Hold Your Horses – Exclusive Interview with Palia Production Director, Maxwell Zierath

In 2023, Paley entered the scene as a brand new multi-platform cozy game. With a free-to-play model, it aimed to foster a community of like-minded players who wanted to relax in a fantasy world that mixes traditional elements of farming and foraging while solving puzzles and uncovering the truth about an ancient human civilization scattered throughout its world.

I have been walking from Kalima Village to Bahari Bay for almost three years now. The maps in Palia aren't particularly large, but navigating them is a slow process if you don't know the layout. With the Royal Highlands update, we finally have horses.

The Long Way To The Mounts In Palia

I recently had the chance to speak with production director Maxwell Zierath about the long-awaited introduction of the mounts that eventually led to the Dawnspur mounts we see in the Royal Highlands. After three years, “the real answer is probably a bit boring, it was really about development priorities and what we thought was most important to the players.

“We've known that Palians have wanted mounts for a long time, and it's always been fun to see players debate whether mounts are really needed in the game,” he tells me. “These posts sparked a discussion among the development team about implementing this feature (we wanted it too!)

While gliders can help players take off from high points around the map, and stamina allows you to climb most surfaces, sometimes you just don't want to spend hours trudging around on foot. Carts are not free in the game and you still have to walk to the nearest signpost for fast travel.

“After we finished development on Elderwood, we had a lot of discussions about what we wanted to do next,” Zierath said. The team learned so much about how to create levels in Palia through the many temple spaces and eventually the Elderwood that we felt we could do something more efficient.”

“At the same time, we were looking for ways to bring in more of the cozy community audience; Palia already has a lot of enthusiasts to play the game, but there are even more who are looking for a high-fidelity experience, and we felt Palia would be a natural fit for them. Not to mention, we were involved in the production of our Animal Farming skill, Ranching, which was the perfect system for them to have.”

The inspiration behind the mane characters

While building Royal Highlands, the largest map to date, Zierath opened up about the challenges Singularity 6 faced during development. “The biggest problem, perhaps unsurprisingly, was the scale of the map. We wanted to build a map based on the increased speed of mounts and that required a larger map than we had done before, which challenged our performance assumptions.”

“Before we started developing Royal Highlands, we ran a number of tests on map performance and refined our map creation capabilities with our Living Landscapes feature. This led us to some insights that showed us that we wouldn't be limited by performance, but by our actual ability to create art for the world. During development, we redesigned the map many times to see exactly how much we could create.”

Specifically, Zierath notes, “We were all amazed at how quickly we were able to get the mounts up and running in Palia, so our level designer could actually create a map based on that experience. In about a week we had something we could ride and test how it would do on different maps. From the first versions to the final versions, there was a lot of work and a lot of fun problems with the visual planning of mounted players.”

There are many more factors to consider when designing horses for a game than just choosing a color, such as height, speed, and overall style. Zierath revealed that the team has been using the mounts behind the scenes for months, testing various features before releasing them to the player stable.

Combining elements of fantasy with horse breeds rooted in reality proved to be an exciting project. I asked how the team went about choosing the breeds we see in the Palia, and Zierath explained that “our goal was to have a few horses that were inspired by real horse breeds.”

Personally, I would like to see the Clydesdale breed in a future update, but “eventually [the development team] he settled on the American Quarter Horse and the Arabian as the inspiration for the Dawnspur and Akwindua Thoroughbred, respectively. The Arabian in particular is one that we think a lot of players will want because of its iconic look, but of course players like very cool things, so we hope people will love our Phoenixfire Dawnspur, which is equipped with all kinds of VFX.”

It paid off as Phoenixfire Dawnspur is the most impressive of them all. Not only does it have a fiery mane, but you can breed Phoenixfire Dawnspurs into different colors for a whole spectrum of fiery styles.

Everyone deserves a horse that is just for them

Palia is first and foremost a free-to-play game, which means it's much more tempting to pick up a few items from the premium store. It has benefits like unlocking licenses that allow you to take your specially bred blue Pekis (read: Palia chickens) with you as a pet, but all players can enjoy the livestock farming features.

“The most important thing I want people to know is that everybody gets a (Dawnspur) horse,” Zierath said. These horses can be uniquely bred to have a wide variety of traits, including coat colors and special effects. The best part is that everyone can participate – “even free-to-play players! And you don't even have to be driven to the main story; once you have your glider, you can head to the Highlands to meet your steed.”

This puts all players on a level playing field when it comes to gameplay. The development team behind Palia is constantly working to design new items and features that all players can enjoy to some extent, with an emphasis on personal expression as the area with the highest monetization. When asked what the team was most excited about, Zierath said, “It's hard not to be excited when I see how the players deal with the mounts and the horse(s) they raise.”

As the game approaches its third anniversary, I just had to ask about the future of Palio and the newly implemented connection system. While Zierath didn't say much, they did provide a small preview. “Right now we're sticking with horse-like animals for mounts and have a lot of ideas for great mounts with this experience in mind. We're excited to hear what else the community is excited to ride!”