The first I ever saw of Eastshade was a single screenshot. In it, the sun stands high in the sky over a glittering river. Off in the distance, past the forest and its imposing trees, you can see what looks to be a city. Eastshade is full of such carefully designed landscapes: forests that invite you to saunter through them; buildings you just want to take a closer look at. Eastshade is a first person exploration game where every landscape looks like a potential work of art because that s the game. Whenever you feel like it you can pop down your easel and start painting. How does everything look this nice? How to explain that almost everyone you talk to is equally impressed by what they see?
Instead of busily overthinking what makes me react so strongly to what I see on screen in Eastshade, I decide to enlist a professional and pose my questions to Eastshade s lead developer Danny Weinbaum. He explains Eastshade s strong sense of place is deliberate, and the result of the difference between traditional game design, and his own point of view as someone with a background in environment design.