Way to the Woods looks beautiful — and its developer is 16

When the designer behind Way to the Woods, an adventure game starring a pair of deer, shared the first images from the project on Reddit earlier this week, the response was that of shock and awe — first at the game's gorgeous art, and then at the age of the artist.

Lead developer and Australian artist Anthony Tan is just 16 years old, as he shares unabashedly in posts on his Reddit thread and personal Tumblr page, which he links out to from the game's blog.

According to his Twitter profile, Tan previously worked as a 3D artist for developer Owlchemy Labs, which is based in Austin and known for games like Smuggle Truck and Job Simulator.

He and his team of co-developers plan to release Way to the Woods on Windows PC, but they hope to also bring the game to consoles, according to an FAQ on its website.

It might too early to talk about launch plans for the title, however. "We haven't begun the whole indie game funding trip yet but that will be happening soon," Tan writes. "The release of the game will depend on that!"

Development on the project, which the artist is rendering in Unreal Engine 4, is still fairly early on — Way to the Woods is in a pre-alpha state, and the team behind it recently applied for an Unreal Developer Grant to help support the production.

In the meantime, feast your eyes on the assets shared thus far; no matter how old the artist behind them is, they're pretty astounding.

Correction: Owlchemy Labs is now based in Austin, having moved from its original Massachusetts location.