Restitched: Dev Diary | First Steps

Hello, and welcome to a new Developer Diary! A bit of a different feature this month, as we'll be taking a look back at some of the very earliest concepts from the first months of Restitched from January to March of 2020. We'll be looking at settings, concepts for the main character, scrapped UI, collectables, and more!

Farming Goods

Interestingly, we already had a location established before we set about a name for the project or the main character. We referred to this location as 'The Farm', but these days it's known as 'The Rolling Acres'. The thumbnails below were created on January 14th, 2020 (you may recognise the barn from the Key Art that was later revealed in 2021!).

Here's an image from March 18th also that shows the initial block-outs:

Stuffy's Ancestor: The 'Plushling'

Creating our main character was an obvious place to start after this, though. Here are some of the very first Stuffy concepts by Halston and Carter - then called 'Plushling', from January 17th, 2020':

As you can see, customisation for this character was a fundamental pillar created at conception.

Concept from Carter posted on the 19th of January:

...and January 21st, 2020:

...and thus, Blue Bunny was the first-ever outfit conceptualised for our friend! You can read more about the creation of Stuffy in our Developer Diaries 'Stitching Stuffy' and 'Restitching Stuffy'.

As you can see by the text on this concept, the name 'Restitched' had been established pretty early on...

Stitching the Name

As seen below, the first name pitched for the project was 'Restitched', and it kind of just... stuck! With no other suggestions, 'Restitched' was used preliminarily at first, before becoming the official name on February 5, 2020.

A tagline was discussed, but none was settled. As a result, Restitched was born!

The First Stamps

Before we'd even settled on the name 'Stamp', our lovely artist Carter began creating concepts for these assets. Below are some of the very first Stamps created for the project - you may recognise some of these from our Restitched: Stamp Preview features!

The Pocket

Before we settled on The Craftbook, we had a concept for a different kind of UI: The Pocket. This didn't last long though, and you can find the concepts for The Craftbook that were made immediately after this in the 'The Craftbook' Dev Diary.

The Gashapon and Gift Box

In order to provide a method for collecting items in your adventure across Restitched, we initially conceptualised a 'Gashapon', like those you'd see in arcades and malls, for the player to open.

Then we experimented with a Gift Box, as you can see below (with the Gashapon)!

We've since moved on from these concepts, but it's nice to see the early development ideas sprouting.

The Bedroom

When conceptualising a hub world, we were throwing ideas around for a bedroom where Stuffy would be situated. Players would spawn on a tabletop and run into their Stuffy Box to navigate the menus. Here are a couple of concepts from that time:

We've since scrapped these ideas, and moved away from the bedroom theming.

Checkpoints

We aim to explore Checkpoints in a later Developer Diary, but here's a little sneak-peek for now! In March 2020, we started conceptualising what a Checkpoint could look like. We were settled on the idea of a 'Stage Door' aesthetic, though this was changed in 2021.

Speech Bubbles

Then-developer GlitchFish created some lovely icon concepts, most of which will be explored later. Here's another sneak-peek, though, as we explore concepts for Speech Bubbles!

We loved the Stuffy-themed speech bubble (which we still use today!), and used that one for further concepts.

That's All For Now...

And that's all we have for this Developer Diary! We find it fun to look back to the earliest concepts of the game and compare it to where we are today. Comparing these concepts to the latest Recapped! is like night and day. What's been your favourite part of this Dev Diary? Let us know in the comments below!

To see more early concepts, be sure to check out the other three Developer Diaries mentioned at the beginning of this post.

See you next month for another Developer Diary!