Johnny Castaway is a screensaver that was released in 1992 by Sierra On-Line/Dynamix. It takes places on a small island, with a man (Johnny) who is all alone. As time would pass, Johnny would get up to little random activities and keep himself busy. He would often go fishing, find a message in a bottle, have a nap and pretty much anything else you can think of. The screensaver is described as "the world's first story-telling screen saver".

I don't think I originally saw it in 1992 though. It must have been a few years after as I didn't have a computer in my house until much later, but my best mate had it on his Dad's computer that was in his office near his workshop. Me and my friend would sit there for hours as kids watching and waiting to see what Johnny would do. Would he go for a fish again or maybe this time it was going to be something different? Probably not, but maybe

To this day, it still feels like a formative game for me growing up, even though it was kind-of-technically an anti-game of sorts. Usually a videogame is just sitting there idle, desperately waiting for you to press a button to make something happen, but because Johnny Castaway was a screensaver, any bump of the mouse, tap of a key or enthusiastic sneeze would stop the screensaver and instantly have you teleported back at whatever was on the screen previously.

There was something so enchanting about watching Johnny move about his little space and thinking about what to do next as the 0, 0, 255 blue waves lapping at the shore. I often catch myself wondering what he was up to when not taking up the screen of my best mate's Dad's workshop computer.

Jump ahead 33 years and Johnny Castaway still haunts my thoughts. Is he still there fishing? Has he done anything new since i last observed him? Did he marry that mermaid? Perhaps other things I had never seen or thought of. Did he get off the island?

Either way, this screensaver is something that I consider to be one of the best games ever made and a huge influence on me and how I create. But even now, there are still more lessons to be learned from Johnny Castaway. I've come to release that it isn't just a screensaver, or a game, but small snapshots of someone living their life and the time between.

The last time we posted about Wood & Weather was this exact date 2 years ago in 2023. Since then a lot has happened with our game, the studio and the team. And just like Johnny Castaway in the times between viewings, we have still been keeping busy, taking naps and idling working away in the background.

I wanted to take this opportunity to give a little snapshot in time of the things we've been up to and where we are currently at. So sit back, don't bump that mouse or enthusiastically sneeze because I have a bit to get through!

As a studio, we have a studio space on a main street on a suburb in Melbourne (our home town). The space is pretty big for the size of our team and has a shop front that runs onto the main strip. When setting up the space, because it was so big, to help with rent and development costs, the decision was made to run a little shop out the front. The plan was to sell books, merch, games and other things we liked or made. There was also enough space to run small events, which we decided to do.

We have generally been made up of 4 developers and a couple of contractors to help out with various additional things (audio, animation, extra art, production, admin, QA, etc.) Regardless of composition or size, we have always been made up of incredibly kind and multi-skilled creative people. This has allowed us to work on a variety of other smaller projects, host events, sign NDA's, pick up contract work and keep the lights on.

Here is a quick run down of some notable things that happened over the last couple years!(not in chronological order)

• We hosted a game jam called The Women's Weekly Cake Book Game Jam!

• We bundled up our gear and had a pop-up shop for Freeplay: Parallels 2024

• We collaborated with ACMI to launch an educational portal for our previous game Paperbark.

• We got access to some extra space at the studio and fixed it up to do more fun things.

• We helped port Saltsea Chronicles to Switch.

• We increased the number and types of things we sell in our shop.

• We hosted an online workshop teaching people how to use FMOD for APRA AMCOS.

• We created some unique art assets for Isopod: A Webbed Spin-Off.

• We revamped our co-working space to allow a lot more devs to work in our space.

• We did a pop-up shop (again) for Freeplay; Parallels 2025.

• We held a Switch 2 Midnight Launch Party!

• We ran some workshops with our friends 2pt Interactive, teaching people Blender.

There is heaps of other stuff I would have forgotten, but we were doing all of this alongside working on our game.

We've been working on Wood & Weather the whole time and it's been a mixture of a lot of fun, a lot of work and a lot of difficulties. One of the biggest things that has happened throughout development is the time it's taken to make this game lol. The other things is the amount of people who have worked on or contributed to making W&W so special.

When we first set-out to make this silly game, we had a lot of ideas and aspirations for what it meant to be game developers as individuals but also as a team. When each year passed and the game grew, the amount of work grew and the industry around us changed. There was a lot of time spent trying to keep the wheels turning on the game production but also keep the studio running through an incredibly difficult time. Like everything we do, we try to roll with the punches, make the best adjustments we can to best weather the storm and try to keep chipping away at our goals. A lot of developers would know this feeling and sometimes your job often feels like keeping a flame alive while you wait for clearer skies.

This doesn't just fall on one person but many and there is a lot of individual sacrifice people do for the sake of the craft of making videogames. I feel that Wood & Weather is testament to that and something I'm personally very thankful for.

This all being said, Wood & Weather is nearing completion and we are really happy with where it has landed. Even though it's gone through a bunch of iterations, hands and changes over the years, the game has just absorbed the personality and character of everyone who has been involved.

We'll be doing some proper announcements early near year, but here are some highlights that have happened: (not in chronological order)

• We got some additional funding support for W&W!

• Sam our wonderful lead programmer, core member and writer stepped down!

• Ryan the co-founder of PH came back and started working on W&W as Sam's replacement!

• Jack, our incredible lead artist and first person to join the team, wrapped up his work.

• Mickey joined our team.

• We finally migrated the entire game scene from the demo to the main one.

• We added some new characters.

• We added a bunch of objects.

• We added some new mechanics.

• We finally came up with an ending for the game.

• All of the Weather States are done.

• Players can now \[redacted]

• Terry updated the title screen logo.

• There are more cars and they are all still bad drivers.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1677010/Wood__Weather/

Thank you for the people who stuck through this big write up. We've been incredibly busy with life and making games. 2026 is going to be a big one for us in many ways different to what was previously mentioned in this post, but we are busting to finish up Wood & Weather and release it to everyone alongside the other 20,000~ games that get released on Steam annually.

Thank you to everyone who has directly contributed to Paper House over the last couple years, your support and understanding has allowed us to do what we love on a daily basis. Thank you to everyone else who

Just like Johnny Castaway chipping away on his island, I hope you all keep us in the back of your mind until the next time we're observed. While we might not have caught that mermaid, we've certainly been busy and hopefully will make some of our own waves.

Lots of Love ːwombatloveː,

Terry
Paper House