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 ‘Crackernuts’ which is confirmed to be at the event, from Hairy Heart Games!

Crackernuts by Hairy Heart Games

What would be your description of your game?

Crackernuts is a short narrative adventure game based on a Scottish fairy-tale about a girl with the head of a goat. All our characters and locations are hand-made models, scanned using advanced photogrammetry, giving Crackernuts a unique and beautiful visual style. We also make extensive use of motion capture, and have a cast of talented actors, providing a real dramatic depth to the game.

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

We started working on the game in 2023 after receiving funding from Innovate UK. The initial impetus was a technical one, we wanted to see how we could use photogrammetry and motion capture with cheap consumer hardware (iPhone cameras) to make a rich and detailed videogame. I’ve always had an interest in folktales and chose Crackernuts as it is a weird story with some strong characters who break the fairy-tale mould. I had a friend who’s been a model maker for years and makes beautiful handmade art. We had worked together on games before so all these strands came together quite naturally.

Tell us about the team behind the game?

The core team is me, Joe Bain as lead programmer and producer, I’ve worked as a programmer in games for nearly a decade. Our writer and co-producer is Alice Langley who has a PhD in folklore and loves to write fairy-tale inspired stories with modern twists. Our lead model maker is Fergus Dunnet who has been making models, costumes and puppets for theatre for over 20 years. Our performance director is Melanie Jordan who comes from a background of theatre and street performance. At this point there have been about a dozen contributors including all the actors, model makers and game developers on the project.

What kind of experiences do you hope to bring players?

Our games story is about friendship, sisterhood, accepting yourself, and how princes are often nasty wronguns. It’s a heartfelt game about the sisters going on a journey together and bringing the player with them. But it’s also funny in places and a bit scary in others. So far players have described it as quite “theatrical” and I think that’s a good way to look at it.