Off the Shelf Media

Behind every great and well-loved game came a moment of inspiration; a point in time when an individual stopped and thought to themselves: “Maybe I could do this.” 

Indie game designers often come from a variety of backgrounds. A few might have an educational background in videogame development, but many more find themselves learning as they go. Few, in our experience, though, have a background in coral farming. 

Meet Ryan Marchant, the creator behind the buzzy new indie title, Tideborne Haven. We were fortunate enough to speak with Marchant recently on his work bringing a game from an idea and a dream to Steam. 

How did you get started on your developer journey?

I was never meant to make a game, but sometimes life has plans for you that you’d never expect.

My girlfriend is diagnosed with an autoimmune condition. Although in the UK they help with funding some medication, the medication that is provided isn’t very effective.

There is a medication called Biologics that can give her a normal life; however, it costs £1,000 a week, and I simply couldn’t afford it.

Something inside me broke. For the first time, I felt like I couldn’t provide. I started thinking,
“What can I do to make an extra £1,000 a week?”

After a while, I just happened to be watching TV. There were two consecutive videos I watched on YouTube. One was with Virgin Group Founder Richard Branson about taking risks in business, and the second one was with ConcernedApe regarding how he started.

That’s when it clicked: I could make a video game… I was wrong…

I’m not really sure if you can consider me a developer. I get imposter syndrome when people say that.

If people’s vision of a developer is someone who is sitting behind a computer typing code, that isn’t me.

My initial attempts failed, but I kept trying, and I realised you don’t have to do everything yourself, so I started to hire people who are experts at what they do.

For 14 years, I was an operations manager, where I needed to organise large teams of people to achieve one big goal. That’s where my expertise is, and that’s what I’m doing here. Having said that, I have been diagnosed with ADHD, and I strongly believe that it gives you a creative edge.

Therefore, I am the person behind the aquatic concept, characters, story, dialogue, quests, items, etc., and up until this point, all of the funding.

I’m not sure that qualifies me for the title of developer, though, because the people I work with are far more talented than me.

In addition to working on the game, you also have years of experience in coral farming. What challenges have you faced while bringing science and reality into a videogame? 

Honestly, the biggest challenge has been deciding where realism needs to end and fun needs to begin.

I’ve been growing coral for almost 20 years, and real coral farming can be surprisingly slow.

Some corals take months or even years to reach a size where you can propagate them. That’s okay in real life, but it wouldn’t make for a very enjoyable game if players had to wait a long time to see results.

A lot of the development process has been about finding the balance between science, fun, and giving too much information.

Many corals have complicated names, like Acropora or Catalaphyllia, which may confuse some people, whereas calling something a Staghorn Coral is easier to understand.

Although based on some real scientific practices, the game isn’t meant to be scientifically accurate. For example, the island is based roughly on Indonesia, but it has macaws, which are from South America.

People have commented on this already, and I point them in the direction that Davy Jones and mermaids are also in the game, so macaws are the least of people’s worries.

The goal isn’t to create a perfect simulation of reef keeping, but to help players connect with the ocean and understand why these ecosystems are worth protecting.

If someone finishes the game having had fun, but also wants to learn more about the natural world afterwards, then I think I’ve succeeded.

The game will feature approximately 40 islanders that players can engage with as they build a new life on the island. Which characters are you most excited for players to meet? 

Lira Salt is hands down one of my favourite characters. She was the first character I started working on, and her character description is:

No one really knows how she got her ship… some say she won it in a rigged card game, others that she’s the daughter of Davy Jones himself…

The one thing everyone knows for sure, though, is that she’s far more dangerous than she looks.”

She is the only female pirate on the crew, and the other pirates are very loyal to her. She’s also incredibly fun to write dialogue for.

If you catch her at the medical centre, there’s a chance she will say this: “Live on a ship with ten men long enough, and you’re bound to catch something eventually.”

Characters are the fun part of me, although their sprites, names and even genders are different, many of the characters in the game have the personalities of the people in my real life, including my sisters, friends and even grandparents. 

One aspect of Tideborne Haven’s gameplay is the inclusion of choices and consequences. Why did you decide to build this feature into the game? 

Life, and to some extent, all games are just a set of choices and consequences, really. This one is just about the environment, and to some extent, it reflects the world we live in today. 

If you want to do deals with the shady businessmen, just don’t be surprised if you spend the rest of the season cleaning up the mess. 

It’s important to me that there is risk and reward, but it’s not guaranteed. 

There are some people who will take the money from the businessman, and there will be no consequences at all. That way, the player won’t know if they have made the right choice until it’s too late, and there is always a chance they will be rewarded for the risk. 

Recently, you launched a Kickstarter page to help fund the launch of your upcoming game, Tideborne Haven. What has been the most surprising lesson you’ve learned so far in your journey?

That your visions can become a reality no matter where you are in your life, or what experience you have… but only if you really, really want them to.

It’s easy to think of an idea; it’s much harder to implement it.

People around you don’t always see the same vision as you. Some of them will be negative, others won’t be interested, and some simply won’t understand the concept.

What I’ve learned more than anything is that you need to have a sustained level of self-belief for months, and the ability to block out any negative noise, while simultaneously having no proof that your idea is going to work.

This is the toughest part that people who want to make a game really face.

Everything else can be overcome relatively easily if you can master your own thoughts. It’s not until the wishlists on Steam start coming in that you begin to get confirmation that what you are working on might be the thing that changes your life. 

After six weeks, I’m both incredibly proud, but also a little shocked, to say that Tideborne Haven has just now hit 41,000 wishlists

Fans online have noted that Tideborne Haven’s design has similarities to ConcernedApe’s farming simulator, Stardew Valley. What would you like fans to understand most about how Tideborne Haven’s style and gameplay differ?

The response has certainly been mixed. The majority of people absolutely love the concept of the game and are even paying in advance to support its development, whereas others have [not been so kind.]

You get all kinds of people on the internet, I guess…

These are the facts: I absolutely love Stardew Valley. I think I’m 300–400 hours into it by now. Is the art style similar? Yes. 

In no way would I ever want to annoy ConcernedApe, and I have reached out to him, but I’m sure he gets thousands of messages.

I have tried playing other similar games, but after a couple of hours, I give up because lots of them are the same and I get bored…

You get given a packet of seeds, some tools, you spend hours watering them.. and as you progress, you get more stuff, money, bigger houses, etc.

Some of these games are so similar that you can predict it will rain on day three…

When I first started this project, I wrote right in the middle of my development board: “It must not give people that feeling.”

What I mean by that is I don’t mind if it looks similar, but its soul has to be different. You can feel if the people working on a game care.

Some of my favourite parts are the tiny details I’m putting in that no one will ever notice. For example, the rusted pocket watch that can be found in the ocean has its time stopped at 2:20 a.m., which is when the Titanic sank.

There have to be some similar mechanics in this type of game (mining, fishing, marriage, etc.), but I don’t want the player to feel like they know what is coming next, and I want it to feel different.

As a little nod to all these other games, at the beginning the player is given a packet of “waterlogged seeds”. The NPC says, “They are no use here because nothing grows, but I’ve heard it’s tradition in some places to give these as a gift…what a weird tradition…”

There is no traditional farming on the island, no farm animals, and although there is money in the game, it’s not overly important to the overall gameplay.

Instead, the player will collect dying coral, stress test it for resilience in a lab and plant the hardier corals back into the ocean to repopulate the reef, while also rehabilitating injured wildlife.

I picked pixel art for the simple reason that I thought it would be easier to work with and because I grew up when the only graphics were pixel art, so it gives me nostalgia.

The character sprites are in a similar style, but none of them is identical. If you look closely, the world itself is probably not as close as people think.

It’s worth taking a closer look at the same objects in both games: a palm tree, a chair, a beehive, even the buildings themselves. The colour palette for both games is also very different.

I feel there are two things at play here. Stardew has an amazing modding community, so people’s memory of the base game might not be exactly what they remember, but also, unless you’re comparing them directly side by side, our brains often remember things differently from what they actually are, and some people who originally were annoyed took a second look and came back changing their mind.

Your current goal is to release alpha access to the game by Q3 2027. What should fans be on the lookout for in the meantime?

There’s a delicate line between keeping people updated and sharing too much…I usually fall into the second category, which sometimes means I give away more than I should, but I’m going to try not to this time because I don’t want to spoil it for people.

What I can say is I’ll be doing regular updates on Kickstarter, which aren’t related to the story, to keep people up to speed with the game’s progress. 

Cozy gamer fans, you can now wishlist the game on Steam, and if you’d like to support the launch, you can go to the Kickstarter page to learn more. For updates, be sure to follow @tideborne_haven on Instagram and check out TideborneHaven on YouTube! 

We want to thank Ryan for taking the time to speak with us. In the meantime, we’ll be patiently waiting for the game’s anticipated launch!