How Eternal Stands Leverages Yellow Brick Games' Industry Expertise

A debut game from a new developer can usually be seen as a statement of purpose for a studio, especially when that studio has several industry veterans with impressive resumes. Following his departure from Bioware, Ex Dragon Age Creative director Mike Laidlaw joined the team at Ubisoft Quebec, only for him, colleague Frédéric Saint-Laurent, and others to later form their own studio, Yellow Brick Games. The team's debut title, Endless strandsIt is now set for release on January 28.

In a recent interview with Game Rant, directors Laidlaw and Saint-Laurent explained how everyone's combined industry experience resulted in Yellow Brick Games. Endless strands Having constant vision. The team's experience in past projects also provided valuable logistical parameters that helped the project stay on target where it might otherwise have fallen short. Both are important elements of any development process. With a collective history that includes working on some of the industry's most beloved titles, Yellow Brick Games' veteran staff quickly established a strong position to ensure this. Endless strands Delivers in both its story and gameplay.

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So far confirmed every attribute for infinite strands

Eternal Strands is an upcoming action-adventure game from Yellow Brick Games, a studio comprised of BioWare, Ubisoft, and industry giants as a whole.

Eternal Strands has maintained the same core vision since its inception

The benefit of experience is that it gives you the tools to know what works and what doesn't in a particular area, and the same is true with game development. A consistent vision can help keep the game on track, but even then, sometimes the games change. After all, this is what the development process is all about. According to Laidlaw, the team's collective experience at Yellow Brick Games is one of the main contributing factors to landing the game, and sticking to a consistent approach throughout its development. As Laidlaw notes, Endless strands' Certain elements are all things that the team wanted to include, pointing out that “…our original proposal – the physics, the large creatures, the ascension … all those elements were what we wanted from the beginning.”

And although both Laidlaw and St-Laurent described Endless strands Going through “a major evolution”, it was ultimately a “healthy change for the game” that saw the player's toolkit expand in a way that supported the title's core goal of emerging gameplay. Laidlaw notes:

“…in any creative endeavor…you must keep a reasonably steady course but be flexible enough in response to know when it's time to course-correct, and thread the needle between randomness and outright dogma in your design. It's time to make a change.” You need to know that.”

Is Yellow Brick Games' joint experience meant to keep the infinite streak on-track?

The formation and beginning of the Yellow Brick game Endless strands' Development also coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic, forcing the studio to rapidly change modalities in hopes of keeping the project afloat. This became another area where the team's combined experience and industry knowledge proved a major boon, with Laidlaw pointing out that “having veterans meant we had a bit more discipline, I think, than some indie studios might have in terms of project management.” Laidlaw then elaborated:

“That's the kind of stuff … you don't just have to learn how to do it but there's also the experience of seeing the benefits of being able to predict the schedule, being able to make cuts if necessary. Make changes where necessary, being able to re-prioritize. .. All of those things are discussions that I think require some degree of maturity, and some degree of experience is beneficial to see how it really plays out.”

with Endless strands Now gold-certified, with a demo coming out, and its release coming soon, Laidlaw notes that “Fred and I have both been involved from the beginning, so there's this sense of thinking and hoping that we've managed to stick the landing. Is it just a leap of faith?” Not only that, but given COVID and everything, it was like a backflip of faith.”