one hour, we’ll know if somebody breaks the build and auto-tag them most of the time.
What are your thoughts about Unreal Engine 5 and the features it will be bringing to the development process?
Putera: I loved it and can’t wait to work with it. There is a built-in grid system that will streamline a lot of our work right now. The improved sound workflow is also really promising. We hope to eventually upgrade to Unreal Engine 5 for Coral, and if that’s not realistic, definitely for our next game.
Thanks for taking the time to chat with us about Starway Games and Coral Island. Where can people find out more about both?
Putera: To find out more about us, you can check the Stairway Games website. For Coral Island, I’d say it’s best to check us out on Steam and Xbox Game Pass.
Also, we would love to have you join our Discord community.
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