Creating a City Builder and Crafting Game with a Cut-Out Paper-Style

Introduction

My name is David Ferriz, and, in addition to being a Game Designer and Producer, I am one of the founders of DevilishGames (Spherical Pixel S.L.), a Spanish video game studio that has been creating games for multiple platforms for over 25 years. Currently, our company has two clearly differentiated business lines.

The first one focuses on developing advertising and educational video games for clients through our agency, Spherical Pixel. The second one is dedicated to creating independent, innovative, and experimental video games, which we publish under the DevilishGames label for PC, mobile devices, and consoles.

In terms of commissioned projects, we have worked with major international clients such as the BBC, MTV Networks, the EuroLeague Basketball, and Famosa by Giochi Preziosi. On the independent side, in recent years, we have released games for PC, mobile, and consoles such as Path to Mnemosyne, Minabo – A Walk Through Life, and Onirike.

The development of Cutout Village started around a year ago, after we finished working on our previous independent game (Bambas!), although the idea had been in my head for quite some time. When I was a child, I loved buying cut-out paper house sheets, and as an adult, I missed being able to play with something similar with my children.

That's when I decided to try to translate those mechanics and sensations into a video game, and also into a book, since Cutout Village will also be released in book format.

Cutout Village

Players can expect a cute, cozy world where they can feel relaxed. Our goal is to create a mix of a city builder, a crafting game, and a narrative experience, allowing us to address the issue of rural depopulation while the player gradually rebuilds a small medieval village inspired by real abandoned villages in Spain.

Although the game is a city builder, we deliberately avoided overly complex management mechanics. For us, the most important part of the experience is cutting, folding, and gluing each of the little houses the player can rebuild. Essentially, players plant trees, collect fruit, and use those resources to reconstruct the village, attracting more inhabitants and visitors and bringing life back to the place.

We know this isn't a game for every type of player, since a large part of the playtime is spent cutting, folding, and gluing houses. This will strongly appeal to crafters and players seeking a relaxing experience, but it may be less appealing to those who prefer challenging games with penalties or great difficulty.

We still need to conduct playtesting with real users, but we believe our target audience will feel motivated by watching the village slowly grow and by discovering the small stories of its inhabitants. In addition to the story mode, we will include a free mode where more creative players can build their own custom village without any limitations. We believe this mode will also be very enjoyable for a certain type of player.

Inspiration

The main inspiration, as I mentioned before, came from the cut-out paper house sheets I used to buy in the 1990s when I was a child. That's why we aimed for a very handcrafted look, with watercolor colors and a strong paper-like aesthetic.

Another important source of inspiration was several abandoned rural villages in Spain, such as Aramunt or Bibioj, as well as places I love walking around, like Bocairent, whose architecture is very similar to the one depicted in the game. In fact, some people from Bocairent may find a replica of their own house in Cutout Village.

For the characters, we drew inspiration from local fauna, since all the villagers are animals. Our main references were childhood animated series such as Maple Town, Monogatari, and Around the World with Willy Fog, as well as more recent films like The Boy and the Beast, which helped us shape a warm, approachable, and family-friendly tone.

Development Process

The first step was researching how we could replicate the cut-out paper models from the 1980s and 1990s and defining a proper production pipeline. In this regard, a large part of the credit goes to our colleague Alicia Flor, who was responsible for modeling more than 50 houses, shops, and cut-out elements in 3D. All of them are fully functional both inside the game and as real paper models, since we wanted every element to be transferable to the book format as well.

Using 3D modeling software helped us a lot, as the first step was to model the house fully assembled and then unfold it to create the tabs that need to be folded and glued. In this sense, I have great admiration for the designers of cut-out sheets from the 1980s or earlier, when no software existed to assist with this process, and everything had to be done by hand.

Regarding custom tools, we developed our own system in Unity that allows us to visually define where each tab should be folded, where glue should be applied, and which lines are cut lines. We believe we have achieved mechanics for cutting, folding, and gluing that feel very satisfying and closely resemble real-life crafting, with the added advantage that players cannot make mistakes when cutting or gluing pieces.

As for optimization, since the game has a paper-based visual style, we haven't faced major issues related to polygon count on screen, which has definitely been an advantage.

Marketing Efforts

The game was announced four months ago during an online showcase called devINITIVE, alongside the launch of its Steam page to start building wishlists. We also sent press releases to media outlets, posted regularly on social networks, shared content on Reddit, and attended several physical events where we gave away cut-out paper sheets from the game as a promotional item.

Now that development is more advanced, and we can show much more final-looking content, we are putting more effort into being selected for online showcases, especially those that include Steam events, and into posting more consistently. At a later stage, we will also start investing in paid advertising and influencer outreach, once the demo is publicly available.

We have a lot of experience self-publishing games, so we are following the steps we usually take. We are very happy with the results so far, as the game attracts a lot of attention and we are receiving very positive feedback. There is no single formula for promoting a game. A marketing campaign is the result of many different actions working together.

Conclusion

Development is progressing very smoothly, and we believe we will be able to release the full version in Q3 2026, as planned, both on Steam and consoles. We are currently finalizing a demo version that we would like to release on Steam soon. This demo will also be used to negotiate with physical-format publishers, which is something we would really like to achieve with this project.

Additionally, we already have the four cut-out books that will be released alongside the game ready, and we are currently validating the final print tests and deciding whether to release the book before, during, or after the game's launch.

Even though we are a very experienced team with highly optimized workflows, every new independent project teaches us new things. Our philosophy is to try to create truly new experiences that motivate us and allow us to keep learning.

David Ferriz, Game Designer and Producer

Interview conducted by Amber Rutherford