Fantastic Haven
New gameplay systems and optimisation on a fantasy creature-sanctuary management game.
The game
Fantastic Haven is a management and colony-sim game from Piece of Cake, published by Goblinz Publishing. You play as the Elders of a fantasy continent, rescuing endangered magical creatures, building sanctuaries to rehabilitate them, and managing a resource called ether to restore magic to the world.
The game has not shipped yet. Steam currently lists it for Q4 2026, and my work on it was done during my time at the studio, between 2022 and 2024.
My contributions
- Implemented new gameplay systems for the game.
- Extended the Unity engine with terrain deformation shaders and Epic Online Services integration.
- Worked on optimisation across the project.
Why it was interesting
Colony sims are a performance problem disguised as a cosy game. Every creature, building and resource flow is an agent that has to keep simulating while the player zooms out and speeds up time, so the cost of a system is measured by how it behaves at hundreds of instances, not one.