“I wish to discover how you discover the chums that get you, relatively than the folks you hang around with since you don’t wish to really feel lonely,” Electrical Saint co-founder Anna Hollinrake tells me when explaining the messy queer expertise on the centre of Crescent County.
It’s a sport a couple of pushed woman in her mid-twenties who strikes to a brand new city to search out herself, which Hollinrake shares is predicated closely on her personal experiences dwelling on the Isle of Wight as a younger artistic, transferring away from residence for the primary time and making an attempt to become familiar with working in online game improvement. It’s a harsh highway outlined by bitter triumph and remorseful sacrifice, however one that everybody in Hollinrake’s line of labor should stroll.
Regardless of the emotional foundations although, Crescent County can also be aiming to be one hell of a enjoyable time. You’re a fresh-faced motorbroom rider dwelling in a witch-tech world the place deliveries are made on the again of pimped-out broomsticks as a substitute of busted mopeds, and your job is to make ends meet, forge new friendships, and work out what you need in life. Loopy Taxi with a sapphic twist, or Kiki’s Supply Service if the younger witch was screwed by the gig economic system.
“I’ve been dreaming about making this sport for years,” Hollinrake tells me. “The stuff I’ve been taking to conventions has been this type of witch-tech, sci-fi fantasy mash-up for such a very long time, and it’s one thing my mind has latched onto and received’t let go.” However with historical past in each triple-A and unbiased areas, Hollinrake is abundantly conscious that you must rein your self in on sure tasks, and to make a sport that really represents who you’re, going unbiased is usually the one manner. And that’s how Electrical Saint was born just a few years in the past alongside fellow founder Pavle Mihajlovic and a really small workforce of contributors.
All through our interview, Hollinrake additionally isn’t shy about how overwhelming making a sport might be as such a small studio. You might be writing, coding, creating artwork, conjuring up a great deal of ingenious methods to market the title on social media, and making an attempt to reside your personal life far-off from all that. It seems like a enjoyable, exhausting trip that could be a double-edged dream come true.
“There have been just a few instances over time once I tried to make [Crescent County] a actuality, nevertheless it by no means felt fairly proper, like I didn’t really feel like I had sufficient information to launch myself into the indie area. However I additionally had experiences working with a extremely small workforce on a little bit sport that everybody beloved and I obtained to make use of quite a lot of my pure artwork type. I didn’t need to be anybody else.”
Having adopted Hollinrake’s work and transferring in the identical queer circles, you possibly can inform from a single glimpse at Crescent County that it’s unapologetically her, and consequently, will resonate with quite a lot of avid gamers in the identical artistic area who wish to really feel unrestrained whereas protected within the information they’ll discover a group that welcomes them with open arms.
Within the sport, you received’t simply ship packages or have interaction in motorbroom races with associates, you’ll earn foreign money to brighten your sparse rental flat, befriend and flirt with different UberEats witches, and simply have a enjoyable time with out at all times occupied with the long run.
“Lots of [the game] comes from being an individual who doesn’t actually know who they’re in that younger grownup manner the place you’re having to navigate emotional challenges, conflicts with all your pals, and acknowledging that a few of the selections you’ve made haven’t been good,” she explains. “It’s a fairly common factor, proper? You possibly can run away from stuff, or you possibly can deal with it head on. Or you possibly can deal with it sideways but additionally tackle the messier interactions you performed an element in.”
Prior to now Hollinrake has labored on the likes of Magic: The Gathering, Fall Guys, and the vastly underrated Journey Time: Pirates of the Enchiridion.
We’ve seen myriad video games lately discover this type of tumultuous development that folks of their twenties undergo, particularly LGBTQ+ people who’ve so many extra boundaries to take care of to search out their place on this planet. It’s stunning, but additionally an absolute nightmare.
But it is via this adversary the place you end up, usually via pleasure, hardship, intercourse, love, arguments, and feeling like you will have nowhere else left to show. So you choose to suck it up, hop again in your broom and carry on going, since discovering your self is greater than worthwhile.
“It’s about that sense of discovered household, discovering folks that actually get you, but additionally simply the foolish experiences, like making an attempt to navigate a crappy home share,” Hollinrake laughs. “Or the way you work together with folks which can be exterior your common sphere of affect and having to slowly grow to be a public going through grownup after abandoning the bubble of college.”
⚡ ANNOUNCING OUR DEBUT GAME: CRESCENT COUNTY ⚡
💫 Drift and drive in your witch-tech motorbroom
🎁 Make deliveries by day, avenue race by night time
🖌️ Flip your crappy studio flat into a house
😘 Be a flirty catastrophe and kiss your pals
👇 AVAILABLE NOW TO WISHLIST!!! 👇 pic.twitter.com/Rhb5XapDfx
— CRESCENT COUNTY 🧹 (@ElectricSaint_) June 9, 2024
‘Coming of age’ is a phrase that comes up a number of instances when speaking Crescent County, and the way this descriptor is usually utilized to youngsters in highschool making an attempt to win over crushes or nail excessive grades earlier than making use of to varsity. However you usually neglect that folks of their twenties and thirties are nonetheless going via the same journey as they attempt to make associates, fall in love, or discover a craft that’s really their very own. Hollinrake hopes to create a sport that isn’t simply exploring a magical witch-tech world full of motorbrooms and sapphic flirtation, however to depict a spot the place you possibly can really feel misplaced and located abruptly.
Since its reveal, Crescent County has been described by followers in quite a lot of foolish little methods. A number of the potential titles embrace Broom Stranding, Kiki’s Supply Service: Turbo Version, and Sapphic Loopy Taxi. Folks actually took the gays on brooms factor and ran with it.
“I’m actually fascinating to find a group, determining what you owe it, and what you must resist once you f**okay up, however how one can come again to that place as properly, “Hollinrake continues. “I believe [there’s value] in having joyful, heat, and chaotic experiences however at all times asking questions on how one can take possession or your behaviour, not run away from a mistake, and the way these items could make a spot really feel extra vital. How do you discover your property via that?”
Hollindrake and I are related in that we battle to create artwork with out emotional that means, and that may usually drive us to carry new issues to life whether or not we realise it or not. Who you’re, all you’ve been via, and what your targets are will affect the artwork you conjure up. It’s all over Crescent County, even when it nonetheless manages to be a enjoyable, bubbly, and beautiful sport about delivering packages, smooching women, and adorning your charming little island flat.
Crescent County is at present in improvement for PC and Xbox.
