March 2026 Newsletter
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Making Usual June feel realistically midwestern
Last month we mentioned that the Usual June team has been focusing a lot on building Fen Harbor, the fictional town where the game takes place, and that means it’s time for you to meet Cameron Bragg, Level Artist for Usual June! Social Media and Community Director Aster Wright had a chat with Cameron about his work bringing Fen Harbor to life.
Aster- Fen Harbor is a fictional midwest city. What kinds of things go into making the town feel realistically midwestern?
Cameron- Other than the wacky stuff, Usual June is really meant to capture life in a Midwestern, Michigan, Everytown. A big part of that is featuring not just big, historic buildings, but the local flavor of mundane structures and spaces. Like a small, rundown apartment or an outdated university basement. When we do make those fancier locations, though, we try to find a historical precedent for the area and era. The observatory in the demo, for example, is an amalgamation of four or five real observatories around Michigan and Ohio - with a Spooky Device attached. We’ve done the same thing for the library pictured above— there’s a a ton of Carnegie funded libraries all over the Midwest and northeast that we looked at for reference before settling on our favorite bits to make our library come to life.
Aster- How do you go about building a location in Fen Harbor? From where do you draw your inspiration? Can you walk us through your creative process?
Cameron- The history of the town is important in Usual June, so we’re building a lot of older locations, and all of those older locations need older furniture. Conveniently, I’ve got two massive 1970s Auctioneer catalogues that include very detailed photos of historic, antique furniture with dimensions and everything. It’s so much fun going through those to find what works for our locations and translating them into our style. And, of course, googling ‘old chair’ is always an option. I try to use entire pieces as reference when I can to keep consistency, but in some cases, I have to pull a few elements from one thing and some from another. That happens a lot with bigger pieces, like giant boilers or machinery and stuff that needs to have a unique flavor.
And when it comes to full buildings, those are always a hodgepodge of decade appropriate, but scattered references. A large part of my job is gathering those scattered references and translating the elements from realism to our style, and then wrestling with proportions until it fits nicely into our kit. The process of building a space usually starts with a day or two in VR playing with digital blocks. Placing walls and sketching in features is much more flexible with a headset, and it lets me really get the feel of the space before it’s ever built in the Unity editor. I try to think of how the grid and pieces that make up a space could work as I’m sketching it in, so that when I get to the actual modeling phase everything is already lined up and just needs refinement.
This is an old picture of the cemetery in the blockout phase. Doing this in VR means we can toss walls around and draw whole new sections of ground with a hand gesture. The speed and flexibility means it really feels like sculpting, and the lower fidelity means we can rapidly change the whole scene if we need to. Its super freeing and so easy to collaborate—I can copy and hand someone a whole tree asset and then we can both place them around the level. Here you can see some basic grave stand ins and some dirt paths drawn on top of the grass while we figure out placement.
And here’s how the cemetery is looking today! Wishlist Usual June
Adam Saltsman on Michael Brough’s “diabolical strategy games”
Finji Co-founder and Director Adam Saltsman on being a long-time fan of 868-BACK developer Michael Brough, how Overland was inspired by 868-HACK, and more!
I’ve been a fan of Michael Brough’s games for a long time. By fan, I mean the biggest game I ever made and am most proud of, Overland, spilled out of my head as a direct result of playing his games. And by a long time, I mean I’ve been deeply preoccupied with diabolical strategy games like Imbroglio and hectic arcade games like Helix for over a decade now. Michael’s games are so fun, and funny. They’re handmade, and clever. And they’re always surprising. Just when you think you have it figured out, you realize there’s a whole other layer happening, or a new way to see the layer you’re already on.
I’m a few years older than Michael, but we started making games publicly around the same time as each other. We were mostly making smaller games, often with experimental mechanics and unconventional art choices, not as a way of going against games, but as a way of going into games even farther, as a way to make games that anyone could play, but still had a strong and specific voice. We both gravitated to mobile games as not just an accessible way to get a game out there, but as a way to get a game out to someone who might not think of themselves as a gamer. We wanted to make new games that were also true games, and share them with everyone.
One of those games was called 868-HACK. Michael’s cyberpunk roguelike blew a lot of minds when it came out in 2013, including mine. It was a turn-based dungeon crawl, but since it’s about hacking, the dungeon is a computer server. Each floor of the server is tiny, almost cramped. A 6x6 grid, glittering with neon chip outlines and strange creatures. You can Siphon data up out of the grid cells around you and use it as energy and currency, and you can zap the daemons, viruses, and glitches that are trying to disconnect you. Simple enough.
The thing is, every wall on every floor of every server is like a treasure chest. Hack one of these tiles, and you can steal a strange and powerful program to use on your quest. These progs do all kinds of weird and useful things, if you have enough energy and currency. Unfortunately, the corporations actually do NOT approve of all your burglaries, so the danger level goes up each time you take their stuff. 868-HACK starts out as a dungeon crawl but evolves rapidly into a series of push your luck heists. It’s one of the all time great games of I’m a genius! Oh no! feelings. Just like Tetris and Wilmot’s Warehouse, your worst problems are the consequences of your own actions. Which is funny, but it also means you can do something about it. Previously impossible challenges start to crumble under your expanding knowledge of the progs and their side effects. Limits you were sure couldn’t be surpassed begin to seem trivial. And fortunately, new wilder challenges await.
868-HACK was more than I could handle. Within a few weeks of my first timid runs against some server or other, back in 2013, I was already starting to work on the prototype that would eventually become Overland, our 2019 strategy game about, surprise, small grids and tough choices. So you can imagine my delight when I found out that Michael was returning to the scene of the crime with an honest-to-God sequel - 868-BACK.
My first thought was, “yes, incredible, finally.” My second thought was, “wait how do you improve on HACK ?? It’s already fun, and funny, and deep, and surprising, all the things I love about Michael’s games.” Sure he went on to make a bunch of other fun and amazing games after that, sure he’s learned a lot on that journey or whatever, but I just don’t see how you improve on perfection. Fortunately for all of us, Michael did see how.
For long time HACK fans AND new players, your first steps into 868-BACK will probably feel familiar at first. Siphon some data, steal a few progs, zap a virus or two, and exit the server in style (or possibly in a panic). But then you may start to notice things. Some of these progs are beefier than you thought. And there’s some new stuff that wasn’t there last time. There’s even things outside the server.
I feel like I should stop here. You all are in for a treat. I cannot wait to hear about your broken builds, and your preposterous prog combos that SEEMED like they were invincible, and how you ALMOST escaped with more legacy than you thought was even possible. Don’t worry, Hacker, you’ll get it on the next run…
Chicory A Musical Tale released on March 7th! This 4-disc musical journey with 32 new arrangements was made in a collaboration between Resonant Union, Lena Raine, and Wishes Unlimited, and it’s available now on Bandcamp!
We asked Greg Lobanov and Lena Raine about the new album.
Greg- I grew up listening to fan game remix albums, so seeing it done to a game I worked on is kind of mind blowing. I love the way every track is transformed in this project. You can feel so many different styles and spirits shining through!
Lena- Setting out to write the music for Chicory A Colorful Tale, I wanted to capture the emotions of the kinds of games I fell in love with while growing up. It was like the feeling of being a young artist looking up to the masters, and then doing my own spin on what they established. To do that, I teamed up with a number of wonderful instrumentalists to record a soundtrack that I hoped would communicate how I felt. It was a very personal soundtrack, full of my self-reflective thoughts on art & the struggles of both doing art and the lineage that comes from established artists passing the torch to up-and-coming artists. It doesn’t matter if it’s music, art or writing, for whatever medium you’re in the struggles feel pretty universal.
When Resonant Union invited me to join the arrange album project for ZeroRanger in 2024, I was delighted to participate in a celebration of the music for a game I really loved. And I wasn’t alone. Dozens of amazing artists came out to share in this feeling and build a feeling of community. So when they asked me if I’d like to do an arrange album of my own music, the first thing that came to mind was my music for Chicory. Because the thematic core of the game becomes opening up the possibilities of art to be for anyone, it felt like the most obvious choice to share what the world of Chicory might look like with dozens of incredible artists all sharing what their version of the world, and music, might sound like.
I would very much love if you’d all join with us in celebrating the joy of art and music together with Chicory A Musical Tale!
CorgiSpace is growing in power! And corgis!
We released a second FREE update with 3 MORE GAMES on March 25th! That’s 19 games total now if you’re keeping track!
A TUNIC Switch 2 update is coming!
Earlier this month, we announced that we’re working hard on the much-requested Switch 2 update for TUNIC! Stay tuned and join the Discord for more news on that.