Flavourworks

How a taste for independence and innovation cooked up the UK’s next dev sensation

- Jen Simpkins

There’s a cosy co-working cafe in the Shoreditch area, all exposed brick walls and Polaroids, hiding a corridor of offices at the back. At the end is Flavourworks’ tiny, windowless headquarters: somehow, it contains eight people at desks, a whippet named Layla and a sofa. The sofa, in front of a television that feels entirely too big for the space it’s in, is surrounded by an assortment of props from the studio’s first game, Erica. The vibe is distinctly that of a young studio with more potential – and cool junk – than can reasonably fit in one room.

They’re moving soon – just down the road, as staff are keen to stay in the area but also crave some natural light and more space. It’s all thanks to Erica, a bold live-action experiment that has ensured the studio’s security for a good while yet. For now, we have the pleasure of seeing the scale of Jack Attridge and Pavle Mihajlovic’s ambition made manifest, spilling out of the poky office in which it’s grown ever larger.

Before Flavourworks, Attridge and Mihajlovic were working at 22Cans, the Guildford-based studio founded by Peter Molyneux. Attridge was very much Molyneux’s protégé and co-designer – sort of – on god sim Godus. “For me, that was years on Peter’s shoulder,” Attridge says. “It was very much his game and his say. And I thought, ‘What would happen if I was responsible for the decisions, for better or worse?’” Meanwhile, Miha was working on an extra-curricular project of his own, and film graduate Attridge ended up doing sound for it “just for fun”, Mihajlovic says.