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Indie game developer interview with Victor Bankler

Into Indie Games met a host of indie developers at Pocket Gamer Connects London, but none of the artwork stood out more to us that the work of An Otter Team and Victor Bankler. We got an indie game developer interview with Victor Bankler to find out more about An Otter Team and Bubumbu. 

Indie game developer interview with Victor Bankler. Please introduce yourself, your game and your studio? 

An Otter Team is a small studio consisting of three human game makers: Victor Bankler (me), Per-Emil Fritzén and Vania Castagnino Ugolotti. We were brought together by our mutual nerdiness, insatiable creative drive and attraction to all things quirky. We sort of knew that whatever we would create together would end up fun.

Can you tell us about your game, what makes it awesome?

Bubumbu (easier to pronounce if you read it like “Bu-Bum-Bu”), is a cute and family friendly puzzle game about returning lost objects to the places they belong. Each lost object in the game is carried by a walking puzzle piece that the player controls.

The player gets to explore a multitude of small, hand-drawn worlds in search for the right spot to put these lost objects. The game’s puzzle logic is thus similar to that of point-and-click games, in which you often solve quests with items from your inventory by handing them to a certain character or combining them with something in the environment.

The game world of Bubumbu is populated by a lot of cute and quirky characters that puts a smile on the faces of those who play it. It’s nice to see. The initial demo was produced during a game jam last year. The result was so charming we just had to keep building it.

What has the journey been like making this game?

Very enjoyable so far! We take good care of each other in the team and spark each other’s creativity easily. Other people have also been very curious and positive about the project. The hardest challenge has been to teach people how to pronounce the game’s title (“Bu-Bum-Bu!”)

The artwork is unique and stylish, why was that important to you?

It is the art of Vania that gives Bubumbu its characteristic look that people love and remember. Bubumbu couldn’t exist without its unique art style, as it is defined by that more than anything else. 

What got you into making games and making indie games in particular?

We are all true nerds that spent an inappropriately big part of our childhoods playing SNES, N64, old point-and-click adventures and so on. Now, as adults, we were still doing this, but now we also have the competence, creative capacity and discipline to make games ourselves.

Being indie, as in making your own games rather than making games for your employer (or another company for that matter), means you get to realize your own ideas, as well as being in charge of the production. As an indie, there are no limitations to what I can do within the production for example: sound, music, animation, programming, level design etc.     

What have you learnt from making games?

To truly respect and appreciate good craftsmanship and the hard work people put into actually creating things. And that is not just limited to video game creation. It’s amazing what people can accomplish with skill and will.

If you had advice for indie games makers, what would it be?

Really hard to answer I must say. If your readers have any of those advises please send them our way! I could recommend staying healthy maybe. Sitting by a computer all day is not ideal for body, soul or mind.

How can people support you and your game?

We just recently started sharing stuff on twitter and do devlog posts to let people know what we are up to and what is happening with Bubumbu. Follow us on @AnOtterTeam and we will share more information and links there as the project progress.

Where can people buy/play the game? And learn more about your studio?

There’s an early free demo of Bubumbu released on Huawei AppGallery for those who owns a Huawei device. The exact same demo can be found on An Otter Teams itch.io page for other Android devices, or played straight in the browser on desktops.

Stay in touch through twitter or itch.io to know when the full game will be released and on which platforms! And please, DM us if you want to be a play-tester and try new levels before everyone else.

You can find out more about An Otter Team via https://anotterteam.itch.io/bubumbu and https://twitter.com/AnOtterTeam

The next Pocket Gamer Connects where you can showcase and enjoy indie games is Pocket Gamer Seattle the 10th – 11th May 2020, use code Into Indie Games-SEA-20 for 20% off the cost of any ticket courtesy of Into Indie Games.

Thanks for reading our Indie Game Developer Interview with Victor Bankler. For more Indie Game Developer Interviews visit https://intoindiegames.com/category/features/