Hi everyone, and happy new year!

It has been a real pleasure to share some bits of the story behind Toads of the Bayou in the last log, and I have been really excited to continue! Last time, I talked about why we decided to go with toads, and how the characters have been created. The thing I would love cover now is the setting. Although a swampy environment seems like the ideal place for a toad, the Southern Gothic style we chose for our bayou is a mix of many references.

Actually, contrary to the toads, the bayou was in the game since the beginning. The idea of a city building game taking place in a Cajun atmosphere sounded really charming to me. As a French person, I suppose that the Cajun culture sounds like a parallel timeline to me, like cousins from the other side of the globe, that you share a legacy with but have never met yet. I also felt like this was the perfect terrain for a mildly spooky setting. After all, abandoned Victorian mansions, decaying gardens and crazy hillbillies are the starter pack for any spooky tale. And those elements strongly resonate with the Scooby-Doo addict in me.

However, the starting idea I had got shaped by many other elements through the development of the visual identity of the game. One thing that I particularly wanted was the constant night. Or more exactly, I wanted the sunlight to never come through the peaks of the large cypresses. The Bayou I had in mind is an unwelcoming place, where survival is not granted. I wanted to use the darkness of the night to emphasize the cosiness of the candle lights inside the cabins. This feeling of cosiness, I felt it for the very first time as a kid, playing World of Warcraft, when I left the Elwynn Forest and entered Duskwood. I will always remember the sheer excitement of exiting the kind of cliché fantasy forest to discover these dark, corrupted woods, where the few inhabitants must carry torches at any time of the day and night.

The last thing I wanted to cover today is the voodoo theme. This was introduced in the project relatively late, after further researches. For a long time, the magic in the game was simply...magic. It is only when we started to gather visual references that we came across the voodoo theming, which really quickly felt very logical to add to our evolving recipe. We discovered that originally, voodoo is an African religion. But because of colonization, voodoo was introduced in America, and especially in the Southern States of America. This branch of the voodoo culture evolved differently from its African roots, to become what we call today the Louisiana Voodoo. The Voodoo culture and history are a truly fascinating subject, that I have found a genuine interest in, since we decided to include it in the project. I’m really happy that we decided to dive into this idea and go beyond the simplistic cliché of the voodoo doll. This incredibly rich culture nurtured the game’s content and gave an incredible strength to our universe.

Many game elements "clicked" and resonated with the Voodoo theme. For example, in Toads of the Bayou, players will be able to gather fetish objects, carved with Veves, to gain new abilities. Veves are symbols, mostly drawn during voodoo rituals to serve as a path for the spirits. They have a very rich shape language, that was incredibly interesting to analyse and replicate. The design of many enemies also come from the elements we have observed in books and pictures: ropes, needles, gris-gris and amulets, but also grimmer elements such as skulls and scarifications! For inspiration, we also researched famous figures, used real personalities and fictional characters. These include voodoo practitioner Marie Laveau, and various Loas (spirits) like Papa Legba, Maman Brigitte, Baron Samedi; the main antagonist of Toads of the Bayou.

This is everything I wanted to cover on today’s log. It is very rewarding to go back and retrace all the steps that led us where we are now. We quickly tend to forgot how much the game has evolved since its original form, and I’m really proud to look at what we have been able to put together in Toads of the Bayou.

Please let us know in the comments if you have any questions! We also have a Discord server, where you can follow the latest updates on the game!

Cheers!