{"id":24429,"date":"2025-04-03T06:56:36","date_gmt":"2025-04-03T06:56:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lavraromiraealagoa.pt\/?p=24429"},"modified":"2026-02-20T04:35:48","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T04:35:48","slug":"how-the-creators-of-eternal-strands-built-an-ambitious-physics-system-with-a-small-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lavraromiraealagoa.pt\/en\/how-the-creators-of-eternal-strands-built-an-ambitious-physics-system-with-a-small-team\/","title":{"rendered":"How the Creators of Eternal Strands Built an Ambitious Physics System with a Small Team"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eternal Strands<\/em>, developed by Yellow Brick Games, is a third-person action RPG that stands out thanks to its advanced, physics-based magic system. Players manipulate heat, momentum, and other natural forces in a magical, abandoned world. For developers Jeff Skalski, Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric St-Laurent, and Mike Laidlaw, the key to making it all work boiled down to three pillars: constraints, cuts, and collaboration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A New Studio, Big Ambitions<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Yellow Brick Games is one of the early success stories to emerge from the wave of independent studios founded by veteran developers between 2020 and 2022. With fewer than 100 team members, the studio managed to launch Eternal Strands<\/em>, a game where players battle towering creatures and traverse environments that are sometimes living beings themselves \u2014 all using a complex and reactive physics system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ten years ago, this kind of game would\u2019ve seemed impossible without a massive AAA team. But with modern tools and tightly focused development, Yellow Brick not only built something ambitious \u2014 they even shifted from working with Private Division to fully self-publishing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to game director St-Laurent, creative director Laidlaw (formerly of BioWare), and executive producer Skalski, the secret was simple: work smart, cut early, and collaborate constantly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Magic in Eternal Strands<\/em> Starts with Temperature<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

From the project\u2019s start in 2020, the core idea was already clear: a fantasy world with crafting, giant monsters, and physics-driven magic. Players control Brynn, a magical weaver exploring a forgotten land called The Enclave to save the world \u2014 and her friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What sets the game apart is how spells interact dynamically with the environment. St-Laurent explains that the heart of the magic system is a temperature tracker. The engine simulates heat in 2×2 meter cells, and environmental objects \u2014 plants, stones, ingredients \u2014 react accordingly: they heat up, burn, freeze, or shatter. Creatures can slow down in the cold or even freeze solid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This leads to organic gameplay moments. A dragon\u2019s fire breath doesn\u2019t just damage \u2014 it can ignite entire forests through heat convection. A giant automaton crashing into a wooden structure destroys it using a mix of impact and thermal energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s comparable to what Nintendo did with Breath of the Wild<\/em>, but scaled to be manageable for a small team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Focused Design, Built Around What Matters<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The heat simulation came with an early constraint: no open world. Simulating temperature across a vast map would be unmanageable. Instead, the game uses interconnected zones with their own enemies and resources, encouraging replay and exploration with purpose. inimigos e recursos pr\u00f3prios, incentivando o jogador a revisitar regi\u00f5es com novos objetivos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

OThe same logic was applied to creature design. Rather than build dozens of monsters from scratch, the team developed a shared movement and health framework, created an elemental design language (fire, ice, acid, telekinesis), and used subtractive design to define what each creature would do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If a creature flies and breathes fire \u2014 that\u2019s a dragon base. Final behavior emerges from AI and environmental interaction. Some concepts were cut altogether, like rolling or sliding enemies, which demanded complex physics that could overload the system. “I joked once about adding a perfect sphere with millions of polygons… it would crash everything,” said Laidlaw.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this game, optimization is design.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cut Early, Not Late<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Originally, the team planned 12 epic creatures. The final game features 9. Cutting content is a normal part of development, but the team\u2019s philosophy was to cut before too much time was invested.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe cut stuff every planning meeting,\u201d said Skalski. \u201cIt kept development healthy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each team had clear goals for each phase. If the art team couldn\u2019t realistically complete all armor sets by the end of pre-production, the scope was trimmed right away \u2014 avoiding months of wasted work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Physics Becomes Emergent Gameplay<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

One of Laidlaw\u2019s favorite development moments involved \u201crich boulders\u201d<\/strong> \u2014 rocks that yield rare materials when heated, a mechanic inspired by \u201ccombat-based smelting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI used to joke that I wanted to lift a rock with telekinesis into a dragon\u2019s breath to create legendary ore. One day, St-Laurent messaged me: \u2018Done. It works.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moments like this were only possible because the system was modular and well-designed from the beginning. New features didn\u2019t require rebuilding everything \u2014 they slotted into place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Blueprint for Indie Studios<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Now that Eternal Strands<\/em> is out, Yellow Brick Games proves that small teams with big ideas can deliver standout experiences. Whether the model will prove financially sustainable for others remains to be seen \u2014 but the game is already one of 2025\u2019s most creative releases and a case study in doing more with less.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For any indie studio dreaming of ambitious mechanics without a massive budget, Eternal Strands<\/em> offers a powerful message: focus hard, cut fast, build smart \u2014 and let good systems do the heavy lifting.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eternal Strands, developed by Yellow Brick Games, is a third-person action RPG that stands out thanks to its advanced, physics-based magic system. Players manipulate heat, momentum, and other natural forces in a magical, abandoned world. For developers Jeff Skalski, Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric St-Laurent, and Mike Laidlaw, the key to making it all work boiled down to three […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":24039,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cultura-criativa"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lavraromiraealagoa.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lavraromiraealagoa.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lavraromiraealagoa.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lavraromiraealagoa.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24429"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lavraromiraealagoa.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24429\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24430,"href":"https:\/\/lavraromiraealagoa.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24429\/revisions\/24430"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lavraromiraealagoa.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lavraromiraealagoa.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lavraromiraealagoa.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lavraromiraealagoa.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}