That’s me (Bela) on the Left, Hana on the right and our Dog Marina in the center in Joshua Tree last Saturday.
We decided on the trip because: a) we’ve been ready to start putting together art and Gameplay in our desert scenes, so we needed to get out to the real desert and because: b) we reeeaaallyy needed to get away from our computers and the studio, far away…

It was hard to completely separate myself from Little Bug because the fantastic rock formations dotted with desert vegetation just looked so much like a magical video game world…

…and I couldn’t stop imagining Nyah dodging, weaving and flying between these Hana-sized boulders.

Above is an early mock up of the desert biome I made back in August and you can see a bit of that California desert even in this minimal state.

And here is a more recent scene taking place in the dry brushlands of the Crossroads featuring a shadowy creature we were playing around with. Our goal this week is to finish up level design in the opening City section of the game, but after that, we get to start making lots of desert + forest scenes, so stay tuned for some new gameplay + art screenshots based on these photos!