After nearly two years of development, Second Order have announced the studio’s first game Claybook, a clay simulation puzzle game, co-founder Sebastian Aaltonen said in a blogpost.
In Claybook, both the environment and the characters are made from deformable clay. Everything has a permanent effect on the world around you, but the clay’s shape changes as well – the characters and world is in constant interaction with each other.
Aaltonen said that during early development they noticed the unique clay world opened a whole new set of possibilities for game mechanics. It took some experimenting with all the combinations to find the ones that fit together best.
For example, the characters could always carve holes into walls, but this mechanic became much more interesting when they added fluid simulation to our game.
Aaltonen said simulating and visualising realistic clay required a lot of custom technology. During the project, they created their own clay simulation and visualization technology.
It was named Clayfield, a digital playland made out of clay that produces a volumetric game world that can freely be shaped and deformed — it’s the heart of the game.
Aaltonen said this is only the beginning for Claybook’s development and they hope the game continues to evolve through its lifetime. He welcomed the gaming community to find new and creative ideas to shape the future of the clay-based world.
Second Order was founded by Sebastian Aaltonen and Sami Saarinen in late 2015. They both had worked for over twelve years at RedLynx, a Finnish game development company known for Xbox Live Arcade hit games Trials HD and Trials Evolution, playing an important part in the Trials core team.
However, they felt it was time to step up and create their own studio to bring the passion for physics-based gameplay and user-generated content to new heights.
