At WX, Wakefield over 60 games will be demoing, along with 400+ developers, game industry publishers, investors and platforms in attendance for GaMaYo 25! Join us on the 13th of November for a day full of demos and round tables.

This event is brought to you by Game Republic along with their Official Partners Barclays Games and Creative, Xsolla and Red Kite Games, with event sponsors Plus Accounting, Escape Technology, HP and AMD.

Today we are looking at ‘The Detectorist Guild’ which is confirmed to be at the event, from Full Stop Studios!

The Detectorist Guild By Full Stop Studios

What would be your description of your game?

The Detectorist Guild is a village-life, cosy, RPG/simulator set in the sleepy Yorkshire village of Shiverly in the year 1999. Explore a quintessential British village collecting artefacts and studying local history. Donate, trade and sell your ‘finds’ to build impressive collections and upgrade your equipment. You play as 10-year-old, James. After losing his father in a car accident a year before, James has focused on the last thing his Dad showed him how to do, use a metal detector. Exploring all around the village, James gets to know the people of the village, usually while finding the many things they have a habit of carelessly losing, but soon finds himself caught up in a mystery involving a reclusive archeologist, a missing person cold case from 1981, and a secretive research laboratory conducting experiments in an abandoned wartime tunnel system. Follow James and his family as they make their way through their grief and find hope in human connection.

How did development start? (Were there any key inspirations or ideas that drove you?)

The Detectorist Guild started in 2023, after a conversation down the pub with my son, who (being very much into history and archaeology) suggested I make a game about metal detecting. We both loved playing Stardew Valley together and I was a big fan of narrative games such as To The Moon and Spiritfarer, so I was drawn to the idea of a cosy atmosphere and gameplay experience, but with a more serious narrative underneath.

Tell us about the team behind the game?

It’s a team of one. I’m a lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University where I lead the BSc Computer Games Technologies degree and I was frankly jealous of my own students getting to make games.

What kind of experiences do you hope to bring players?

At first, I hope they find it a relaxing and pleasant virtual world to be in and that they find the virtual metal detecting gameplay fun. As they play, I hope they become interested in the story and invested in the fate of the characters.