'Restore color to the desolate islands of Farewell North, an open world journey where you play as a border collie on an adventure with his owner through the Scottish Highlands. Explore land and sea, solve puzzles to reveal hidden paths, evade monsters, and free wildlife to bring color back to the world, all while revealing an emotional story about saying farewell.
Farewell North is about a woman on a personal journey deep in the Scottish highlands with her border collie, the player character. Dealing with a declining mental state and the emotions of a tragic loss, all color has left her world and it's up to you to bring it back as you aid her on her journey.'
So lets get into the interview!
Did you develop this game completely on your own?
Nope! I've been the primary creator and developer working on the game day to day, but there's no way I could have done it all on my own. I've had a number of collaborators including my composer John Konsolakis who has been brilliant, I'm so excited for folks to check out the soundtrack. Johan Ross who voices our main character, Cailey, has been amazing as well. She's a friend and it's her first time voice acting, but she was kind enough to let me borrow her for a few hours a week and she's just thrown herself fully into it and she's so good at it! Plus she brings so much authenticity and life experience to the project, being from Skye herself.
We have several more Scottish voice actors who have all been wonderful to work with, Gérman Coronel who helped me with a lot of the animations, my publisher Mooneye, and many more folks who have helped in one way or another along the way.
I started the project 4 years ago in July 2020, when I suddenly had a bunch of free time on my hands. Who could possibly remember why? It actually started as a silly little "weekend project" and, well, here we are 4 years later!
The game follows a border collie and their human. What made you decide to have you play as the border collie rather than the human?
I'd love to say this was all expertly planned out but the truth is that the weekend project I mentioned started as a Chihuahua game, believe it or not. Over time it evolved into something more serious and the Chihuahua was replaced by our beloved border collie, Chesley, and our human companion Cailey followed shortly after.
Eventually as I figured out what the game actually was and it become less of a hobby and more of a "real project", I realised that I wanted to explore the relationship that our pets have on our mental and emotional wellbeing, and by playing as the dog in this duo I feel like we are able to show a unique perspective. You're really playing the supporting role in someone else's adventure and seeing the world through the eyes of a character that just wants to make things right for their human.
It also allows for a bit of mystery and intrigue as, being the dog, we don't really know why we're here or what the adventure even is at the start. Our human is coming back to the islands and bringing us along for the journey, and we have to sort of piece together what's going on through context that we pick up throughout the game, which makes for a pretty interesting and unique storytelling experience.
'Farewell North' is set in the islands around Scotland. As someone from Scotland I am curious to know why you chose it as a setting, and are the islands based on real Scottish islands or are they fictitious places that have the general feel of Scotland?
I was born and raised in Canada but I am Scottish and live in Edinburgh. In 2019 my wife and I decided to make use of my British citizenship and move abroad just to sort of change things up, but by the time we get settled in Scotland in February 2020 the world was just about to be locked down and suddenly we were alone in this new country, wanting to explore and experience it but without the ability to do so. We had all these plans to travel around Scotland and they were put on hold, so they really served as the perfect inspiration for the game and gave me another outlet to explore the country.
The islands themselves are heavily inspired by Orkney, St. Kilda and the western isles. Jo, our voice actor for Cailey, is from Skye and she's been an incredible help in writing and crafting the world in a way that's authentic. That said, Scotland is a truly magical place and there's so much beauty, history, folklore and culture to be found in the islands, highlands and lowlands, so our general rule is if it exists in Scotland as a whole then it's fair game to include. We do use the name Orkney for the archipelago in game, and many of them take names, landmarks and inspiration from real Orkney isles, but it's not meant to be an authentic representation of Orkney. Instead, it's a love letter to Scotland as a whole, and bringing all these elements of Scotland that we love up to the Orkney islands.
What kind of abilities does the border collie have?
Chesley is a real good boy, and in true border collie fashion he's remarkably intelligent and athletic. His primary ability is to bring colour to Cailey's world, by pulsing colour out around him and using it to activate birds, animals, vegetation and other objects. We learn throughout the game that he's actually a working dog and we'll get to put his herding skills to the test throughout the game, helping out on various farms as we pass them on this adventure, and we'll get up to plenty of other doggo activities like playing fetch and barking at people and animals.
More than anything though, Chesley's real skill is in understanding his human and knowing what to do when she needs his support.
From watching trailers and reading about the game, I have seen that it seems to focus heavily on the mental health of the human character, and finding ways to combat anxiety. Talk to me a little about the inspiration behind that.
Early on in development you don't always know what you're actually making. Maybe you have an idea for a mechanic and a setting, or maybe you have a narrative idea, but you don't necessarily know how all the pieces fit together yet. That was my experience with Farewell North anyways, it definitely wasn't perfectly planned out from the beginning, instead it sort of took shape in front of me as I discovered what it was. That's a really exciting stage in the creative process, just learning what you're actually making and seeing all the possibilities in front of you.
As I introduced the colour mechanic and came to understand our characters, it really became clear that this game was about a dog helping his human through a tremendously difficult time. If you've played the demo then you'll know the passing of her mother is what kicks off this journey, and the story we crafted really focuses on all three of those characters and their relationship with one another. As the story took shape it was clear that the dog, Chesley, was really going to need to be there for Cailey and be her rock to support her through this.
I find that core idea of playing a supporting role in someone else's adventure to be fascinating, and wanted to really explore the human/dog dynamic and the way that dogs and other pets can help us through difficult times.
The art looks incredibly beautiful. What artistic inspirations did you pull from?
Thank you, that's very kind! More than anything I would say nature and Scotland as a whole. Over the course of development and as lockdowns came to an end I managed to get away from my desk and go explore the environments where the game takes place, coming back with loads of reference photos and ideas each time. I also started a YouTube channel during development where I share a lot of behind-the-scenes footage and a big part of putting yourself out there with content like that is receiving tons of feedback on the visuals, so that's been a huge help as well.
Beyond those, just playing games and watching movies. Once you start working on games I think you play them pretty differently. I'll spend an hour in a pretty room just looking at all the textures from different camera angles, trying to understand how the lighting and reflections work, how the geometry is crafted, and how the art serves the game as a whole. I love technical art, so I find it fascinating to study how other games are pulling things off.
What elements of 'Farewell North' will people find the most surprising?
That's a tricky one to answer without spoiling anything, but I think players will be quite surprised by the depth of the story and the variety in the gameplay. There are a few sequences that come to mind, which our playtesters love but we've never publicly shared footage of because at first glance they seem so different, and I worry it might be confusing without context. The way they flow into the story and shift up the gameplay seems to resonate really well in playtests though, so I'm very excited to see the reaction to these segments when players get their hands on the game.
Talk to me a little about the soundtrack of this game, and what the process is like when creating the perfect music to compliment the adventure.
John Konsolakis composed the entirety of the score and it's been absolutely brilliant. I can't stress enough how beautiful his work is, and I'm really grateful to have his help on this project.
We always start with the emotion, figuring out what the player and the characters are feeling in each moment. I typically send John a level, he'll have a play through and then we discuss every aspect of the level afterwards to figure out the intended emotion of each beat. He'll then go off and craft something truly beautiful, and we'll iterate on it a few times until it's just right. Whenever possible we try to incorporate traditional Scottish instrumentation - everything from fiddles to bagpipes - and many instruments have a "Peter and the Wolf" style relationship to a particular character or theme that keen players might pick up on.
There's a particular song by Robbie Burns, "My Heart's in the Highlands", which served as a major inspiration for the game and in fact the name Farewell North comes from the line "Farewell to the Highlands, Farewell to the North". We knew we wanted to find a way to incorporate the song into the game, and we found a way for the characters to have a deep and intimate connection to the song in-game which players will get to discover for themselves. For that we were lucky enough to work with acclaimed Scottish folk singer, Siobhan Miller, to do a rendition of the song which was one of my favourite days of development on the entire game. As a fan of both John and Siobhan it was an absolute treat to practically have a private concert with the two of them as we recorded everything.
We also try to keep the score adaptive, so you're not hearing simple loops but instead very intricately crafted progressions that bring instruments and stems in and out dynamically as you play, keeping it fresh and also giving players feedback in the form of music changing based on their actions.
The music is one aspect of the game I just can't wait for players to experience, I think what John has done here is truly beautiful, and the addition of Siobhan on My Heart's in the Highlands is such a treat.
What video games influenced you when making 'Farewell North'?
So many! A few key games come to mind though, such as Journey which was a truly moving experience the first time I played it, and Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice which may seem less obvious but also served as a primary inspiration.
There are a few more games that I imagine are quite unexpected, but the way God of War (2018) and The Last of Us parts 1 & 2 handle companion characters and the relationship building between them was also very inspirational. Crafting an NPC companion who you can form a connection with, and without them feeling janky, is tremendously difficult, so studying those games and seeing how they built those relationships really taught me a lot.
When/Where will we be able to play it!?
Farewell North will release on August 15th for PC, Mac, Xbox and Nintendo Switch! You can wishlist the game on Steam now and you'll get a notification as soon as it launches.
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