Meet the Southwoods Team
So after a pretty long absence and period of slow development, entirely due to Lydia getting a Real Job™ (and subsequently quitting said job because of all the AI bullshit that was conspicuously glossed over in the interview), we're now back on our bullshit. Hooray!
We're making this game called Southwoods. It's an online co-op immersive sim cosmic horror choose-your-own-adventure with an absurd sense of humor and barfight style combat with improvised weapons.
You've gone on a road trip with a group of friends and ran out of gas along the way, even though you were sure you had enough. Only just managing to coast on fumes, you park up at an eerie roadside motel and stay the night. When you wake, a choking fog has surrounded the entire area and the surrounding woods feel different than they did before. Adventure forth and explore the area, and you'll find yourself pulled into one of many different story branches. Just be sure to keep the motel's bill paid, because it doesn't take kindly to guests who overstay their welcome.
Meet the Team
Lydia
She's been making videogames since she was about ten years old, getting her start with Klik & Play. Eventually moving on to C++ and then C#, and having a dull software engineering career inbetween, she's kept making games and has published a few on steam already, mostly because she just can't do anything else.
Southwoods is born from her love of immersive sims and horror games, and frustration with contemporary gambling-crafting game design trends. Why is it always collecting 1000 red cube to create four green cube, or picking one of three random options to get a 0.005% bonus to your Flatulence stat? Why can't you just pick up and throw that brick? Why can't you kick down the door, beat a monster up with a fish, or flush the toilet before you stick your hand in?? In Southwoods, you and a group of friends have the freedom to be the unhinged disasters you've always wanted to be, and the driving ethos behind the designs is "because it's funny or cool".
Find her over at https://bsky.app/profile/gothpink.bsky.social
This is all her fault
Mimi
She's been working on Revenant, a retro-style cyberpunk vampire animation and videogame. Lydia approached her about programming Revenant's game, and offered a sort of trade - to both help one another with their respective games, Mimi doing the graphics and Lydia doing the programming - and it turns out they share a lot of design sensibilities as well as both having an unhinged sense of humor.
Characters from Revenant are guest-starring in Southwoods, and our thinking is they'll be available to players who own both games, as a little bonus.
Check out her socials and other projects here linktr.ee/luigi_yagami and consider subscribing to Revenant's patreon too.
Lucca
Lucca is a gamedev goth baddie who does old-school level design and production for games. She started as a modder back in the 2000s, got her first job working on Wolfenstein, and most recently shipped Pacific Drive. She's helping out with the level design and production on Southwoods.
You can find her various socials over at https://linktr.ee/spookalucca
Marcel
Our Audio Engineer, and an IRL friend of Lydia's since high school - and now a regular drinking buddy. He's done sound for Film and TV on some pretty high profile projects, and has always wanted to do games but hadn't had the opportunity until Lydia roped him into this insane project and has taught him how to build things.
He's extremely offline, despite being a natural poster, and so Lydia will often steal valour by posting the bullshit he says when they're hanging out drinking.
Lexi
Alexandra Stronach (Kāi Tahu, Kāti Huirapa) is a writer, editor, and cryptid responsible for creating The Dawnhounds, published by Saga Press, available wherever good books are sold.
A recent addition to the team, and another one of Lydia's real-life friends, she's had her arm twisted into helping out with the writing and worldbuilding.
You may find her by going to an abandoned cabin in the woods and playing a C sharp on a flute made from human bone, or alternatively, at https://bsky.app/profile/understatesmen.bsky.social
You can expect more updates throughout the year, with more in-depth detail about the world and it's inhabitants, and even some dev streams! We'll have a playable alpha build available soon for backers, when it's a little less busted than it is right now.
In the meantime, Join our Discord server, where there's a bunch of public channels, and backers get to see concept art and even more nonsense:
https://discord.gg/HH2DDnTmKx
Thanks for reading, we'll be back again soon with more nonsense!