Here's how it all started.

 That’s an A5 paper sheet (about 15x20cm). I first drew that house. The one with the green and purple. I used a friction-type erasable pen.

“Let’s scrap my previous ideas, and make something simple.” -Mat, or maybe Mio

Top-Down perspective. Hand-drawn style. One small town. Cats all over. You got to find them. That was it.

 

It’s a fair bit more complicated now, but that’s what happens when you’re passionate and you enjoy the process. But let’s start with the first iteration of the map.

Mio and I slowly drew this map, affixing new sheets with tape to make room for new buildings and areas. It’s 75cm tall by 80cm wide. If we really think on it, we can probably figure out who drew what, but at a glance, I’m not so sure. We, myself in particular, talked endlessly about the characters and the on-goings at the different shops and houses. We weren’t so much as creating a game at this point, as we were telling the story of a small town. 

Him, there, was the most handsome man in town. The ladies were crazy for him. Mio later named him Kojiro. We quickly realized we preferred drawing old people, for some reason. So, it’s basically a town of elderly. I know I drew that rock in the picture. And Mio drew that cat. But I’ve no idea if I drew Kojiro or not. No, no, definitely Mio’s.

 

Here's a video of me exploring the map in a little interactive game (of which I have no original files to actually share the game, unfortunately). 

We then started discussing a more segmented layout for the town so as to not have every part available for the player to explore in one go. And we came up with this: 

Mio named it DanDanOka (段々丘) which I guess we could translate as Terrace Town.  From this, I made a quick mock up of where each building would go.

 

Well... there's a lot more that's been done since. But that's the gist of how it all began.

 

 

                                                                                                                - Mat, with Mio not too far.