Hello, Stuffies!
While Restitched is still in the depths of development, we thought we'd take some time to share an official overview of the main features you can expect to see in the game. These features are subject to change before release, but they should give you a pretty good idea of what's on offer!
A lot of these features are briefly showcased in our trailer from late 2024... If you haven't seen it yet, you can watch here:
We've been reading all of your feedback, and we hope you've enjoyed this new look at the game and our direction for it! We're very excited to keep creating and iterating. There's still much to do, but these past few months have marked another major milestone in the game's development.
We have a lot to discuss, and we're sure you have some burning questions about things you've spotted throughout the footage! In this post, we'll be digging into the game to explain what some of the main things are.
Stuffy's Adventure
An important part of creating a game based on player-made content is to show what's possible with the tools we provide. We'll use those same tools to build our official levels. In this way, Stuffy's main adventure should serve as an example of what players could create on their own!
We'll be building platformer levels based on various themes, ideas, and cultures. Throughout the journey, Stuffy will globetrot and encounter new friends and foes as they explore and assist tight-knit communities disturbed by a tyrannical reign. Maybe they'll discover their roots along the way?
The trailer opens with a portion of our planned opening cutscene. We meet Stuffy shortly before they begin to explore an eerie attic, abandoned to time. Using the environment to their advantage, they quickly scale a box, chair, and desk as they push toward a beaming lamp. A sharp and shiny object catches their eye, and it's revealed to us that it becomes their signature Needle 'n Thread gameplay mechanic!
Stuffy's official adventure is meant to span a handful of locations - each with their own assets, backgrounds, characters, and gameplay...
Let's take a look at just a few of the places you might visit:
Attic Atelier
A cozy cardboard kingdom filled with knick-knacks, critters, and memories from a time long forgotten. Stuffy's adventure begins here, and they'll be put to the test as you learn to master your abilities before setting off on the main adventure.
The Rolling Acres
A quaint farmland that's been owned and operated for generations by the Bobbins family. As the leading suppliers of crops in the community, many rely on this farm to be in tip-top shape. However, the owner, Mamaw Bobbins, needs a helping hand.
Haddock Harbour
They had docks, but they lost 'em... This Celtic-inspired fishing village has a gorgeous view of the ocean, but it won't do them much good if it's plagued by pollution!
Nihon Hytes
A cyberpunk-style city with heaps of power. The residents may be gone for now, but the tech and energy are still around and up for grabs.
There are also other locations in Stuffy's adventure, which you might spot in the trailer! For now, this is all we're prepared to share... and it's of course subject to change.
We're still very deep into the creation of the game's core features and level editing tools. This is a massive task for our small hobbyist team, so the proper in-game development of full story levels has not yet begun. However, as soon as the level editor is in a stable place, we'll have all the ingredients we'll need to begin crafting Stuffy's first-ever outing. We can't wait to share more on this as it develops!
Gameplay Mechanics
Stuffy may be cute, but they're also quite adept. In Restitched, you'll have various gameplay abilities at your disposal for traversing levels. In addition to standard run-and-jump platforming, you'll also see:
Crawling
For small tunnels and tight spaces, Stuffy can hold the crouch input to crawl through them at half their running speed. This opens up some interesting puzzle-platforming ideas!
Climbing
There's no place too high, and no ledge too long! Stuffy can mantle onto eligible surfaces, shimmy along their edges, and vault up from the front or the side!
Pushing
When things aren't quite where they need to be, Stuffy can push them around and use them to progress through levels. This is especially handy for moving bits of the environment around to reach higher places.
Pulling
Using the Needle 'n Thread, you can attach to eligible objects and pull them toward you... if they aren't too heavy!
Slashing
With the Needle equipped, Stuffy can slash it around to take down enemies, activate switches, and clear obstacles.
Swinging
When a gap is too big to cross, use the Needle 'n Thread mid-jump to attach and swing to the other side. You can also shimmy up or down on the thread to make it longer or shorter, allowing you to reach more places easily and with finesse.
All of these abilities are built into Stuffy's normal gameplay. Don't worry, though. Most of these will only work on objects and surfaces that have the settings enabled!
Wardrobe
Playing dress-up is so much fun, wouldn't you agree? We know a huge portion of our community is very interested in customization features! This is why we've extended our scope for the game just to give this area the love and attention it deserves.
Originally, the outfit selection was far more limited and would take place in-level. Through many discussions, we've decided to move this into a dedicated Wardrobe scene complete with its own music, environment, and features. All of this to enrich the customization experience so your Stuffy can be as cute, ferocious, or atrocious as you'd like.
The Wardrobe is full of fun features for those interested in self-expression. Let's take a look at what exists and what's still in the works, or planned:
Mix-and-Match Clothing
With categories spanning head to toe, you can apply loads of individual items to your Stuffy. Give them new ears, hair, eyes, tails, etc. You can also style them up with new shirts, pants, dresses, costumes, shoes, accessories, and much more!
Full Outfits
If you're not a big fan of picking out pieces on your own, you can also apply full preset outfits to give your plushie a new look. These include full-body costumes like a shark, but also stylized outfits spanning multiple categories such as supernatural, historical, occupational, animal, and so forth...
The Design Tool
One of our favorite additions to the Wardrobe is the ability to further customize almost any Cosmetic! From the Wardrobe's Toolbar, you can select the Design Tool and click any item on your Stuffy to open its Appearance settings.
Some items have their own Swatches, which allow you to quickly change the entire look of an item. For example, you might want a backpack to be leather instead of denim, or your t-shirt to be camouflage instead of blank cotton.
Not only can you change Swatches, but you can also recolor your Stuffy and their clothing with in-depth color sliders. Pick from a range of preset color options, enter a hex color number, or drag the hue, saturation, and brightness sliders to create your perfect look.
Save, Randomize, and Reset
If you're not happy with your Stuffy, you can reset it to the default appearance. If you adore your new look, you can click the Save icon in the Toolbar to give it a name and keep it in your Craftbook inventory for later use! If you're feeling silly or uncreative, you can choose the Random Pick option to generate an outfit from randomly-chosen assets in your Craftbook.
Stamps and Ornaments
While it's still in development, we are working on a feature that lets you apply graphics to your Stuffy and its clothing items. For instance, if you've put on a Construction Helmet but want it to be a bit dirtier, you could open the Stamps chapter in your Craftbook, find a "Dirt Splotch" Stamp, and then wrap it around the helmet to give it a more distressed and grimy look.
Additionally, we're hoping to (eventually) create a Player Ornaments chapter. This would be a separate list from the models available in Build Mode and meant more for player customization. For example, it might include horns, tufts of fur, buttons, stitches, zippers, etc. that can be freely placed on your Stuffy for extra decoration.
Personal Color
The user interface is very prominent throughout the game, especially when browsing player-made creations in The Workshop or when building levels or customizing your character. In the spirit of self-expression, you can choose from a wide range of color profiles that give your game a more personal touch!
Emotes
Expressing yourself doesn't need to end with clothing, does it? We're implementing an Emotes system that will let you play various fun and silly animations while in levels! Give a thumbs up, a silly dance, a wave, a flex, and more.
Share Your Stuffy
If you've made an outfit you're especially proud of, you can upload it to the Steam Workshop via in-game menus. This will be published online for other players to see and download! When they add it to their Craftbook, they can then wear your masterpiece in their own game. Alternatively, you can also browse and download other players' custom Stuffies and use them in your game as well.
Level Editor
This area of the game is the bread and butter of the Restitched experience. The level editor drives all of the gameplay. Whether it's an official level or a community-made one, the editor was used to make it! It would be overwhelming to cover all our current and future content for this part of the game, but we'll do our best to touch on the highlights!
Our goal is to offer a robust editor that's easy to dive into for casual players and veteran creatives. With exclusive use of mouse and keyboard input, you can easily click into the scene to move things around, brush down geometry, open settings menus, drag around nodes on the shape tool, and so much more!
Let's dive into some of the useful tools you'll find at the top of the screen in the Toolbar...
Shape Tool
A powerful and useful tool meant to expose the vertices of a mesh. You can click to create nodes, drag around existing ones, and right-click to delete. Using this tool, you can smooth out brushed materials or entirely reshape things.
Select Cursor
The default cursor mode for the level editor. Use this to grab things, move them around, delete them, and so forth!
Stamp Cursor
Similar to the Select Cursor, except this is used to highlight and pick up existing Stamps on objects.
Ornament Cursor
If you've turned anything into an Ornament, use this cursor to grab it!
Wash Tool
Sometimes you reach the point of no return. You've placed dozens of Stamps and Ornaments on something, but want it gone without deleting the base object itself. Use the Wash Tool to scrub it clean!
UV Tool
If your material has misaligned textures, use the UV Tool to transform them! You can easily scale things larger or smaller, rotate, and/or reposition.
Design Tool
This opens up the Appearance subpage on an object's Settings Panel. You can recolor things or sometimes change the Swatch for a new look.
Grouping Tool
With this cursor active, you can click multiple objects in the level to link them together - even if they're not touching!
Eyedropper
We couldn't live without this one! The eyedropper is used to see the name of any asset in the level while hovering, or to quickly spawn a fresh copy for placement. No more browsing menus... just hover and click!
We'll share the other Toolbar features in the future, when they're ready!
Control Panel
In addition to the Toolbar, you can also find a handy dropdown menu in the "Control Panel" area. These are the Editor Settings, and they allow you to set a grid size, angle snap degree, or toggle layer tooltips.
Another essential Control Panel option is the "Place Stuffy" button. Use this to drop Stuffy into your level for quick testing, then return them to continue editing.
Craftbook Chapters (Level Editor)
The "Craftbook" is the large piece of UI you see on the screen in both the level editor and the Wardrobe. Think of it like an inventory, which houses assets and settings. When it's not in use, it'll auto-collapse to the side of the screen so that you can create levels without it being in the way!
There are quite a few chapters for the level editor, so let's explore what those are:
Building Materials
"Building Materials" are truly the bones of a level. These make up the surfaces you walk on, the walls that block you, and even work as a detail to decorate the scene. These surfaces can be stamped with graphics, grouped with other things in the level, influenced by logic, have their appearance changed, have gameplay abilities enabled (like climbing, threading, or pushing), have Ornaments attached to them, and more...
When brushing materials, you can first choose from a large library of textures and a few basic brush shapes. You can also enable or disable 'axis lock', which will either let you draw freely or smear it along a fixed direction or line. Think of it like painting, except you're placing down actual 3D geometry!
Props
Sometimes brushing down geometry isn't enough. Sure, you could draw your own apple or build your own toy car... but sometimes a real 3D mesh is just better (and easier)! On this page of the Craftbook, you can find a large library of categorized meshes to place in your level. From Household, Industrial, Technology, Food, Foliage, and more.
Props can also be turned into Ornaments when you're in placement mode. Simply press the hotkey, and these objects will have their collision removed and can be freely rotated and snapped to the surface of any other physical object in the level. This is great for adding a bit of extra decor!
Stamps
Hundreds of different graphics can be found in this chapter! These are all made by our artists, and are the perfect set dressing for your levels and scenes. Need an arrow to indicate where to go? Want some windows, dirt, silly faces, or wax dripping for your candle? You can find all of those here. Simply place them in your scene on any Prop or Building Material to give it extra beauty!
Logic / Automation
Logic is a way to make things more dynamic and interactive. It's often used to make things move, rotate, disappear, count down, spawn, and loads more.
This is understandably a large, ambitious, and intensive thing to develop. There are so many possible outcomes and combinations! As such, it's not quite ready to be shown yet. However, we have showcased some of our prototyped logic in the trailer... so let's take a peek at that!
Development is already underway to expand the logic system greatly. We're currently developing inputs, outputs, better settings support, and a custom UI-based logic asset (what you see here is technically a level object). We have to lay the foundation for a solid logic system before building upon it with cool new gadgets!
Hardware
This is a handy page for some of the more advanced Props and effects. You can expect most of the items from this chapter to come with their own special settings and gameplay. From gameplay enhancers to particles and effects, what can you find?
Blink Bubbles
Pair two of these together by proximity or custom labels, and watch the player (or objects) enter one bubble and leave another! These teleport bubbles maintain your velocity, and can even pop on entry/exit, regenerate after x seconds, or spit you out in a specific direction.
Timed Races
Place a race entrance and finish post in your level to let the player activate a timed race mode! This is great for friendly competition and an extra score based on performance.
Trampolines
Sometimes you need to get to a higher place. What better way to do so than to jump on a trampoline? It's as fun as it is useful! You can even adjust its bounce force, switch the bounce mode (jump to bounce or bounce on touch), or change whether it affects only players, objects, or both.
Fans
Similar to the trampoline, this is a fun way to get to higher places! You can also reverse it to attract rather than repel. Change its wind strength, range, oscillation amount, and more.
Spikes / Lethal Objects
Lethal objects kill or damage the player, or otherwise pose a threat. These can be spikes that stab, a proximity mine that explodes, a firework missile, etc.
Buttons and Switches
Best paired with logic patches, a button or a switch is a great interactive way to trigger things in your level. Buttons can be stood on or weighed down with other dynamic objects. Levers act as a toggle switch, and can be triggered by slashing them with your needle when in range.
Particles and Effects
Sometimes you need more visual interest, and particles are a great way to achieve that. Place them down to create beaming electrical arcs, candle flames, balls of fire, zones of snow or rain, or rays of sunshine.
Creatures / Enemies
This chapter is dedicated to dynamic creatures and critters! For example, place a Spider in your level to give Stuffy a foe to face. Set their awareness range, behavior (hostile, patrol, idle, etc.), then jump on their head or slash them down with the needle to exterminate them.
Sound and Music
Whether you need sound effects for something being triggered or a lovely music track to breathe life into your gameplay, you can find those here by category. Music can also have its settings changed to vary the pitch/speed (you can even play it in reverse!), volume, and looping behavior.
Level Settings
Every level needs its own overarching style and gameplay properties. This page is full of settings for changing the environment, fog amount, lighting settings (time of day, sun angle, etc.), camera tilt, and even gravity on the X and/or Y axis.
Options like "Camera Tilt" are especially useful for changing the look and feel of gameplay! Want an isometric level? a 2D one? Top-down? Just drag the slider!
Craftbook Search
As the game grows, so will your time hunting for assets to use. As creators ourselves, we've found it extremely useful to add a global search page that will let you hunt things down by name or keywords! Very handy indeed...
The Workshop
Your uploaded creations are published to the Steam Workshop, but you can easily browse them in-game (albeit with more limited features than the full web interface)! Check out your posted content, or sort through the community's creations by category, search, or filters.
You can play a level, favorite a creation, see its image, or view its stats, description, and author, all from the convenience of the game itself. Want to see even more detailed info or leave a comment/review? Click the "View on Steam" button to easily open it via the integrated web browser.
What's next?
As a small team of hobbyists, Restitched is solely a passion project for us. We work on it in our free time, and there's still so much to do! We had a very productive 2024 and hope to meet or exceed that progress this year in 2025. We feel we're entering the final (yet still long) stretch of development, as most of the game's technical foundation has been laid and now we're simply building more of the the fun stuff on top of it.
This year, our coders will focus on major missing or unfinished features like logic, connectors, extra settings, gameplay gimmicks, and tools. We'll also be polishing loads of content and gameplay, including combat. When the level editor is mostly feature-complete and stable, we will begin the early work for the story levels. In the meantime, our art team will continue to expand and polish the game's Cosmetics, Props, Stamps, UI menus, animations, and more.
We're excited for what's still to come, but it will also take a lot of continued dedication and hard work. Because of this, we sadly still have no indication for a release timeframe. We're doing our best to build an enjoyable game first and foremost, and any secondary plans or release estimates will become clearer when we're near our final goals... Good things come to those who wait!
Along the journey to the finish line, we'll also be looking into posting new gameplay videos and fun opportunities for players to try the game via demos and private testing. No news on that front yet, but stick around!
We appreciate all of the lovely comments and helpful feedback! Your overall encouragement, support, and feedback drive us to keep going. We have a high standard to meet and an ambitious scope, so we'll continue to update you as we strive to reach it.
You can check out development progress through our free, monthly Restitched: Recapped! posts.