Within the forest lurked strange, harrowing creatures, embodying the provincial fears of wanton lust, death, infanticide, misfortune and sacrilege. At midnight, they would emerge to walk through the woods to the village church. On certain holidays, the "year walkers" would abstain from feasting by locking themselves in dark rooms. in many ways we are just continuing the traditions of folklore: telling lies to children."Īccording to Simogo, the year walk, or "Årsgång" is a pseudo pagan ritual undertaken by Swedish people from medieval times to the 19th century. The combination of learning about the myths of their homeland and their desire to always create new, different games possessed them to such a degree that the game was born in just nine months.įlesser outlines the keystone of the concept that gave them the crunch: "We wanted to make a game that lets players experience discover the myths for themselves. "I believe found it in an old book neither of us had heard of it before," Flesser says, describing Simogo's first brush with year walking.įlesser and Gardebäck were vexed by this native custom that was somehow still mostly unfamiliar to them. The subject of Simogo's latest crunch is Year Walk, a first-person iOS adventure inspired by long dead Swedish folklore. But in Simogo's case, infatuation with the concept is what drives the process. It's the indie crunch."įlesser is alluding to the development practice of putting in long, consuming hours to finish a game. "It gets to the point where it's all I can see, even when I close my eyes. "I tend to get very obsessive and neurotic about all of our games," says Flesser. For Flesser, this means finding ideas and fashioning concepts that are so quixotic as to grip the team and exhort them to create. Simon Flesser, the art and sound complement to his programming companion, Magnus "Gordon" Gardebäck, portrays the two as "toymakers," who constantly seek to satisfy their desire to create new and different experiences. The two man outfit of Malmö's Simogo Games is just the place for old myths to find new life. But legends of "Skogsrået" and "Kyrkogrimen," among many others, still persist, waiting to take hold of those who find them. The city's vaulting skyline and wealth of international businesses insulate its residents from the parochial customs and supernatural fears of old. In this ultramodern, high tech municipality, the proximity to Scandinavia's medieval folklore is far removed and forgotten.
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