Few games have left such an immediate impression on me as The Collage Atlas.
Having immersed myself in the game over the last few weeks, I wanted to know more.
That’s why I find myself talking to its solo developer, John Evelyn.
He’s the man who built this game and literally drew it into life.
The Collage Atlas
It took Evelyn four and a half years to create The Collage Atlas.
But the medium was always secondary to the message he wished to convey.
We start to feel that our sense of agency is somewhat undermined."
“That we don’t have meaningful authorship over our own lives.
That’s something that I and many other people have experienced.”
Evelyn initially created a demo scene with a pinwheel, like the ones often found at the seaside.
Everything in the game is spun out from this moment, Evelyn explains.
This scene was where he realised what he was trying to say with the project.
As a result, he became interested in bringing his art into the digital space.
“It was a very organic process, as I found myself doing more illustrations,” he says.
Evelyn has always drawn.
That said, he admires Raymond Briggs, Maurice Sendak, and Antoine de Saint-Exupery.
Evelyn says that, paradoxically, he found it easier to manage this way.
“I actually preferred working on my own on this, having everything as unfiltered as possible.”
“Sometimes, I think the more people involved in a project can dilute the initial idea.
It’s not always diluted; sometimes it’s enhanced, but I wanted that immediacy.”
I guess I’m questioning what made drawing this world special to Evelyn.
There’s a palpable sense of humanity that I really appreciate in work and I wanted to capture that.
It made sense to put the pen to paper and let the ink fly."
He made The Collage Atlas in part because it’s the thing he wished had existed.
What makes you get up on a morning, midway through the fourth year, and continue drawing?
For Evelyn, he’s still trying to figure that out.
“I was fortunate that I was compelled.
So what’s next?
“That might not seem obvious but thematically it is.
The Wings of Sycamore is pure flight, both figuratively and literally.
It’s meant to be the joyous bit after you’ve managed to pull yourself together.”
“I shied away from it initially, before I was like, ‘No, do you know what?
I really like drawing worlds.’
Will The Collage Atlas ever reach other platforms, I wonder?
“I was trying to make something useful that hopefully helps people.
And the only way you’re free to help is by reaching as many people as possible.
It made absolute sense that whatever happened, I had to get this on PC eventually.”
Should the opportunity arise, though, he’s open to bringing it to “literally everything.”
