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Tukoni: Forest Keepers is a magical world of kindness and hope
J
John Walker
By Ukrainian development team Dream Operator in tandem with Bula herself, Tukoni: Forest Keepers is a project of hope, kindness, and fresh-brewed tea made all the more extraordinary by having been created amid the ongoing invasion of the country.
Dream Operator is a very small team of around five people, and they're developing the game to be what Co-Founder Oleksii Furman describes as “a kind of safety dome for players,” echoing his team’s metaphor for the nature of their project: staying safe and looking out for one another while their cities are targets of heavy missile attacks. This, says Furman, is a result of the source material. He told me about the impact the third book in the series had on him. “What struck me then—and what has stayed with me ever since—is how gently the Tukoni world reminds us of the beauty and depth of the real world around us, and the importance of living in harmony with nature, animals, the spirits that inhabit it, and with each other.”
Tukoni is a gentle 2D game about exploring the forests and helping out its inhabitants, which very often includes aiding others in enjoying a nice cup of tea. You play as a Tukoni called the Traveller, whose ultimate goal is to help his fellow forest spirits prepare for Winter. With welcome inspiration from Amanita Games (Botanicula, Samorost 3), the wordless world explains its puzzles through animated pictograms and delightful gestures from the characters, and feels like a giant, warm hug throughout.
“After years of working on intense documentary projects,” Furman says, “I felt a strong need to create something different—something that could offer people a moment of peace, a short and restful escape from an often overwhelming reality.” Work began on the prologue for the game at the same time as COVID-19 struck, Furman notes, “and the world became even more tumultuous. A calm, fulfilling walk through a hand-drawn forest felt like a lifeline during a year when so many of us were stuck at home.”
So instead of featuring antagonists or peril, Tukoni is a hero’s journey based on calm wandering rather than struggles. “I think the essence of the world of Tukoni connects well with the design of our game,” says Furman. “Kindness translates to the absence of fail states, calmness to giving the players all the time they need, friendship to the sense of community you feel from the characters, and all their whimsical interactions with each other and the main character.”
Oksana Bula’s role in the project is far more than advisory, too. She’s the game’s art director and concept artist, and collaborates with the game’s other artists. The books’ world being developed into a game comes from the creator’s passion. “Every story can be told through different media,” Bula told me, “and the form of storytelling is an inseparable part of the story itself. When I was thinking about—or more truthfully, dreaming of—a game with my characters, I already had a certain aesthetic in mind that I wanted to work in.”
This was partly inspired by having played Czech developer Amanita Design’s works, where Bula says “the movement through the 2D space captured my imagination!” The games showed the artist that the medium could maintain that essential book-like quality. “It felt like you could travel inside a book,” she adds. “It was especially important to me to preserve the ‘layeredness’ of hand-drawn illustration—to recreate the richness of nature that the main character journeys through. Walking through the forest isn’t just a backdrop for the Traveller; it’s his essence.”
So how does she feel about sharing the creation of a world which she was previously solely responsible for? “I believe the look of the game is shaped by the entire team’s attention to the details of the Tukoni world,” Bula says. “Before any drawing begins, we talk a lot about the story. Oleksii and Nikita (Bonhdanov, Co-Founder of Dream Operator) would ask me questions like, ‘What do the Tukoni do when…?’ or “Could it be that…?’ Eventually, everyone began to think like the Tukoni themselves, so even though I don’t always take part in puzzle design, I fully trust the team.”
Of course, all of this is being created during an extraordinarily difficult time in Ukraine, with the country now about to enter the fourth year of its illegal invasion by Russia. I wondered how this affects developing a game based on kindness and peace. “Playing wholesome games can be a calming, peaceful experience,” says Oleksii Furman. “And people often turn to them in times of need—or simply to unwind after a long day.” But it seems the impact is more significant than that for the developers.
“What’s sometimes overlooked,” adds Furman, “is that making such games can be calming and grounding too. In tumultuous and unsafe times like the ones we’re living through in Ukraine, you naturally look for stable, reassuring things to hold on to: your family, your friends, your pets, your hobbies. For us, that anchor is our team and the world we’re creating together.” He then adds: “After especially heavy missile attacks on our cities, we always check in with one another to make sure everyone is safe.”
Oh, and tea: Does tea help? The world of Tukoni is very much obsessed with the creation and consumption of various natural brews, and the game is no exception. “I’m a big fan of both tea and coffee,” says Furman, “but Tukoni spirits actually don’t drink coffee according to the lore. I know Oksana has a tea recipe she’d like to share!”
Oksana tells it like this: “I’d take an apple—the essence of summer, full of generosity and warm nights under the full moon. I’d add thyme—an ode to the sun, with incredible fragrance rising over a field of flowers. And I’d take mint, because it’s delicious. And most importantly—I’d take my friends, so we could share a thermos of tea.”
Tukoni: Forest Keepers is coming soon to the Epic Games Store. Wishlist it now!