TRIBAND GAMES

How the studio behind What The Golf? carved out a niche by defying expectations

- LEWIS PACKWOOD

What does a “100 per cent comedy studio” look like? “When you enter, the first thing you see is a full-size golden horse statue,” offers Tim Garbos, co-founder of Copenhagen’s Triband Games. It’s not real gold, he hastens to add. Right next to it is a portrait of Napoleon with googly eyes. As the décor suggests, comedy is very much at the top of Triband’s agenda.

Since scoring a huge hit with the release of What The Golf? via Apple Arcade in 2019, the studio has been fully committed to making comedy games – and at quite a rate, too. In 2022, Triband continued the series with VR entry What The Bat?, in which the player’s hands become baseball bats, used to complete a series of increasingly bizarre tasks for which they’re amusingly ill-suited. Triband then returned to Apple Arcade in May of this year with the release of What The Car?, ostensibly a racing game in which the titular vehicle has legs, but which – as ever – turns out to be something quite different indeed. In the meantime, What The Golf? has been ported to PC and Switch, having received various updates over the years, including a suite of levels based on Among Us.