Hey, I’m Ethan, the lead programmer throughout the course of Curation’s development. For our first development log on Curation, I thought it would be appropriate to catch everyone up on how it started and how it’s going.

The Past

We started in late September 2023 where during our respective games courses at the University of Portsmouth, we were assigned a team to create a piece of software for a client. We were very lucky to be given Luke Hale at Frontier Games as our client who gave us the simple brief to “Make a management simulator”.

Within the next few weeks, we were toying around with ideas and feature prototypes until we agreed on 2 ideas, one of which being Curation. For the next month, we were busy building design and technical documents whilst being very eager to start work, yet we still needed Luke’s blessing to fully commit to the idea and we struggled with the wait. However, we decided to pitch the ideas without prototypes to him in December and decided based on his feedback. He informed us that Curation would be the more challenging idea but could lead to the better project and since we were motivated by last year’s project with Frontier winning the TIGA Creative Assembly Best Student Game award, we decided to go ahead with Curation.

Main development started in January, where we were quickly able to put together the basic functions of the game, including camera, object and wall placement, and UI. Even though it was rough, the feeling of the gameplay that did exist showed us the potential of what we wanted to create and made us strive to build further.

Very old version, yet some aspects still exist in some forms

By the end of February, the long awaited NPCs finally graced the museums with their presence, though would need many changes over the coming months to keep their wackiness and general ability to break things under control. A lot of the UI was also completed and functional along with the room system, slowly moving the game towards our original vision. However there was still an important piece of the game that was still missing which was bugging us.

Very rigid movements there

By March, our artists had finished polishing many of the artefacts and planting the foliage. Combining this with the updated NPCs, room customisation, and UI improvements including a proper title screen were the final touches we needed to create a truly unique experience. This was also nearing the end date of our assignment which received praise from many and allowed us to showcase the game at various events.

Goodbye white, red, and grey. Hello green

The Present

While this was the end of our University project, this was not the end of Curation. We’ve been working on adding features based on your feedback and slowly tweaking aspects of the game. One of the main features that we have added for the main release has been save files (revolutionary I know), allowing players to keep working on their museums or just sit there and enjoy the vibes.

Look at that glorious save file screen.

We are also making various performance, balancing, and quality of life updates to make the game feel as smooth and easy as possible to play. Don’t worry, this won’t stop us from making the changes that you guys wanna see like new decorations and extra functionality.

The new title screen. There’s actually a few new things in this image if you look closely.

The Future

I know this post has been a bit long so I should at least share some details on upcoming content. We will have a Steam Demo up at Steam Next Fest where you will be able to try our game out for yourself. We intend to keep this up once Next Fest concludes so try it at your own pace. Also look out ‘cause we also are adding:

• New Decorations
• New Themes
• New Music
• New spooky system…

I wonder what this could be…

We are still working on the game and hope to get it fully released within the first half of this year. The team and I will continue to post updates when we have exciting news to share and I hope you are looking forward to Curation.