Interview with Joseph Knight from Mudcat Games about Flowers of Tipmoore

Sometimes the best game concepts are born right at the kitchen table. For the new cozy game Flowers of Tipmoore, it all started with a simple sigh: "I wish there was a game where you could just make bouquets." That wish from tech lead Joseph Knight's girlfriend became the starting point for a unique project that goes far beyond your average shop simulator.

In Flowers of Tipmoore, Mudcat Games combines an innovative 3D bouquet editor with a beautiful open world that reacts to your actions. If you harvest too many roses, it has direct consequences for the island's ecosystem. I was immediately fascinated by this blend of creativity and ecological awareness, so I reached out to the developers. In this interview, Joseph talks about the technical challenges behind the editor, the influence of music on the atmosphere, and how the island's characters literally grew around the flowers.

Joseph, how did the idea of combining a 3D bouquet editor with an open world exploration of Tipmoore Island come to life?

Originally the idea for a 3d bouquet maker came from my girlfriend, as one day she just said out loud "man I wish there was a game where you could just make bouquets, and a year or so later, here we are! The idea of combining it with exploration came about as when we started working on the game, there was an abundance of shop sims/tycoons being released that we wanted to separate ourselves from. Also the fact that Finn (the art lead is an environment artist, so doing this project would allow him to build his skills and portfolio.

The bouquet editor allows players to drag and arrange flowers in 3D. What was the biggest technical challenge in developing this specific tool?

The biggest technical challenge was making sure the controls always "feel" right to the player. An example of this is making sure that the flower rotates in the correct direction depending on what side of the gizmo the the player is facing. (if they click and drag like / on one side, to achieve the same result on the other side, they would expect to drag like \)

Overharvesting flowers impacts the island’s ecosystem. Could you explain how this mechanic works and what consequences the player might face?

Essentially, since all the flowers are co-existing in their respective environments, if you overharvest one species, others may take their place and become more dominant. For example, if you harvest all of the roses in the forest, the primroses will become more dominant, or if you pick all the flowers in the forest, they will take much longer to regrow.

We didn't want to explicitly make the player face "consequences" per se, as it is a cozy game at the end of the day; we more so wanted to make the player aware of their actions through gameplay, so they could potentially take that into the real world without realising it. For example, if the player needs dandelions to progress the game, but they've been repeatedly harvesting all of them, they'll either have to wait longer until one spawns, or use items like fertiliser to help them grow in their respective areas. Another example might be that since you may have picked all the flowers in the forest, the forest tribe becomes sad and won't have any quests for you to progress the game with until you fix the ecosystem.

Every islander has a personal storyline unlocked through quests and specific bouquets. How did you match the characters' personalities with their preferred flowers?

Sort of unintentionally, we didn't match the characters to the flowers, we created characters around the flowers. So the storyline about two lovers involves a lot of roses, and the quests for the character who likes dandelions involves a bit of travelling (as dandelions can grow in many places irl). Later on down the line, we are considering using different flower languages from the real world to inspire the different quests for each biome. (E.g. the forest tribe might use an equivalent of the Victorian flower language, but the desert tribe might be more similar to the Japanese flower language.)

You describe the game as a cozy experience. Which elements in the design or audio were essential for you to create that specific relaxing atmosphere?

The stylised environment leans into this quite well. Having a place with no bright lights, large outlines or super-intense textures can be quite calming for a player to experience. The music is great too (shoutout to Kyle Misko), creating a nice ambiance for the player to sit down and spend 20 minutes making a bouquet without realising it.

Flowers of Tipmoore will be released on Steam. There is no release date yet. To support Mudcat Games please add Flowers of Tipmoore to your wishlist.