How Grand Theft Auto, Zelda, and a Southwest Pacific nation inspired Tchia

You mightiness look astatine Tchia and callback Link’s glider successful The Legend of Zelda: Breath of nan Wild. You mightiness besides beryllium reminded of nan unfastened h2o sailing from The Wind Waker. But developer Awaceb co-founder Phil Crifo thinks there’s a amended comparison: Grand Theft Auto.

“Even though it’s very different successful position of reside and theme, I deliberation nan measurement [GTA developer Rockstar] is capable to build fictional worlds based connected existent places, and return those existent places and make them get nan principle of a spot built into a video crippled world, has been a existent inspiration for nan measurement we treated our rendition of New Caledonia,” Crifo told Polygon.

Tchia, nan caller open-world crippled astir a kid exploring nan wilderness, is group successful a fictional type of New Caledonia, a mini land federation successful nan Southwest Pacific. It’s wherever Crifo and respective different members of nan improvement squad grew up; each nan sound actors are section to nan island, too. Rockstar has agelong created fictional stand-ins for existent places, for illustration Liberty City (New York), San Andreas (California), Vice City (Miami), aliases Los Santos (Los Angeles). For nan developers astatine Awaceb, making an open-world playground meant drafting inspiration from Rockstar’s expertise to transmute existent surface science into fun.

“When you grew up playing GTA pinch your friends, everyone had that infinitesimal erstwhile you’re like, ‘Can you ideate if GTA was taking spot successful our hometown?’” Crifo said. “We did a small spot of that pinch Tchia.”

Instead of supplier dealers and guns, however, Tchia is astir nan titular kid and her expertise to toggle shape into thing successful her situation — rocks, a camera, a bird, aliases a portion of flaming coal. Sort of for illustration if Grand Theft Auto 5’s Trevor Philips could move into a shot bat aliases a stained T-shirt.

Crifo said creating New Caledonia successful Tchia was little astir nailing nan geography, and much astir invoking nan tone of nan archipelago. “What’s nan vibe? What’s it for illustration surviving there? What are group like? What are nan nitty gritty specifications that springiness it a smell, a taste. It’s very tricky to do,” Crifo said. Tchia is filtered done nan lens of a imagination puerility successful New Caledonia, dripping pinch nan islands’ civilization and influences. It’s escapade and exploration and nostalgia wrapped up successful a singular culture.

Image: Awaceb/Kepler Interactive

It’s that puerility consciousness of wonder, then, that evokes nan Legend of Zelda comparison. Even though Crifo said he’s not a Legend of Zelda superfan, Breath of nan Wild sparked ideas for Tchia’s development, for illustration its choreographed landmarks aliases its glider, which allows Tchia to float complete immense swaths of land. Awaceb is simply a squad of 12, truthful achieving nan standard aliases grandeur of Breath of nan Wild wasn’t an option. But it still manages to evoke a beardown consciousness of place, nonetheless.

Tchia’s defining characteristic is its tactile nature, Crifo said. You tin person Tchia touch things, prime them up, propulsion them. But you tin besides go them, and consciousness nan weight of an object’s movement. This shape-shifting complements nan euphony and instruments successful Tchia, which usage existent chords successful hit minigames. Awaceb wanted players to beryllium capable to consciousness nan principle of nan place; Crifo pointed to climbing coconut trees. There’s a weight to Tchia arsenic nan branches sway and dip nan higher she gets. You tin consciousness nan threat and fling erstwhile she uses nan character arsenic a catapult to get astir nan world. (Coconut character climbing, Crifo said, is simply a large point successful New Caledonia; everyone’s sewage their ain technique.)

“Miyamoto ever said that Zelda stems from his childhood, exploring caves and roaming astir nan wilderness,” Crifo said. “Tchia was built pinch nan very aforesaid inspiration down it. We person akin roots successful that sense, which grew into very akin plants.”