“It’s so incredibly privileged to be in this place.”
Three years ago, everything was about to change for tiny Australian studio Witch Beam.
Unpacking, it was called.
But there was trepidation, because how many people would want a chilled-out game about placing objects?
How many people would understand what it was trying to do?
Witch Beam needn’t have worried.
For Witch Beam, it was an unmitigated success.
“It’s been life changing,” co-founder Sanatana Mishra tells me now.
you’re free to’t just keep doing that.
So that was life-changing for everyone on the team and everybody we work with.
It’s been fantastic."
And now the team is back with a new game calledTempopo.
Tempopo is as different to Unpacking as Unpacking was to Assault Android Cactus.
“Why does that die out but not a different animal?”
It’s a similar thing with game genres or certain game ideas, in Mishra’s mind.
“When I look at these classic games that I love - Lemmings and ChuChu Rocket!
- I go, ‘Why are these things no longer interesting to people?’.
That’s where the kernel of Tempopo’s idea comes from.
The core of Tempopo should be easy to grasp.
“Planning and execution is the loop that the game has,” Mishra says.
There’s no real-time input.
If you want to alter something because your plan didn’t work, you start all over again.
But there’s no stress.
“We’re all really good at puzzle games innately,” he tells me.
“It’s literally part of our evolutionary biology.
So I’m trying to put people in this relaxed headspace,” he says.
“I want people to sit down with Tempopo and feel a sense of calm wash over them.”
This sense of calm ties into the game’s overriding theme of harmony.
Maybe harmony will also be a theme that resonates with you while you play.
“It’s not exactly like I’m gonna beat people over the head with it.
It’s just an underlying element of this is what the game is about.”
But while Tempopo has deeper themes, “It’s quite a different experience,” Mishra points out.
It’s worth noting here that Unpacking lead creator Wren Brier ain’t running on the project.
“Wren’s taking a break from development,” Mishra says.
Now she is going to recharge before she tackles something new.”
Secondly, Witch Beam never wanted Tempopo to be the same kind of game.
“We had like a 10-second conversation about it.
We were like, ‘We don’t want to do this,'” he says.
“We thought it was a complete game that stands on its own.”
Unpacking’s Wren Brier was technically a collaborator, as is Tempopo’s co-creator Seiji Tanaka.
Theoretically I imagine it could operate for years off that game’s income alone.
But there’s no escaping the sense of pressure great success brings.
“And that’s slightly terrifying from a creative point of view.”
Because what if you don’t live up to it - does it mean you fail in some way?
He reminds himself: “It’s so incredibly privileged to be in this place.”
