The fourth devlog covers how the work on Fireside went. We present the original ideas, development challenges, and solutions to problems the cozy game team faced. Our collaboration began in 2021, when the team was able to begin building a prototype of Fireside thanks to funding from FilmFernsehFonds Bayern. Although each team member had their own responsibilities, teamwork was essential. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41076287/f785bd504e79df92ffb8f37110c1a63333387141.png[/img] Ilona described the start of their collaboration as “creative chaos.” She joined the team later as a narrative designer, and first had to find her place. It was difficult for her to figure out what the idea behind Fireside was and how it could be best realized because it is difficult to compare it to other games. Initially, she was onboarded through multiple meetings to learn about the structure of the game and the team’s vision. Linus’ role was to put visuals to the idea. It was his first time creating 2D animations. As he progressed through the drawing stages, his animations improved, but it took time. This also helped him grow and flourish as an artist. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41076287/8090f4c87cc6619ee594d6da3bad0a534164bb2d.png[/img] Matthias’ goal was to compose music for all the areas. It was a challenge for him to set the dialog to music. He came up with the idea to incorporate writing sounds. To achieve this, he needed to first acquire the right writing surface to record a suitable sound. A general challenge for Paul and CP as game designers was that Fireside would be based on roguelites, but without a combat system. One option was to replace the traditional HP bar with Soul Energy, which could be gathered rather than lost. The team agreed to begin developing the game by creating a vertical slice of the second of three areas. In retrospect, this was a mistake during development. The other team members agree that, while it is industry standard to develop the first level last, in the case of Fireside, it would have been better to start with the first level due to the game’s unique gameplay and the need to describe the game’s environment. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41076287/07b1cbdc9603bc659557243080f093597033a5d3.png[/img] In addition to these challenges, there were also the tools the team needed to use. For example, the team enhanced the internal node-editor tool, which Ilona used for quest creation throughout production. What helped Ilona to get used to the improvements and overall work with the new tool was just trial and error and hands-on learning. CP also began the project research and experimentation. For him, it was the Quest Editor Tool, which is the heart of the dialog system. Existing tools lacked the necessary features for Fireside, so CP developed a custom dialog editor rather than using an off-the-shelf tool. But the most important part in successfully completing the game’s development was communication among everyone, because Fireside would only be possible with a well-coordinated team that also motivated each other.