Times & Galaxy Dev Diary #2: Cozy Sailing
Cruise the cosmos in Times & Galaxy’s carpeted spaceship
All aboard the Times & Galaxy’s news ship!
When it comes to design, most spaceships fall into one of two categories: ultra-futuristic—sleek, bright, and hermetically clean—or borderline derelict, made of rusting pipes, metal mesh, and duct-taped hopes.
But wander around The Scanner, Times & Galaxy’s spacefaring office (and home to its many reporters), and you’ll see wood paneling, shoe racks, and carpeted flooring. It feels more like a midcentury family home than a universe-cruising spacecraft. Which is by design.
“I don't like doing big, impersonal spaces,” art director Kate Craig says. “There's enough warehouses and big space stations done by people who love that stuff and are really interested in the industrial vibe. But there are spaceships that have more homeyness… you can see the fingerprints of the people that live there. I'm more interested in that than I am in like, how do these solar panels fit on the thing?”
Some desk design drafts: one business-focused, the other a little more… casual.
The result feels particularly lived-in, as the Scanner’s nine areas reveal much about beings that occupy them: through posters, graffiti, and passive-aggressive notes stuck on refrigerators.
Craig notes that splitting that difference between workspace and living room came through some trial-and-error exploration—and, importantly, by starting with a smaller area of the ship, and working outwards from there.
The games table in the bunks. Who wants to play De-risk?
“Ben [Gelinas, creative director] was like, ‘We need to start working on the newsroom immediately—it’s the most important room in the ship,’” Craig recalls. “And I said, ‘We should probably save that one.’ The very first level you make in a video game is going to be hot garbage. You figure out so much stuff and how it should look and how it should respond… So let's come back to that. Let's do the reception area first, because it's so small, and it's low stakes.”
An early draft of the ship’s reception area. Lots of seating!
From there, the rest of the Scanner found its form, amplified by the way it is inhabited, the messes it collects, and the way its corners get personalized by their regular occupants.
The Scanner’s Archives, where you can read your fellow journalists’ stories.
“Normally when you work on an environment, you're given a keyword or a vibe,” Craig continues. “The keywords for this were ‘retro futurism’ and ‘Saturday morning cartoons’ … We tried to push in that direction.”
The ship’s garden in full bloom!
Head over to the Times & Galaxy Steam page to wishlist the game, and play the demo!