Brisbane-based indie studio Sagestone Games has revealed the Steam demo for their open-world survival crafting game, Delverium. The game launched on February 7 and has ‘Very Positive’ scores on Steam.
In Delverium, players can team up with up to three friends to explore a vast, procedurally generated world. From gathering resources and building shelters to farming, recruiting NPCs, and crafting, the game offers a rich survival sandbox experience. Adventurous players can also brave the dangers of dungeon crawling to uncover the game’s deepest secrets—if they are courageous enough.
From Cozy Fans to Survival Fans
First Comics News wrote with Scott Lowther (aka Skoddle), the primary developer of Delverium, to delve deeper behind some of the choices and community of the game.
What inspired you to create this sandbox game, and how did the initial concept evolve during development?
My family and I spent a lot of time playing similar games together, especially Terraria and Stardew Valley. We had so much fun, and we all had our own play styles, and I wanted to create something we could all play together that combined our favourite aspects of the games we loved. Delverium is a mix of some of the sandbox fun of Terraria with the top-down viewpoint and farming fun of Stardew Valley.
While staying true to the original vision of Delverium, there has been lots of great player feedback and minor influences from other games that have helped shape Delverium along the way. Delverium will continue to evolve throughout development and beyond the initial release.
What unique features or mechanics do you feel set your game apart from other sandbox titles?
A key focus of Delverium is to play together with friends and family. Split-screen, Gamepad support and the ability to use whatever playstyle you like lends itself to playing Delverium together with your family, while each having fun doing whatever you enjoy the most. Some players will prefer to build a settlement and farm near the safer starting area, while other players will enjoy exploring the large and mysterious map, finding new gear, and unlocking the secrets of Delverium.
In addition to supporting varied playstyles, the full game will expand on the Demo experience with a larger map, more content/ features, and some very interesting game lore explaining the world of Delverium, how the faults came to be, and the players role in the world.
Can you share some of the biggest challenges your team faced during the development process and how you overcame them?
Trying to balance the game to support different playstyles has been a big design challenge. Some players are not interested in fighting enemies and want to progress game content without much combat, while other players desire lots of risk and danger and the rewards that come with it. This is something that is constantly iterated on, and player feedback has been critical in helping to find the right balance so far.
Another large challenge is doing most of the development work myself. We are a small team, but I am doing all the design and art myself, in addition to most of the code and a lot of the non-dev side of things like marketing and business. This comes with a lot of challenges, but the advice and support of great friends, family and the Delverium community helps to overcome these challenges.
How did you approach balancing freedom of creativity for players by providing structure or goals within the game?
Players have the freedom to do whatever they like in Delverium, and the map/content is designed in a way to allow natural discovery and content progression. Discovery is a big part of Delverium: from unlocking crafting recipes to map exploration, it is designed in a way that allows players to naturally discover the game content at their own pace with minimal structure and guidance.
While this works great for many players, some of the player feedback has asked for more guidance for players, and we have plans to do this through NPC quests, game lore and other features planned for the full game release. This will be designed to fit in with the natural flow of discovery as much as possible, so players who do not like as much guidance can still discover content on their own.
What has the player feedback been like so far, and has it influenced any plans for future updates or features?
Player feedback has been amazing and already invaluable. I like to view as many videos, streams, and feedback as possible to identify points of friction, player expectations, and how to make Delverium more engaging for everyone.
The early demo feedback has helped fast-track a few demo updates to add missing features and improvements many players expected, including the ability to sleep through the night, reduce enemy spawn rates in settlements, improve controls, and add cloud saves. There is still so much great feedback that hasn’t been implemented yet, but much of it has been added to our task lists for future.
Can you tell us about any memorable moments or unexpected outcomes during playtesting or early player engagement?
Probably the biggest unexpected outcome is the broad range of players that have enjoyed the playtests and demo. As a developer, it is hard to know what players will think of your game, so it has been rewarding to see so many players, from Cozy fans to Survival fans, having so much fun.
Other memorable moments are seeing streamers spend so long playing the game. One Streamer played the demo for over 17 hours in total, which not only provided great feedback, but also helped uncover a super terrible bug! It’s a little funny whenever you think you are on top of any serious bugs only to see something new pop up unexpectedly in a Stream! I have found and fixed quite a few bugs from watching streams and videos of Delverium.
What were some of the key artistic and narrative choices you made for the game, and how do they enhance the overall experience?
I have a programming background with no real art experience, so the art style is something I felt I could learn myself and has been influenced by some of my favourite games. My art skills have come a long way from where I started, but I don’t think they compare with the awesome art of my inspirations. Nevertheless, I am still happy with the overall art quality and consistency, how it all comes together, and feel like it suits the gameplay perfectly. When players see the viewpoint and art style, they instantly understand what core mechanics to expect and how the controls will work.
Audio is also a big part of the experience, and my friend Jeff van Dyck (Unpacking, Alien Isolation, Total War Series) provides the music and audio direction for Delverium. This is something I couldn’t do by myself and am very lucky Jeff can bring his world-class audio expertise to Delverium.
Looking ahead, what are your hopes for the game’s community, and how do you plan to support its growth over time?
Building and supporting a community is very important for shaping the direction of Delverium. I hope the Delverium community continues to grow and provide great feedback and suggestions.
I think the best way to grow your game’s community is to sincerely listen to player and community feedback with the intent to make a better game. Even if some suggestions don’t fit the overall vision, it helps to understand player expectations, what they love, and what is falling short. We will add options where needed so players can customize games further for their own preferences and plan to add modding support before release.
Be sure to follow Delverium on Bluesky!
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