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Haven – Interview with Ryan Highley, male Yu!

Can you introduce yourself? Can you tell us about you and your career?

Hi ! Pleased that the Haven team is back out spreading love ! I’m Ryan Highley, actor with a strong focus on voice performances, particularly in the gaming and entertainment worlds. I’ve been living in this line of work since 2018, after a long journey before actually going down this path. “Career” is a funny word, I’m not sure where this is leading but I was born into a family of amateur theatre, singing, and dance lovers, and I got involved in theatre myself from the age of six. But when it came to my studies, I kept things broad, at that point I wasn’t too sure of my career path. I chose what I felt was a neutral dscipline in sales, thinking I could market products in industries I was passionate about, like electric guitars or music XD. But sales didn’t suit me, and I found myself exploring various other fields. In 2018, I had a wake-up call and decided to drop everything to get into professional acting. I committed fully, turned my world around, and here we are today—the leap of faith paid off!

At the very beginning when you started working on Haven, what did you expect? Did you feel inspired by the original performances?

I only found out quite close to the recording date that the project I was working on was Haven. A sound studio now called Light Fader (Audio Workshop at the time) got in touch about the role. As soon as I knew, I dove into researching everything I could about it—I’m pretty passionate that way. Thanks to YouTube, playthroughs, teasers, and other content, I got a good sense of the world  and what would be expected of me. But no, I didn’t initially know it was about a romantic couple stranded on a distant planet after escaping a civilization. Learning that a core part of the characters’ experience was conveyed through intimacy really resonated with me, as I value that depth of vulnerability in my own life, not only in romantic relationships but in every interaction where people show their true selves.

For Haven, the original performances were genuinely inspiring—Janine Harouni’s interpretation of Yu and Chris Lew Kum Hoi’s take on Kay brought so much authenticity to the characters, it was both inspiring and a big challenge.

Would you say you can relate to that couple, or to your character?

Absolutely. There’s something very real and grounded about the couple’s relationship that I think many people, including myself, can relate to. The way Haven portrays intimate moments, conflicts, complaints, and healthy resolutions feels authentic, offering a balanced, healthy take on the ups and downs of couple life, which I really appreciate. Funnily enough, I actually relate a bit more to Kay’s personality in real life than to Yu’s, but there are pieces of Yu that felt like home too. There is something very balanced about the writing, the characters have such different backgrounds and still find common ground, there are several moments where they may hurt each others feelings, but resonable and mature problem solving brings them closer together. I’m glad it’s out there, somewhat giving us all a nice story to witness.

Your performance was matched with the previous recordings, did that change how you recorded in the studio?

Well, we are less and less asked to work in the same booth as our co-actors and more and more, we only get pre-recored lines. So, I do adjust to this, but it has become a broad requirement and skill. What was most unusual, is recording lines that were already set as a reference. This was a unique challenge, as there was such a strong commitment to preserving the original personality and essence of Yu—not only through the writing but also through Janine Harouni’s interpretation. It was essential that I stay true to her portrayal while bringing my own believable version. As always my shades of personality trickle through, but I believe I managed to keep the character’s intricacies and subtleties, but Janine brough a cheaky sharp tone I really liked.

Can you share a funny or memorable moment that happened during the recordings?

Wow, this does take me back a bit, there was definitely fun moments involved. The writing for these characters is genuinely funny, and the relationship between Yu and Kay naturally lends itself to playing around with certain scenes that capture those nice, everyday life moments. The recurring Appledew references, the little conflicts that turn into sweet resolutions, and the bad and good jokes all added to the joy of bringing this character to life. I think “Bloot” ended up being the main laughing factor both for myself and the studio as it came back constantly! It was an overall pleasure to work on, and those small, relatable moments made it memorable especially the cheeky ones.

Is there anything you want to share with us?

Working on this game felt incredibly real, and I truly admire the extra time and effort the developers invested into the Couple Update not knowing exactly where this journey would lead. It was a bold choice that allowed more people to connect deeply with the narration. I myself, am proud to have contributed in my own way. This is also the way Lexie Kendrick and I got to meet. We caught up for coffee a few months after recording, it was great to meet female Kay ! (haha). Since then I’ve been busy in many other games and projects, but I suppose my latest big news is a youtube series called CATS: The Conspurracy with Devora Wilde, it’s in an RPG show called Rôle’N Play, all fun and games.

I can’t wait to see what the Game Bakers will be “baking” for the future! Thank you and Happy Season of Pride !

Koyorin interview – Haven Community Week November 2024

Koyorin is the character designer who created our favorite couple for Haven. In 2022, when we decided to bring you the couples update, we reached out to them to create the new versions of Yu and Kay. They were happy to pick up their pencil again and create these new yet familiar designs of our lovebirds! We reached out to them again for this community week, to ask if their creative process was different when working off of existing characters.

What were the constraints when creating the characters?

Hmm, as I recall generally I was directed to retain the same general vibes for their hairstyles and facial features—largely for the purpose of animation/rigging, but I think we had to be wary not to make them look too much like completely different characters from their original counterparts. While I did iterate a few times on different takes, the versions that made it to final were the most balanced between the originals and something new.

In your last interview, you mentioned when working on characters, there are non negotiable elements to character’s designs when reworking them. What are the elements that were fixed and those you could change in creating the gender swap?

In this case, I was very excited to create new versions of Yu and Kay, so I was really keen to make them stand out haha. At certain stages there were requests to make them more 1:1 with their originals (whether it was the hairstyles or outfits), and although I did test them as requested, I also created new ones alongside them that were altered/adapted versions of their original outfits (which are the ones you see implemented in the game)—not because the originals did not fit them, but because I felt like it distinguished them a bit more and made the options feel more like actual options. I totally understand the direction to do a 1:1 and the desire to retain the original designs, but with the new hairstyles it felt like it also called for a new outfit to support the overall updated look—since Yu and Kay weren’t originally designed to have multiple choices in mind, it felt right to bring more variety through this side of things too! I just hope I wasn’t too pushy about it during the process haha, but I feel that it was the right decision in the end.

We talked about your work on fan art in your last interview, did reworking your characters feel a bit like fan art?

Only a little bit! But because they were done under the context of being implemented into the final game, it didn’t feel like fanart as much as it just felt like the next step of the process. It was the next step for Yu and Kay’s growth of their characters, and I was really happy to be a part of it!

If you’re not familiar with their work, Koyorin’s fanarts are legendary. FFXIV fanart, follow Koyorin! koyorin.com

Did you decide on the current design quickly? Or were there other designs that stayed in the run for a while? Are there any you still think about?

For outfits we settled quite quickly on the newly designed ones but it took a tiny bit of convincing haha; I wasn’t originally asked to make drastic alterations to their outfits but I presented them anyway because I felt rather strongly about it. Afterwards we settled on it relatively quickly. For the hairstyles and Yu’s face it was a different story since we had to bounce around a bit between some options. Looking back on the sketches, I think for Kay we ended up going for the right hairstyle—it has similar energy to Kay’s original look while bringing along a new feel (though we cut back the length of the sides to bring more similarity/technical reasons). For Yu, there was actually another hairstyle I felt a little more attached to, but I understand why it wasn’t picked. It was still quite similar to Yu’s original hair, though it was a little messier and spunkier and still had a ponytail; but it was missing the metal ring and I think that ended up being a dealbreaker for that option.

Are there elements in the gender swapped designs you wish were there originally?

I think overall I’m still happy with the four designs independently! While there are things that I would change if I were to design Yu and Kay from scratch today, I think the only alterations I would “carry over” from the swapped designs to the original designs are very small things, such as removing a metal piece here or there. The most noticeable 1:1 change I would probably carry to the original (which is a conscious decision I made when designing the swapped version) is probably just changing Kay’s left glove from a bandage wrap to a normal glove—not that I felt the bandage wrap was a bad look, but it was a really minor detail I sometimes forgot about until later haha.

Anything you’d like to tell us?

When I was asked about working on this particular update, I was super happy to hear about it—and I was even happier to see the amount of people it reached and connected with. In addition I’m also very happy and thankful that people are still finding joy in Haven today and that we’re able to share some of the behind the scenes with people! I don’t know how much I can talk about publicly but Haven’s creation was very expansive and very exciting—there’s a goldmine of things that the team and myself came up with that didn’t make the final game but still give me so much joy to look at. So I just want to say thank you to everyone who has played Haven, everyone it’s reached, and the community that is still excited about it to this day! I hope we can continue to share things about it in the future!

Haven Community Week- Koyorin mini interview

For this community week, we reached out to Koyorin for some news on their work and to ask for some character designer insight!

Koyorin is a freelance character designer and illustrator, and Haven’s incredible character artist.


Can you tell us about what you have worked on since Haven? How about any future projects?

Since Haven, I’ve been tackling some freelance projects here and there for various applications; mostly animation/video game character designs but sometimes just illustration work too! I work with a lot of indies and smaller developers, but occasionally contribute to some bigger properties when offered. In terms of future projects, I still have some ongoing projects with long-term clients, and I’m also working on a personal project that I hope to be able to share this year if I can fit in the time to work on it more!

You do a lot of fan arts, can you tell us more about what drives you to a specific character?

Haha well, first it’s usually the character’s design itself that draws me to a particular character. But also if they’re written in a compelling way/well characterized, and have a strong personality, then that’s even better.

Your work translates characters into your own style while keeping their recognizable design elements. What’s the process in doing so?

Hmm, I think the most important thing is figuring out a character’s defining elements, and then from there deciding how much I can adapt their designs to my style. Those defining elements then become non-negotiables and have to remain the same even in my style. For example, if there’s a specific way their facial features or hairstyle must appear, or if there’s clothing elements or props that I must make sure are visible in the illustration, etc. Then if those things are in place, then the rest is fair game pretty much!

Koyorin’s Malenia x CEL 240 fan art

What’s your favorite Haven illustration you’ve done?

It’s tough to pick! I think one of my favourites is the one with Yu and Kay sitting on a rocky outcrop laughing and smiling, and there’s a large sprawling environment behind them, with a huge cliff. I believe it was used for the “Sweet Little Things” update as well. I really like that one because I think at the time of development, I was getting the hang of painting backgrounds a bit more and that one captured a certain sense of atmosphere and scale; then combined with Yu and Kay in the foreground I think it made for a charming piece. Otherwise, I also really like the Yu and Kay character selection illustrations I did, as well as the promotional artwork for the couples update! I think they capture their personalities quite well, in my opinion.

What’s your all-time favorite illustration of yours?

I’m not sure I can really decide, haha. I’m really critical of my own work, so my personal work beyond 1-2 years ago looks worse and worse to me every passing year. But I think that’s okay, because it’s simply a part of growth and improvement, and I would be more worried if I never saw any of my work with a critical eye. With that being said, if I had to pick a recent illustration of mine it would have to be something more recent that has some of the recognizable elements of my work (ex. bright neon colours or heavy contrast), such as my pieces “glass”, “succubus // 4” or “showtime”. I think for those specifically, certain elements just came together well.

What are some things you’ve learned from character designs on your different projects?

I think some of the major takeaways from the projects I’ve been a part of, is how to interpret a character’s personality, and bring that into their design. Even though it sounds like a simple thing, whenever I’m tasked with designing a character I try to think of various parts of their lives and how they might react in situations presented to them outside of the context of their game/animation. Working from there, as I did with Haven’s cast, has typically given me a greater understanding of the character and how to represent that visually.

Is there anything else you’d like to tell us?

I had a great time working on Haven and I hope people are still enjoying it today! It was a hugely pivotal project for me in my life and career, and I’m super proud of what the Game Bakers and I accomplished together, so I hope people are still having fun with Yu and Kay today too!

More of Koyorin’s work on Twitter Instagram Artstation or their Patreon

Haven Fan Art Contest – Results

Hello everyone,

As per tradition, we ran a fan art contest during Haven last community week, and the theme was “We love them when they do…”. We have received amazing applications, the jury has deliberated, and now it’s time to unveil the winners.

First of all, we would like to thank each of you for taking the time to participate: Freya, TRCelyne, Sieghiro, Skyler van Alen, MrPimp, Will, Baktos, Garayann, Mikaila, Loustica Lucia, Daranee, Aeroshino, Miomiea, June Gloom, Sukara Daiko, Catherine A., Raven, Apis Azura, Val, Basil, Svengouli, Kour, KhanSJet.

And the winners are…

1st place

WillA Long Night

2nd place

GarayannLovebirds Traveller

3rd place

MikailaI love them when they do the seed contest

Coup de coeur

TRCelyneWhen You Have No Clue What Morphognenesis Is But She Looks Too Passionate To Interrupt Her

Thank you to you for submitting great artworks.
You can check the summary of everything that was announced or discussed during Haven Community Week here.

And join The Game Bakers community, stay posted about our news and give us your thoughts directly by joining our Discord, or on our social media or signing up for our occasional newsletter.

Haven Community Week is over! Thank you <3

Haven Community Week is now over! Thank you so much for your participation, all the messages and the submissions to the fan art contest. It was fun for us, we hope it was fun for you all too!

You will find below a summary of everything we shared, to be sure you didn’t miss a thing!

  • The Haven Cutest Creatures contest on Twitter is now over and the winner is Salamash (Oink). What a surprise!). We also shared the story behind the names of the creatures in competition.

  • We unveiled a new Haven t-shirt (and you seem to like it a lot). It was exclusive to our team members, but you can win one with the Haven Fan Art contest. It will also be available this Spring when we re-open our merchandise store. Stay tuned!

  • We shared 10 secrets about Haven on Twitter.
  • With the help of our Discord Community, we created a bingo of things you should do while playing Haven. Have you filled it already?
  • You can read a full interview with Florian Coudray, concept artist who created most of the creatures on Source.
  • We shared on YouTube Haven’s credits video, if you haven’t reached the end of the game yet, or just want to enjoy the sensual outro video one more time
  • Our team shared their favorite love stories, if you are looking for recommendations on new things to read, watch or play, it’s here.
  • We shared new wallpapers & the super cute new avatars that Koyorin drew for this Community week.
  • You shared with us which streamers you would like to see playing Haven together, and you had great ideas, thank you!
  • We interviewed Thomas Brasdefer & Diana Díaz Montón about translating Haven, which is available in 9 languages.

Now, the Community Week is over, but the Fan Art Contest is still live for a few more days! I hope you loved it as much as we did.

You can join our Discord or register to our newsletter to stay in touch until the next Community Week!

Interview with Florian Coudray, concept artist on Haven

Hello everyone,

We received a lot of positive feedback about the creatures of Haven and Source bestiary, how you enjoyed their design, their presence by the two lovers’ side, and to pet them too! To give you a bit more context on the work behind the bestiary, we have decided to share with you an interview with Florian Coudray, concept artist on the game, who created most of the creatures on planet Source. Learn more about his work below.

Can you tell us more about you and your work on Haven?
Hi I’m Florian, I’ve been a freelance concept artist since 2017 and Haven was actually one of my first missions. This was an absolute treat to be able to work on such diverse topics and having a lot of freedom on concepts. I designed a lot of vehicles and creatures for the game. The scope of the game was pretty different back then and a good part of my work was also to design environments, vegetation and flavorful places.

How did you come to join the team working on Haven?
After participating in a community art challenge on Artstation I was contacted by Emeric Thoa who I guess appreciated what he saw and we came to chat and meet along with Audrey Leprince to discuss the game, the overall intention and start our collaboration.

What was the workflow for you, creating concept arts for the environments, fauna and flora for the world of Source?
I used softwares like Photoshop to paint rough ideas, sometimes I use photographs and bash them together to get a strong basis. I was always looking for some sort of story telling when designing places, in order to give some consistency and hopefully inspire the team with narrative ideas. There were a lot of discussions with Emeric and Audrey about narrative intentions, colours and overall mood of the game. They were always feeding me with cool ideas and this helped a ton get the concepts going.

You designed most of the creatures of the game. Oink is a big favourite but they are all amazing. Where did ideas come from? 
For Creatures I was inspired by creature design from Star Wars, and particularly the work of Terryl Whitlatch. I love the idea of injecting some earth-like elements in the creatures while always having some sort of quirkiness in them. I’m kinda fascinated by salamanders and the range of textures and colours we can find in them. Oink was one of many critters at first. In the end It’s the design team who made him into the lovely creature you want to befriend.

What was the more challenging part of designing creatures for Haven? What did you learn? 
Finding a fun interesting twist for each creature was I think the most challenging part. Also thinking about the overall ecosystem and potential interactions between them : predators, herbivorous or egg snatchers.

Creating the world of Source and of the Apiary, how did you find the balance between realistic enough to be relatable, but still from another planet?
Colours mainly I would say help a ton with creating otherworldly places. Playing with known assets from our world and altering their colours always gives a weird sensation. And of course implementing alien shapes and structures into the world helps a lot.

What is your favourite creature and why? (By the way you can participate in our twitter contest for “Best creature of Haven” here!)
Sunatcha (the egg snatcher) is my favourite. I honestly had a ton of fun when creating this one. A lot of creatures from Haven are very majestuous and this dude is just a sneaky thief with a ridiculous face.

Any last word for Haven players?
I hope you have a ton of fun wandering around the awesome fields on Haven and come to appreciate all the love put into this game by the team! I’m really glad to have participated in the creation of this awesome universe.

Florian Links: Artstation / Twitter

 

Haven Community Week – Fan Art Contest

Hello Havenist (we have Furist, so why not?),

As you may know, we just launched a new Haven Community Week and between February 14th and 21th we are celebrating Haven’s amazing community (details here). We are running a Fan art contest with the theme “You love them when they do…”.


Source Family – Kyleenim

Fan arts can take the shape you prefer (drawing, illustration, sculpture, collage, installation…) but has to be created especially for the contest. You have to be the original author of it. The contest runs for two weeks, until Tuesday 28th February at 23:59 PM CET / 03:59 PM PT.

To participate in the contest, you should send your application here.
Don’t hesitate to share it also on social media with #havenfanartcontest or in our community hub here! Please note that you have to submit your art to participate, posting only on social media doesn’t count.

Here are the prizes for the winners:

  • 1st: Haven Limited Run Collector Edition (PS4 or PS5) + Haven Soundtrack double Vinyl signed by DANGER + the brand new Haven t-shirt
  • 2nd: Haven Limited Run (PS4, Switch or PS5) + Haven Soundtrack double Vinyl signed by DANGER + the brand new Haven t-shirt
  • 3nd: Haven Limited Run (PS4, Switch or PS5) + Haven Soundtrack CD signed by DANGER
  • “Coup de coeur”: Haven Soundtrack CD signed by DANGER

Good luck and we can’t wait to see your creations!

Haven – Share the love during the Community Week <3

Hello everyone,

Over the last two years (time flies!), you have been sharing with us your stories playing Haven, how you thought Yu or Kay reminded you of people you knew, how some of you enjoyed playing the game with a partner, and how you were touched by their adventures in the world of Source. We received so much love from this community, so again thank you for all the messages, artworks, or recipes shared. It’s time to give a little back, so let’s have a new community week celebration!

For this new Haven Community Week, we will share some behind-the-scenes details and secrets about the game, new wallpapers, interviews with some of the team members who worked on Haven, a selection of our dev team’s favorite love stories, and more! As a tradition now during our community week, and because many of you are so talented, we are having a Fan art contest on the theme “You love them when they do…”. All the details and the prices to win are available here. We can’t wait to see what this subject inspires you!

Haven is also discounted with the highest discount ever, -60% off on Steam, GOG, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch and 50% off on Xbox so we count on you to spread the word among your friends!

 

Haven Update: Meet the new Yu and Kay

They love each other, but they can’t be together, so they do what anybody would probably have done in this situation: escape to an unknown planet.

This is the story of Haven, a romantic space adventure about two lovers trying to stay together against all odds. Who are these two lovers, you ask? Well, with this Couple Update, the question just got more interesting.

Haven originally let you play as Yu, the hot-headed mechanic and Kay, the cautious biologist. This free update introduces two new characters: Yu, the hot-headed mechanic; and Kay, the cautious biologist. Which means you’ll now be able to play with Yu & Kay, Yu & Kay, or even Yu & Kay.

Still confused? Ok let’s clarify a bit: while Haven originally let you play as a heterosexual couple, you will now be able to play as a same-gender couple.

It could feel like a small change, but Haven being a game about the freedom to love whomever you want, we’re really happy to provide more ways for players to identify with our precious couple.

Whoever you chose to play, the main story won’t change, nor will the personality of the characters. What will change is their design, models, art, animations, quite a few lines, and of course, their voices, since the 80,000 lines of dialog have been entirely re-voiced by our amazing voice actors, Lexie Ann Kendrick (Kay) and Ryan Highley (Yu).

When we first started to work on this update, soon after the release, I was curious, as a writer, about how the original dialogues would translate for these two new couples. Will some of them sound odd? Unnatural? After all, I wrote Kay as a man, and Yu as a woman, didn’t I?

I was pleasantly surprised to realize that, pronouns and minor details aside, almost nothing had to be edited. Overall, the alchemy between the characters remained unaffected.

As if characters weren’t determined by their gender. As if men and women could have the same interests, the same thoughts, the same feelings.

Funny.

We hope you’re as excited as we were to discover or rediscover your favorite couple. Oink, for once, can’t wait to meet his two new moms. Or dads.

Haven Couple Update is available for free on PC, PlayStation 5 & 4,Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch.

Pierre Corbinais

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