How it all began

So where did toGather start?

Where the seeds of so many games begin - a discarded jam idea.

My friends and I in Coalesce (the fantastic jam team that I've been a part of since our winning game 'Totzilla') decided to enter a 'black and white' games jam. The game was to be entirely monochrome - a fun artistic challenge. Before the theme was announced, we began throwing ideas around, and came up with a broad concept for what we were calling 'the forest game' - a game about bringing light to villagers scattered in the woods. 

We ended up taking an entirely different angle for the jam, but the forest game stuck with me and after speaking to my team, we agreed that I could take the idea forward as a personal project.

I'd already drawn up some character concepts, made some moodboards, and from there I began writing a broad plot:

'In the woods, there is something in the darkness - a creature, a myth? - that silently takes those without light, and makes them disappear. 

Years ago, the people came together to construct the Centre, a source of renewable energy tapped deep into the earth. It was to be a source of continuous light, so that none would be lost to the darkness again. However, though the reasons are not remembered, but the community fractured and fragmented. The villagers scattered into their separate homes in the woods, taking their lamps, and the Centre fell into disrepair. Now, each has been burning their way through their remaining batteries, and soon the lights will fail. You have been working with your close friend The Engineer to help restore the Centre, and now that it is ready you must try and persuade the villagers to return to it and find safety and community once again. But each has their own baggage, fears and emotions, that have prevented them from leaving the solitude of their homes.'

And so it began...