Before I played an early version of Crescent County<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, I didn\u2019t know that an in-game version of a motorized, magical broomstick could feel<\/em> right. But here I am, drawing wide arcs through the gently swaying grass of the Isle of Morah, identifying the perfect hillock to glide off from, and intuitively following paths of flowers to shortcuts across its open world. You\u2019d think there\u2019d no right way to depict something as bizarre as this, but as I feel a leyline-powered boost ignite the rumble of my controller, I start to think, \u201cwell, maybe.\u201d<\/p>\n The debut game from Electric Saint \u2013 a two-person development team made up of Anna Hollinrake (Fall Guys<\/em>) and Pavle Mihajlovi\u0107 (Erica<\/em>) \u2013 Crescent County<\/em> is part-open world exploration, part-dating game, part-gig economy delivery challenge, part-racer, part-life sim, and all-centered around that motorbroom experience. It\u2019s ambitious<\/em>, and with so many moving parts, you might expect it to have come together in pieces \u2013 but the real origin point was straightforward.<\/p>\n Hollinrake has been painting images of what she dubs \u201cwitch-tech\u201d for years, building a following as people fall in love with the bright, curious worlds she creates in static form. Choosing to leave the world of AAA development behind, and contacting Mihajlovi\u0107 to create the tech, there was only one setting they wanted to bring to life together.<\/p>\n \u201cThe number one piece of feedback I get when I\u2019m at conventions selling art based on this world, or on social media when I post images of it, is that people wish that they could live in the paintings I create,\u201d she tells me. \u201cI\u2019m an art generalist for games and have worked along the whole art pipeline, but my specialty is infusing moreish worldbuilding into my work, from concepts to full 3D environments, that give a sense of place, with little story hints throughout. I really want to give people the opportunity to step into a lovingly crafted, painterly space that feels both joyful and a little melancholy and that, critically, they feel at home within.\u201d<\/p>\n It means that Crescent County <\/em>wasn\u2019t built out of disparate mechanical ideas that the developers wanted to jam into one playspace \u2013 every choice has been made because it fits the theme. Even in the early form of the game I play, that comes across. As main character Lu, your motorbroom is key to everything you do \u2013 you arrive on the island and take part in a race, then become the island\u2019s delivery courier. That job allows you to meet characters you can get to know (and romance), afford furniture for your apartment, and to customize your broom and go further, faster. In Crescent County<\/em>\u2019s world, motorbrooms aren\u2019t a vehicle, they\u2019re a culture.<\/p>\n \u201cMotorbroom racing is an underground sport, practised by a small group of the coolest people you know,\u201d says Hollinrake. \u201cIt\u2019s very inspired by roller derby and the roller skating community (I\u2019m an avid quad skater myself!), and we wanted to capture that punk, do-it-yourself attitude within motorbroom subculture.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIn terms of racing though, it\u2019s more about friends challenging each other in playful ways (like seeing who can get up the mountain first), than it is about big formal races with sponsors and crowds,\u201d adds Mihajlovi\u0107. \u201cIf you win, you can expect to learn some secrets about the island, or maybe get a hot tip on how to get a particular broom part, but you can also choose to lay back and spend some more quality time with a racer you have a crush on.\u201d<\/p>\n That idea, that every activity can affect another, seems key to Crescent County<\/em>. You\u2019re building a life for Lu on the island \u2013 a race can lead to romance, a delivery job could net you new decorations, and even the house creation element (so often a side activity) can have effects on the wider game.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re really interested in how we can take classic, cozy house decoration and make it push our story forward rather than being purely for aesthetics,\u201d explains Hollinrake. \u201cIn that classic scouring-Facebook-Marketplace way, you can do jobs around the island for people who\u2019ll pay you back with a couch they have in the shed and aren\u2019t using. Inspired by our own experiences living in crappy house shares in our early twenties, we know how big of a difference each single piece of furniture can have on your social life or sense of place \u2013 you can\u2019t have a dinner party without a dinner table, and getting your new friends around it lets you chat late into the night and deepen those relationships. Even if the spaghetti bolognese you made was terrible.\u201d<\/p>\n It leads to what promises a very satisfying loop \u2013 the more you play, and the more you engage, the more opportunities await you. Again, building Crescent County <\/em>as a living world rather than a sandbox, is the key. The game\u2019s organized into days and nights that pass based on what you choose to do (you can deliver by day, and race by night), rather than through a linear cycle, which gives you an incentive to choose the interesting <\/em>thing rather than the efficient <\/em>thing.<\/p>\n \u201cEach day brings a host of new opportunities to earn some cash, make your flat less sad, and learn more island drama,\u201d says Mihajlovi\u0107. \u201cYou\u2019ll get to pick who you want to help that day \u2013 whether it\u2019s because you want to know a particular bit of gossip, you want to get a specific broom upgrade, or because your friend Rava has promised you she\u2019ll give you her unwanted and admittedly ugly couch if you help round up her wayward sheep. You can either plan out your route carefully, or take it a bit more casually and ride around and see what you get up to. At the end of the day you can take your weird couch home, pick where to place it, and invite your friends over for a movie night \u2013 who point out you don\u2019t actually own a TV.\u201d<\/p>\n All of this would be moot if the brooms themselves didn\u2019t feel quite so good, and the Isle of Morah wasn\u2019t quite so fascinating a location. That connection to Hollinrake\u2019s art means that this world is a deeply interesting place \u2013 unfamiliar silhouettes clutter the horizon, and the sheer fun meant that I spent as much time simply going places than doing, well, Lu\u2019s job. The final piece in the puzzle, then, is in creating a motorbroom that suits you.<\/p>\n \u201cBroom customization is both about building a motorbroom that looks amazing and feels just like you, but it\u2019s also in how you decide how you\u2019re going to navigate the island,\u201d says Mihajlovi\u0107. \u201cWhether you want to speed down the straights, cut across a field, or glide over a canyon, different broom setups will open different paths and playstyles. You can also put Sigil Stickers on your broom that give you weird and wonderful powers, like an offensive sideways phase shift that you can use to bump your rivals off the track, or a more forgiving 10 second rewind that lets you retake a corner if you didn\u2019t get it quite right.\u201d<\/p>\n The way the team is winding together mechanical and narrative benefits to the player isn\u2019t just fascinating \u2013 it\u2019s unusual. It\u2019s the kind of thing that might have been hard to pitch at their previous studios, meaning self-publishing with ID@Xbox has been a boon:<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re huge fans of the ID@Xbox program \u2013 and before that Xbox Live Arcade,\u201d says Mihajlovi\u0107. \u201cIt birthed or enabled so many of the games that we love, and in a lot of ways the whole indie wave that got us into the games industry in the first place. I actually remember the first Summer of Arcade, and how exciting and validating it was as a teenager to see indie games on a console, so it\u2019s incredible to now be a part of the program.\u201d<\/p>\n With a two-person team, the game still has a way to go until release \u2013 and they\u2019re not set on a release date just yet \u2013 but the early version I play makes abundantly clear how wild, weird, and ambitious Electric Saint is getting. Just like its motorbrooms, Crescent County <\/em>might be unfamiliar, but it\u2019s feeling just right already.<\/p>\n Crescent County is coming to Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC. You can wishlist the game now<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n![\"Crescent](\"https:\/\/xxboxnews.blob.core.windows.net\/prod\/sites\/2\/2024\/11\/Untitled-2-de190408494568cee245.jpg\")
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