STATE OF PLAY

How the BAFTA-winning indie gravitated from paper towns to the Antarctic coast

- EDWIN EVANS-THIRLWELL

Founded 2008

Employees 5

Key staff Katherine Bidwell (co-founder, director of development), Luke Whittaker (co-founder, creative director)

URL www.stateofplaygames.com

Selected softography Lumino City, Kami, South Of The Circle

Current projects TBA

Developers often go to great lengths to make a game, but this is the first time we’ve spoken to one that’s travelled to the end of the Earth. State Of Play’s latest release is South Of The Circle, an elegant and mournful Cold War psychodrama that begins with a plane crash in Antarctica. While making it, the studio embarked on a real-life expedition to the continent, accompanied by the game’s scientific adviser John Dudeney – father of a friend, and former head of the British Antarctic Survey during the 1960s.

“You fly to Chile, and then you take a smaller plane to a volcanic island, which is the scariest landing you’ll ever have because it’s on gravel,” State Of Play co-founder and creative director Luke Whittaker recalls. “Landing in an aeroplane is scary anyway, but when there’s stuff pinging off the windows, yeah, that was freaky.” After the plane flight came an eerie sea voyage aboard a Russian vessel carrying a mixed payload of scientists and sightseers.