Dressmaker available now on Steam!

Rose: What was the inspiration behind Dressmaker?

Dressmaker grew out of Sabrina’s deep passion for historical dressmaking and costume. Jonathan has always been inspired by how excited she could get about tiny details in costumes that he would never have noticed himself, and through her discovered a massive community of people who love making clothing online.
There weren’t many games actually serving that audience. Their aim was to make something that went beyond a traditional dress-up game and captured the creative process of actually making a garment.

Rose: What were the biggest challenges during development?

Technically, the dressmaking systems were quite challenging. Sara has spoken about how tricky it was to make 2D pattern pieces correspond convincingly to 3D garments, while keeping the meshes highly optimised and avoiding excessive UV distortion. The team also wanted pieces to retain a handmade illustrative quality, which meant they couldn’t just rely on realistic cloth simulation. All of that was hand-crafted to get the right look.
The other challenge was scope - the dev team was small, and while they could lean on a wider Free Lives support system, we decided on a deliberately limited timeframe, and were quite disciplined about what could be realistically achieved.

Rose: How did the team decide on the art style?

Sabrina had quite a firm grasp of what she wanted the game to look like, and would be ready with reference images, often rooted in real history. Since the team aimed to make the game within one year, the art was mostly 2D and illustrative because this felt like a way to make the most expressive art in the shortest time. 3D elements were used for the parts of the game that strictly needed to be 3D, and showing 3D dresses was important for making the game distinctive from paper doll fashion games. What remained was to try and marry these two mediums to make them feel as if they belonged together.

Rose: How do you balance difficulty for different types of players?

There was a cognisant attempt to make the dressmaking process feel authentic without requiring players to have any real-world sewing knowledge. We had a large cohort of playtesters from very early on in development and that definitely helped with balancing the systems. The requirements for dress commissions are such that they are actually quite easy, so that the dresses can be as simple or as complex as the player wants them to be.

Rose: What has been the most surprising feedback from players so far?

Before Dressmaker launched, many people we spoke to thought of the game as serving a niche audience. But the game has appealed very broadly. Jonathan always had a sense that players enjoy self-expression through things like character customization, and now that’s been proven. It’s also quite funny to see reviews from people who very clearly had no prior interest in dressmaking.

Rose: What is the team currently working on post-launch?

We will continue updating the game with new content, although we’re deliberately not getting too specific about the exact roadmap yet, because we don’t want to promise things before we’re certain we can deliver them!

Rose: Any advice for other indie developers starting out?

I’d suggest making lots of small game prototypes, releasing them for free and making some social media content about them to see if there’s an audience that cares (if they don’t play it when it’s free, then they definitely won’t pay for it!), and I’d be very, very wary of committing to finishing a project that didn’t have a very strong indication that it would be commercially rewarding. But the great thing about being an indie developer is that if anyone has the license not to follow convention, it’s you! It’s really important that whatever it is is distinctive, and making something based on your personal tastes and experiences I think increases the chance of separating your game from what’s already out there.

Rose: What is next for the studio after these updates if we can get a teaser?

Dressmaker isn’t finished with us yet! There is more content planned, and next year we’ll continue to expand on the Dressmaker universe.

Rose: Finally, the question we ask every developer: After everything you’ve told us, can you officially confirm that your game is, in fact, probably a game? Why should we believe you?

We can confirm that Dressmaker is, with a reasonably high degree of confidence, probably a game. Our strongest evidence is that people have been buying it and playing it, and from the reviews - clearly enjoyed the experience. We assume this is what games are supposed to do…but if you remain skeptical, you can test it yourself - there are several hundred fabrics and accessories available as evidence :)