"Orbital Connection" produced by Polish independent game development team Afterburn, players need to help cute dogs complete their dreams of traveling the world by splicing railways, cute style and high difficulty, so that the work has been popular since last year, still ranked 4th in the Google Play paid puzzle list, 23rd in the App Store paid list of casual games, and was also favored by the judges in the Indie Game Award 2023. Winning the Best Mobile Game award, Luke Spierewka, the team's creative director, said that the work is inspired by a well-known Polish fairy tale, and the game currently has more than 200 levels for players to explore slowly, and as for the final destination of the dogs, he laughed and said: "The journey continues!"
The previous game of the puzzle game, the protagonist of the cat mother, is very popular, and then choose the dog exhibition team feature
Luke Spierewka said that the team's past puzzle game "Inner Lunch Box - Inbento", the protagonist is set as a cat mother, the concept has been well received by players, so the team continued to use it, and subconsciously chose the protagonist of the sequel to be a dog, inspired by the famous Polish fairy tale "O psie, który jeździł koleją" (the dog traveling by train), and the story originally set that the dogs will travel around the world and the last stop is to go home. However, the team wanted players to have the possibility to travel to new locations in the updated version, so the journey continued.
He emphasized that the most satisfying part of the game was the successful implementation of the art style the team wanted, so they spent nearly half of the development time trying to conceptualize the game content, but fortunately the effort was worth it, Luke Spierewka admits, although some parts were not exactly the way the partner wanted, such as the original desire for thick contours around the ground shadows, but most of the effects were exactly what the team envisioned.
More than 200 levels are all designed by yourself, and family and friends become the best helpers for the difficulty test
In puzzle games, level design and difficulty balance is also a major focus, "Track Link" is also laughed at by players as super cute but very brain-burning, Luke Spierewka said that all levels in the game are designed by team members, because everyone has a slightly different approach to designing new puzzles, and finally forms an interesting mix, gradually increasing the difficulty, in addition to the developer's own experience, but also let friends and family test, and invite players to actually try it. This is an opportunity to find out if the game design is clear, if there are any changes that need to be made, and finally update to the game.
"We have a really cool IGA trophy in our office right now that we can show off!" Luke Spierewka said excitedly that he was glad to see the Indie Game Award in the developer community and sign up, and the members were very happy to win the award, and now the team has started work on the next game, which he hopes to release in the near future, as well as some long-awaited improvements to Orbital Link. For more information about Afterburn, please check the official website.
Indie Game Award 2023 Winning Team Film >>>