GALACTIC GETAWAY

Galactic Getaway, developed and published by AKREW, is a cute life sim that is the unexpected combination of two great titles: Animal Crossing and Mario Party. Although it remains a mystery how the story might unfold, the team at Akrew was very excited to showcase features that set them apart from other life sims.

Like most life sims, you customize your character head to toe: players can get pretty creative with different clothing options, hairstyles and colors, and accessories. After customizing your character, you customize the galaxy around you and decorate your resort. Flex those interior design muscles and have your home match your personality! 

Once you have created the ever-progressing masterpiece that is your home, invite your friends! Show off your masterpiece, run around with your friends, or just sit by the beach and watch the galaxy alongside your best buds. 

Once the relaxing is over and you and your friends are up for some competition, head to the mini-games! It is unknown how many different mini-games will be available at this point, but the mini-games I was able to experience at PAX will surely encourage virtual hang-out sessions with your friends. 

The galaxy is yours to decorate, just don’t forget to invite your friends over.

Galactic Getaway is anticipated for a December 2023 release on Steam. Wishlisting for Galactic Getaway is currently available.

Taz: All right, Jonathan, here we are at PAX East, last day. How are you feeling?

Jonathan: Feeling great. You know, it's been awesome to get so many eyes on our game. This is kind of our first public showing. So we're really excited. We're six months into our development process. You know, we're targeting a release in December. So, you know, it feels great to be able to show the game off at this stage.

Taz: Perfect. And tell me a little bit about yourself. What you're here for and what you've done on the game. 

Jonathan: All right, great. Yeah, I'm a developer. I do programming, I do, you know, working with the engine. I basically, you know, put all the nuts and bolts together, kind of make the game run. I joined the company about a year and a half ago, which has been awesome. And yeah, I've been with this project since its kind of inception. So it's been really great to see it kind of grow into what it is, and you know, we're really excited about where it's gonna go, as well. You know, it's just, it's been a great dev cycle. And yeah, super excited for the future. 

Taz: Awesome. What got you into indies originally?

Jonathan: Um, well, I have always, I've actually always liked making games myself. I've actually kind of, I'm kind of late to it because it's like, formally speaking, because I actually started my career in the industry probably about three years ago. Well, now I did QA for like a year before that. But yeah, I started developing full-time maybe about three years ago. And yeah, I have just always loved to make games. I've done school. I've gone to school for game design and all that. And yeah, I just relish the chance to work with like a small studio that's like a really like tight-knit group. Kind of like a small compact dev team. And like, kind of really like, you know, a family atmosphere. 

Taz: Really? 

Jonathan: Yeah, it's like the whole team is like really close, really tight. And it's just been great. 

Taz: Fantastic. And talking specifically about Galactic Gateway, what are you most excited about right now, in the development process of this game or when it comes out? What are you specifically excited for?

Jonathan: Yeah, so for Galactic Getaway, I am excited for the ability to fill out the game with like a ton of content. Like, right now we are we have basically gotten our, you know, outline or alpha pretty much ready. We're ready, but like we’re tweaking a few things still. But we’ve basically got our direction. And so now we just feel the game up with content. It's kind of almost the best part of a dev cycle to be in because, you know, you lay your foundation, and then you just kind of get to watch it blossom from there. And so I'm really looking forward to that. Another thing I look forward to a lot is to start, you know, doing more stuff with online, more stuff like that. The game currently, you know, it's networked. It's all great, but we have bigger tests, more people. We definitely want to get a 30-plus player count in this game. And so I'm excited to actually, like, try that out. 

Taz: Perfect. And as a developer, what kind of inspired you or got you into making this particular project? You said it was kind of a mix between Animal Crossing and Mario Party. What kind of how did that come up?

Jonathan: So when I started working at AKREW, I was like, I was brought in to work on the project. You know, it was pitched to me as Animal Crossing meets Mario Party, and I immediately thought that was such an amazing idea. Like, I would play that game. You know, a lot of people I know would play that game, like my girlfriend would play that game. You know, maybe my parents would play that game. It just seemed like such an accessible thing. Such a thing that could, you know, captivate people who even might not normally play games. I just, and you know it's like, I like to say it like, very promotes like togetherness promotes, you know, hanging out with friends. It's a kind of very friendly atmosphere, and I really liked that about it. So I was drawn to all those elements. And yeah, I joined the team, and it's been great.

Taz: Perfect. So ever since you came on this team, the idea was kind of already there. And you guys just kind of built it from the ground up. And it's still in its early stages, but you're here at PAX East. If you could go back in time and maybe tweak something or change something, would you? And if so, what would it be?

Jonathan: All right. Yeah. So we actually partway through our development, we were working with one multiplayer stack, and then we ended up switching to another multiplayer stack. So this is something that kind of does happen. You know, pretty frequently. I think when you're working with multiplayer games, you know, network is definitely a challenge for any development team. So we switched our multiplayer stack at some point which required us to go back and redo a lot of our code. A lot of our code base. I mean, I think right now, you know, it was totally worth it to change. But, you know, definitely, if we could have started now with the stack that we're using now, I mean, that definitely would have saved us some time. Save us a little bit of work, but you know, ultimately, I think the changes are definitely for the better. Our game is running smooth, you know, with all of the in-house testing that we've done, you know, the high player counts, that's something that we have been able to do now that we have switched, and I'm just really happy about it. 

Taz: And how has the reception been here at PAX East? As you said, this is your first showing here. How are people been responding to it?

Jonathan: Yeah, the reception has actually been great. It's like really warm. A lot of the people that have walked by, and as a lot of people have walked by, you know, you can see that they're interested in the game. We've been approaching people, you know, sitting them down with our demo. It's been amazing to watch people's like eyes light up, you know, really connect with the games, get into the mini-games. Like really get, you know, competitive and certain places we've had, you know, like, kids come in and sit down and just design their rooms for like, you know, an hour at a time. You know, it's great to see that this game is really connecting with people that there's like really an audience there for the game and to get to meet those people and like, you know, understand like that, you know, this is a thing that that people really like. Yeah, so it's been a very warm reception at PAX.

Taz: Good, good. And one last question. I've always kind of wondered about this, but with the involvement of minigames. How does that happen? What are the inspirations for the games? How does one just like say, “alright, this is gonna be a mini-game.” Like, how does that process go?

Jonathan: Yeah, yeah. So with the mini-games, we take a lot of inspiration from like a lot of different sources. We know for our mini-games, we have to have certain criteria, so they have to work with large numbers of people. Where we want to make all of our mini-games like compatible with like at least 12. You know, so they can go up from there as well. So it has to be compatible with a lot of people. It has to have like a concept that we find is like, immediately grabs you. We want them to be, you know, simple, but we also want them to have a competitive edge because the crew actually has a background in eSports. So we want to, you know, be able to draw in people with games that are like skillful, as well as, you know, fun. So like a party game where you can just hang out and also you know, get really into it and compete. So, yeah, so it’s all these considerations go into making a mini-game. We try to do our best to, you know, prototype, select ideas that we think are really promising, and then hit all those points and then go forward with that.

Taz: Perfect Well, that's all the questions I have. Please shout out your stuff. Promote your stuff. Give me all that information. Social media, where to find ya.

Jonathan: All right. Beautiful. So yes, we are AKREW. We are here with Galactic Getaway. We are available at @GalacticGetaway.gg — that's our Insta. @playgalacticgwy — that's our Twitter And @GalacticGetaway on TikTok. We’re also available on Steam.If you Google us, Galactic Getaway, you can find us on Steam. Please wishlist us. Absolutely. It helps. You know, as I said, looking at a December of this year, like, later part of this year release — close around that month. And yeah, look forward to the game. We're really happy with how it's going, and we hope you look forward to playing it. 

Taz: Well, thank you so much for taking the time. I really appreciate it, and I hope you have a wonderful end to your PAX. 

Jonathan: All right. Awesome. You too, man. Thank you so much. Pleasure to meet you.