Oskar Stålberg joined UsTwo Games for two reasons. Firstly, the pay was better than he could get at Ubisoft. And secondly, like 26 million others with a mobile phone, he'd been wowed by Monument Valley-the mesmeric, Escher-like puzzle game about manipulating miniature dioramas.
As it turned out, however, Monument Valley was the business of UsTwo's London office. Working in Malmö, Stålberg was stuck instead with a Play-Doh project-not the kind of snowglobe worldbuilding he'd hoped for.
Since going indie, Stålberg has made up for lost time-making a name for himself as a developer of exquisite, shrunken worlds. "I've always been fascinated by those kinds of things," he says. "I've always liked looking at maps." Since Google Earth came out 20 years ago, Stålberg has spent many happy hours flying around its facsimile planet, appreciating the geological and manmade patterns that can only be observed from a great height.
His first attempt to tap into that joy was, you might say, Monument Valley-esque: a maze game about picking a path across a tiny urban environment. "You were maybe going to be a cat jumping around," he says. "Maybe delivering mail or something. But I didn't manage to make that fun."
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der September 2022-Ausgabe von PC Gamer US Edition.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der September 2022-Ausgabe von PC Gamer US Edition.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent? Anmelden
Special Report- Stacked Deck - Monster Train, a deckbuilding roguelike that firmly entrenched itself as the crown prince to the kingly Slay the Spire back in 2020, was the kind of smash success you might call Champagne Big.
Monster Train, a deckbuilding roguelike that firmly entrenched itself as the crown prince to the kingly Slay the Spire back in 2020, was the kind of smash success you might call Champagne Big. Four years later, its successor Inkbound’s launch from Early Access was looking more like Sandwich Big.I’m not just saying that because of the mountain of lamb and eggplants I ate while meeting with developer Shiny Shoe over lunch, to feel out what the aftermath of releasing a game looks like in 2024. I mean, have I thought about that sandwich every day since? Yes. But also, the indie team talked frankly about the struggle of luring Monster Train’s audience on board for its next game.
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