If you’ve ever spent time in Melbourne, Australia, you will undoubtedly have heard a local explain their “four seasons in one day” lifestyle. Perhaps you were told to pack a raincoat and some heavy-duty sunscreen, or warned of hail on a sunny day. This typical Melbournian weather chatter is something the team at Paper House revelled in when developing their cosy god game Wood and Weather, imbuing it with a distinctly local feel.
“What makes the weather interesting is how humans react and interpret it,” says game director Terry Burdak, who took an introductory course at the Bureau of Meteorology during Wood and Weather’s development. “I wanted to create a game where you get to see a bunch of little people respond to the change of weather in unexpected ways and how it can influence their lives.”
Set in a tactile toybox world, you embody a floating ethereal hand that can manipulate objects across a variety of lumber-based locations to solve puzzles for the world’s Playmobil-esque inhabitants. Most of them have gotten themselves into awkward jams that require a little bit of divine intervention, often leading to a humorous, deadpan conclusion. “Because the little people who live in this world aren’t fully capable of doing what you can do, it makes the things you do seem a lot more impressive than they actually are,” Burdak says. “So things like moving a block, squeezing a cloud, turning a crank or throwing an object is a flex.” As you interact with the townsfolk, you’ll learn more about the hopes and dreams of the little locals, and earn “Inspiration”, which allows you to alter the atmosphere, summoning heatwaves, snowfall, thunderstorms and even hay fever.
Yet despite its playful mechanics and approachable aesthetic, Paper House isn’t afraid to address the climate change-shaped elephant in the room. “I don’t really think there is any responsible way for us to realistically make a game about weather and climate without addressing environmental consciousness in some capacity,” says Burdak. “We do have plans to really explore what these environmental impacts have on the lives of the little people who live in the game, and hopefully, players can relate and reflect a bit on their own lives and their role in all this.”
Paper House didn’t set out to make a didactic game, but they do want Wood and Weather’s themes to be digested by its players over time. “Just because we might be approaching it from a playful angle doesn’t mean we’re taking the piss,” Burdak explains. “Human-driven climate change is something they’re all responsible for and are living through, so how we kind of make jokes about it or the types of messaging in the game is something we are really considerate about. Well, at least we try to be.”
Wood and Weather’s unique stylistic choices shine through in the Steam demo, with the wooden world delivering a hefty dose of childlike wonder as you conjure snowmen and snatch coffees with your phantom appendage. Burdak was primarily inspired by wooden toys, alluding to their distinctive, organic nature. “They’re weird and clunky, sometimes repurposed, painted on and feel a little more primitive,” Burdak says. “Generally, when someone is looking for a wooden toy it’s for a reason … they really promote imaginative play and creation, which I think a lot of other toys don’t.”
