As the gaming landscape continues to expand, we’re always on the lookout for titles that push boundaries and offer fresh perspectives. Today, we’re thrilled to present a Q&A session with Pawel, a key figure at SpaceRocket Games, who’s here to share insights into their forthcoming release, Permafrost.
Permafrost has been turning heads with its promise of adventure set against a harsh, ice-covered world. In this Q&A, we delve into the inspiration behind the project, uncover the studio’s design philosophy, and learn how they’ve approached challenges in bringing an unforgiving environment to life. Whether you’re a seasoned adventurer or new to the genre, this interview promises to shed light on what could be your next gripping gaming experience.
Welcome to FULLSYNC. To get things started, please tell our readers a little about yourself and the studio.
Hi, I am Pawel and we are SpaceRocket Games, a gamedev studio from Poland created to develop the game called Permafrost. We are a small team dedicated to just this one game and we are currently in the middle of production, we’re in the second part of the production process, closer to getting the game ready for release.
And now to introduce your game Permafrost. For anyone who hasn’t checked the demo out or saw it featured during Steam Next Fest, what is it about?
Permafrost is an open-world survival game, set in the unforgiving frozen landscapes. After a catastrophic event: the shattering of the Moon, the Earth plunged into an eternal winter. Players must navigate the frozen environment where extreme cold, scarce resources and dangerous wildlife pose constant threats. The game features dynamic weather systems, day-night cycles, crafting and a free building system. The game features co-op mode for up to 4 players, it is fun to play with friends but single-player mode is also great.
What inspired the concept of Permafrost and its unique post-apocalyptic, frozen setting?
We had a few starting point ideas and some of them survived the early creative process. We wanted a post-apocalyptic setting, but not a typical post-nuclear war or something that had been widely done before, but rather a climate-related apocalypse. For a brief moment we thought about setting the game world in rising sea levels with lots of sunken features to explore, but a frozen landscape seemed more interesting.
From the very beginning, we didn’t want any mutants or zombies and just didn’t want to copy ideas from dozens of other games. What we imagined is more of a sort of realism, the real struggle to survive in a winter environment. Then in the design process, it eased out the realism a bit, as we wanted to make the game attractive to a broader group than just hardcore survival players.
I’m a massive fan of survival games, having poured hundreds of hours into games like 7 Days to Die and Green Hell. So besides the frozen setting, what sets your game apart from the competition?
The combination of free building and renovation of existing buildings is, I think, quite unique. Then we have the dog companion and – designed for further development – sleighs for storage and travel. Also, there are several approaches to exploration, including vertical exploration in buildings and caves, combined with getting into more and more colder areas, I think it adds a new dimension to the usual going back and forth through forests.
I really love the look of the frozen wasteland. What challenges did you face in designing an environment that is both hostile and immersive?
For quite some time we couldn’t figure out the best snow level: deep enough to make it look like a winter, but not too deep, not covering too much. Also if you look at frozen landscapes of polar regions, they are beautiful, but also quite monotonous, very horizontal, you can travel for days and the landscape barely changes.
That wouldn’t work for the survival game, so we had to create a more dense environment, packed with surprises to keep players engaged. This is why we created a city landscape with high buildings as well as cave systems – to provide quite a lot of vertical exploration – a thing you wouldn’t expect in a frozen landscape.
How intelligent are the creatures and NPCs in Permafrost? Can they adapt to the player’s actions, like being triggered by sounds or following footprints?
Permafrost is not a game focused primarily on combat, however, hunting is necessary for survival, but still, animals in the game have distinct features and behaviours. We sort animals in Permafrost into 3 groups: small critters that can be hunted with traps, big herbivores like deer that are most likely to run away and rarely attack and finally – carnivores like wolves, that behave differently, are aggressive and most likely will attack players. Animals and human opponents can spot you and can react to noise, but following footprints is a bit of a tricky feature, although tempting.
How much freedom do players have in shaping their survival story? Are there multiple paths to success or failure?
We designed the game in such a way that the player can choose what to engage in, what quests to follow, maybe none at all and rather just explore, maybe focus on crafting and developing skills or, contrary to that, just clear the map from all possible quests and points of interests. We suggest a couple of things, like “it’s worthwhile to actually go back to the area you visited before, to get new valuable resources”, but we do not force the player to do that.
Also we designed progress in the game to be resource-based, so the player discovers some resources, uses them to gain skills or build new tools, then equipped with that plus some exploration, the player discovers more resources, builds better tools, prepares better for colder areas, explores new areas, finds new resources etc. – that gives the player a great deal of freedom and the game can be played according to their own personal style.
When it comes to crafting shelter and weapons, are there any limits to what players can create in Permafrost?
There are several types of weapons, but you can’t craft a truly new weapon model. Upgrade, enhance – yes, but not in a “free engineering” kind of way. Also, advanced weapons like rifles are limited by available ammunition, which is, basically, scarce. In the case of free building, we set no limits in the demo, partially to test if players would exploit the feature – we saw for example a really, really high tower built out of wood, much higher than the skyscrapers we have in the city. We will, most likely, limit the height of the building you can make.
I’ve heard you mention in other Q&As that while Permafrost does have solo play, it’s very much a game to play with friends. What dynamics have you incorporated into the game to make co-op play engaging and different from playing solo?
One of the things in co-op I like most is hunting. You can split your team and some players run and flush out the animals, like deer, into the direction of other players, who wait armed with bows or rifles. We never designed such tactics, but it occurred naturally as we tested the game internally.
Also building in co-op is fun, you can create a kind of production chain: one person chops trees and brings wood to the base while others build the structure. Also, players in co-op can specialize and unlock some skills. There’s no class system in Permafrost, but by selecting skills wisely you will most likely be able to build a soldier, a builder etc.
Luckily, even if people do choose to play alone, they can get a companion in the dog. Tell us more about the purpose of this little pooch and the plans for companions going forward.
We want the dog to be a useful companion, more than just an animated animal you can feed and pet. I don’t want to give too many spoilers about dog features right now, let’s mention just a few 🙂. We have many ideas on how the dog can help the player and we plan to implement them one by one. For example, the dog will search the area on its own and help find resources. Also, we have a warning feature in development when the dog barks or growls when it detects a danger (or wild animals) nearby. Another feature is “a mobile chest”, so the player has some additional storage space on the dog’s back.
Moving on, I know Permafrost is not out yet but the demo from Steam Next Fest has been extended to allow more people to check it out. Did you expect Permafrost to take off as much as it did during the event?
We were quite sure the demo was ok, it looked nice, it was fun to play and it could grab some attention, especially thanks to co-op mode, which is, frankly, not that common in demo versions. But, on the other hand, the competition was great, there were tons of good games at Steam Next Fest, really beautiful titles. It is very, very difficult to stand out in the crowd of captivating products.
So we limited our expectations and were happily surprised when there were so many people playing and so many new followers each day of the fest, many happy moments for the team. There were negative reviews as well, which is good, because the negative reviews are from people who care about the game and for the team to improve and push improvements. That kind of feedback is priceless.
And what have you learned from the early player feedback on the Permafrost demo? Has anything already influenced any decisions for the game going forward?
We made a couple of decisions for the demo, including a lack of save features and a limited number of language versions. A substantial part of all feedback was about that, as we published the demo using a new demo type on Steam (with its own Steam page, reviews etc.) some players were confused and apparently thought it was some kind of full release. Setting those parts of the feedback aside we learned quite a lot about players’ expectations of combat, building, and co-op features. We reworked some parts of the game based on the feedback from the demo, including, for example, the skills system.
Time to start wrapping things up. As a developer, what aspect of Permafrost are you most proud of, and why?
Well in the busy time just before release of the demo I, of course, played the game over and over again, testing all quests, trying to break things and looking for bugs. But one evening I realised I’m just there in the world of Permafrost, in my cosy wooden shelter on a hill, cooking a meal, having a bottle of something nice that I found in one of the cold zones and watching a beautiful sunset with the deer running through the trees. At that moment I realized “damn it, it is a good game”.
What was the most challenging aspect of bringing Permafrost’s world and mechanics to life, and how did you overcome it?
The most challenging thing was, no doubt, making the whole world freely explorable with no loading screens when you go from one area to another: think large open space plus caves + all explorable buildings. At first, we made most of the buildings in the game not open for exploration – that was easy. But it didn’t work well: we knew players would want to explore every part of the game.
So we put some effort into making nearly everything open for exploration. Unreal Engine greatly supports open worlds, but still, there were plenty of technical difficulties. For example, in co-op mod,e every player can go into different parts of the world and make changes there, like create buildings, put stuff into chests etc. All of that has to work seamlessly. When the game is played all that effort we made is invisible to players: “it just works”, but it was quite difficult to achieve it.
What advice would you give to a budding new game developer looking to bring their creation to life, based from your experience developing Permafrost?
The obvious and well-known advice is to “start small”, but I’d rephrase that: “start with a small, but really interesting prototype”. If you can sell your game with 10 minutes of gameplay, show core features, show why the setting is unique, get the player hooked and wanting more – you’ve already won. Create a great 10 minutes long prototype and you are good to go for a big adventure.
And finally, for a bit of fun. If you were dropped into the world of Permafrost, how well do you think you’d personally survive?
Many years ago, I think it was in the late 1990’s, a group of friends, myself included, got lost in the Sudety mountains on the border between Poland and the Czech Republic – because of a sudden weather change and a huge snowstorm. We went down the wrong way, far away from the trail.
We walked in deep snow the whole night, fought the blizzard, ate tiny bits of one chocolate bar that we had, found an abandoned hunter’s lodge and made a fire there, cooked some warm drinks, slept in turns and… survived. I think I’m ready for the world of Permafrost!
We’d like to thank Pawel for taking time out of his busy schedule to chat with us about Permafrost, and we hope this conversation has given you a clearer understanding of the vision and ambitions behind the game. Reading over Pawel’s insights, it’s evident that SpaceRocket Games is determined to deliver a deep, immersive experience that truly stands out.
As we watch the Permafrost project continue to unfold, we can’t help but feel excited about what lies ahead. Keep an eye on Permafrost—with its captivating premise, inventive gameplay, and meticulous world-building, it’s shaping up to be a real treat for gamers looking to brave new frontiers.
