Indie Dev Interview: Tomasz Ostafin talks Papetura

Papetura is an atmospheric adventure game that is focused on artistic and musical experience while you play it. The game is made entirely out of paper, all it’s elements, character and world, are designed by Tomasz and bought to life by his team. 

A lonely creature, named Pape, lives in a flower prison, away from the rest of the world. One day Pape escapes and finds little Tura, a magical being that he’ll take care of. Together they will face darkness, fire, and monsters that will try to burn down their beloved paper world.

The game’s creator Tomasz Ostafin is an experienced solo games developer and works out of his native Poland. On this project he collaborated with music artist Tomas Dvorak aka Floex, and sound designer Juraj Mravec.
To create Papetura Tomasz had to use a variety of techniques and skills, a mixture of stop-motion, and skeletal animation, creates an entirely unique world and gameplay experience. It’s worth playing to see the incredible artwork alone and we expect (like his son) you’ll be asking for part two in no time.
Papetura is out now and you can check the game out on Steam.

Indie Dev Interview: Tomasz Ostafin talks Papetura

Please could you introduce yourself?
My name is Tomasz Ostafin, solodev from Poland. I’ve been doing games for fun for a long time, but only recently I’ve released my first complete game.
And could you introduce your studio?
I mostly work alone, so in my studio there is mr. Paper and mrs. Glue. For Papetura game I collaborated with music artist Tomas Dvorak aka Floex, and sound designer Juraj Mravec. Also most recently with publisher Feardeamic for console releases.
Can you tell us about Papetura?
Papetura is an atmospheric adventure game that is focused on artistic and musical experience while you play it. The game is made entirely out of paper, all it’s elements, character and world.
The art is fantastic, can you tell us a little more about the concept?
I used physical media – that is paper. It’s quite beautiful to work with, also unpredictable, because its interaction with light makes it special. The paper used is mostly one color, so what makes the world pop out is precisely that light, and also pure form of the paper sculptures. The idea came from The Neverhood (1996), and my experience with paper models from architecture studies.
Is the game animated by hand? What was the idea behind this decision?
It’s a mix of stop-motion, and skeletal animation. So there is a compromise of both worlds, just because pure stop-motion would take a billion years for me to complete – and the game took 6 years already to complete. Animation by hand always gives that special touch to the feeling of motion, like puppetry.
Papetura Screen Shot 2
Can you tell us a little about the gameplay?
Gameplay is simple, you walk with the character, interact with stuff, and occasionally shoot fly to hit things. You can solve puzzles and witness the story unfold.
Can you tell us a little about the music?
The music is made by one and only Tomas Dvorak, known from Amanita Design productions like Machinarium and Samorost. It’s a mix of electronic and real recordings, delicate and atmospheric. Tomas had a great idea how the music would work in the game, because specific tracks aren’t based on locations – rather on story progress. That was pretty tricky to solve, but I think it was worth the effort.
Did you enjoy creating this fantastic world?
Oh hell yes, I would do this hundred more times – in opposition to programming, debugging etc.
How would you like the audience to respond to the game?
Papetura found its audience, and the response was fantastic. That got me really moved, that people liked the experience. It’s rather an artistic project, and that makes the game not so popular, but the most touching part is when players write to me letters such as – my little son plays Papetura all the time, he asks for part two!
When is it out and how can people stay updated?
Please follow me on social media that are at papetura.com. I post most frequent on Twitter: @papeturagame. Thanks!

Thanks for reading our Indie Dev Interview: Tomasz Ostafin talks Papetura, for more interesting articles on the indie games industry, check out the links below. 

INTO INDIE GAMES WALKTHROUGHS

INDIE DEV INTERVIEW: SOLO DEV ANDRAŽ ORAŽEM TALKS NECROBOUNCER

ARE WE LIVING IN A VIDEO GAME?

A MEMOIR BLUE WALKTHROUGH – PART 1 (PHONE, APARTMENT, RADIO)

GROWBOT – REVIEW

This Article was written by: Harry Cole

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