ONE MORE LEVEL

How Ghostrunner breathed new life into a Polish developer in need of a hit

- Niall O'DONOghue

ONE MORE LEVEL

Founded 2014

Employees 35

Key staff Szymon Bryła (CEO and studio head), Radosław Ratusznik (co-founder and game director)

URL www.omlgames.com

Selected softography Ghostrunner, God’s Trigger, Warlocks Vs Shadows

Current projects Cyber Slash, Ghostrunner 2

The masked protagonist of Ghostrunner lives dangerously. Their single hit point means a single mistake can be the difference between life and death in levels that present as daunting gauntlets, sprinkled with trigger-happy enemies waiting to cut your life short. “It’s an interesting dynamic. Yes, you’re gonna achieve a lot, you could topple the regime, you can defeat everyone if you’re good enough. But at the same time, at each and every moment, you’re just one step away from failure.” For a second, we almost forget that narrative designer Jan Gasior is talking about Ghostrunner, rather than the journey of its creators. Well, regime-toppling aside.

After the poor commercial performance of its first original game, God’s Trigger, Kraków-based developer One More Level found itself walking a knife edge. However, a willingness to experiment, and to try its hand at everything from work-for-hire gigs to selling game bundles and publishing, has helped the studio carve a path through the volatile world of game development.