GAMAYO IS NEARLY HERE.
(Thursday 23rd May 2024 at Tileyard North, Wakefield)
There’s still plenty of time to hype up the brilliant games that are going to be present on the day AND put a spotlight on the amazingly talented developers behind them!
The next GaMaYo highlight is a fast paced musical tactics game arriving right on cue…
The Waking Knot
This is being developed by the team at Bongle Systems Ltd and Stan Irvin-Wilmot was kind enough to tell us more…
What would be your description of The Waking Knot?
“The Waking Knot is a minimalist arcade tactics game about improvising amongst chaos. It’s a game where you act on instinct in punchy procedural runs amongst a lively sea of bubbles that carry, disrupt, and explode. It’s a characterful and unique game of plate-spinning and exploiting shifting opportunities for creative spatial manoeuvres.”
How did development start? (Were there any key inspirations or ideas that drove you?)
“The initial idea was to see what it would be like to focus a turn-based tactics game around player expression and creativity. We were inspired by the intricate combinatorics of Into The Breach but were curious if that stuff could work in a game that played less defensively and so might work for a broader audience. We were also interested in the idea of all the important game state being about positions on the ‘board’ – we’ve never had things like health points in the game.
It took a lot of iteration to find the mechanic of our bubbles that all move at once and interact in interesting ways – that was what made things really click into place. Suddenly, everything on the level was interconnected.”
Tell us about the team behind The Waking Knot?
“The core team is me (Stan Irvin-Wilmot) and Bill Owers and additionally Tom O’Rourke (Torom) on sound and music. We all went to the same primary school in Brighton and have stayed close friends (now in our late twenties). Me and Bill both quit jobs to pursue this project and have been fortunate enough to work on it full time for over 3 years now. It’s our first major game so we’ve learned loads along the way. It’s been a very iterative and creative process – in the first year or so we threw away a lot of work while we found out what worked. It’s been a way more intense and prolonged life experience than I’d anticipated so it’s a relief to be doing it with good old friends. ”
What kind of experiences do you hope to bring players?
“I think the game feels quite unique to play so our goal is to support and lean into that. I’m interested in the way games allow us to reflect on how we think and operate and this game is designed to allow for a lot of expressivity (supporting lots of options/solutions). It can be very funny watching someone else play, as they make baffling decisions that somehow work out. I hope people enjoy reflecting on what it feels like to operate in this chaotic system that is much bigger than them. The evocative, dreamlike qualities of the game hopefully set up some of that curiosity.“
In 10 words or less, highlight the appeal of The Waking Knot?
“Your plans will go hilariously wrong but you’ll playfully adapt.”
And finally…what are those green guys?
“We call him Young Michael. People, on the whole, seem to think he’s probably a sad potion or an onion – I’m not sure.“
Look forward to seeing The Waking Knot and trying it out in person at GaMaYo, May 23rd, Tileyard North, Wakefield.
You can also check out the Steam page HERE and make sure to Wishlist if you like what you see. It goes a long way to get the word out there and support independent developers.
If you would like to come to this event and/or join the GaMaYo network and develop games or support the games industry – then visit our Discord or Facebook group.