In nearly 17 years at Valve, Wood helped build and ship the company’s most notable titles, including Left 4 Dead, Left 4 Dead 2, Portal 2, CS:GO and both episodes of Half-Life 2. He was a founding member of the CS:GO project and worked on that series for six years; he was pivotal in crafting Portal 2’s co-op mode, and he created choreography and combat scenes in Half-Life and Left 4 Dead. Level design was one of his specialties.

You have my attention.

“It really is more about cozy exploration,” Wood told Engadget. “The game has aspects of platforming, but it’s very light platforming. It’s more about exploring vertically, and exploring nooks and crannies. I’ve done a lot of things throughout my career, but one of the things I spent a lot of time doing was level design in video games, so I have a lot of personal interest in creating spaces that feel fun to explore, to sort of poke around in.”

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Been following Wood’s progress on this since he was doing initial prototyping, it’s coming along really well!

I tried the demo, but it suffers from the same issue that tight urban 3rd person view games have: A camera that jumps a lot when swinging it around due to obstacles and walls.

I enjoyed the demo they put out for this, definitely nailed the cozy exploration aspect. Looking forward to picking it up when it launches.