Development was already under way on Chasing Aurora, and Clemens Scott couldn't settle on an art style for Broken Rules' Wii U launch title. You could, perhaps, attribute this to second-game jitters, but for the fact that this was Scott's first project after joining the studio as art director. And nothing he was drawing seemed to fit the concept: a multiplayer action game about the dream of flight.
All it took was a particularly unproductive day while working from home, the door of an overstuffed wooden wardrobe constantly banging off his arm, for Scott to snap. "At some point, I burst and I just kicked that wardrobe," he laughs. "It fell apart. Everything started slanting slowly, and then collapsing."
Yet, among the fragments, something caught his eye: the shelves. With a background in analogue art, Scott turned the wood into a canvas, cross-hatching landscapes with a black marker. Over a decade later, he still remembers the reaction from his colleagues after bringing the decorated shelf into the office: "This is it".
That act of breaking down and rebuilding could serve as a metaphor for the way Broken Rules itself has changed over the years. Today, it operates as something closer to a creative hub than a traditional game studio. Based out of a shared office in Vienna's Museumsquartier alongside two other indie developers, an animator, and an architectural visualiser - its five co-founders work independently of each other, collaborating on certain projects and relying on external contractors for larger games. An atypical structure, for sure, but one that kept Broken Rules going when closure seemed all but inevitable.
Its origins can be traced to the Vienna University of Technology, where computer science students Peter Vorlaufer, Jan Hackl and Felix Bohatsch were part of a joint thesis project that grew into the puzzle platformer And Yet It Moves.
This story is from the November 2022 edition of Edge UK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the November 2022 edition of Edge UK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles
Anyone familiar with the concept of kitbashing is already halfway to understanding what Tomas Sala’s open-world builder is all about.
Children Of The Sun
René Rother’s acrid revenge thriller – an action game with its limbs broken and forcibly rearranged into the shape of a spatial puzzler – is at once a bonafide original and an unlikely throwback. Cast your eyes right and you wouldn’t blink if we told you this was a forgotten Grasshopper Manufacture game from the early PS3 era (we won’t be at all surprised if this finds a spot on Suda51’s end-of-year list).
Post Script
What does Rise Of The Ronin say for PS5 exclusivity?
Rise Of The Ronin
Falling in battle simply switches control to the next person up, and then quick revive fixes everything
Post Script
The pawn and the pandemic
Dragon's Dogma 2
The road from Vernworth to Bakbattahl is scenic but arduous. Ignore the dawdling mobs of goblins, and duck beneath the chanting harpies that circle on the currents overhead, and even moving at a hurried clip it is impossible for a party of four to complete the journey by nightfall.
BLUE MANCHU
How enforced early retirement eventually led Jonathan Chey back to System Shock
THE MAKING 0F.... AMERICAN ARCADIA
How a contrast of perspectives added extra layers to a side-scrolling platform game
COMING IN TO LAND
The creator of Spelunky, plus a super-group of indie developers, have spent the best part of a decade making 50 games. Has the journey been worth it?
VOID SOLS
This abstract indie Soulslike has some bright ideas