Artifex Mundi, a game development company that specializes in producing high quality video games for the personal computer and mobile (iOS, BlackBerry, Android) devices, had just recently released 9 Clues 2: the Ward and Grim Legends 2: Song of the Dark Swan in September. With over 20 titles, their hidden-object puzzle adventure (HOPA) games have been downloaded more than 12 million times since 2011. Curious about this industrious team and the innovative projects, the Gamer Headlines took this rare opportunity to ask some questions to Tomasz Grudziński, the CEO of Artifex Mundi, in an exclusive interview.
9 Clues 2: the Ward
Before listing the questions, thank you for spending your personal time to answer our inquiries. As you probably could guess, we’ve played some of your video games, but we would like to know more about these wonderful projects and the Artifex Mundi team. First, please introduce yourself (like explaining your background history with video games, naming some past-time favorites, and stating your position).
“Hi there! My name is Tomasz Grudziński, and I am CEO of Artifex Mundi, my favourite game development company. :) Actually, I’ve been doing this all my professional career, building this company from scratch along with a group of fantastic people – Artifex co-founders. It’s been seven years now since we built our first commercial game, and yeah, we’ve traveled a long way to get to a point in which we are now. It’s been a tough time more-often-than-not, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. Personally, I am a huge fan of RPG games, Souls series, The Witcher, Dragon Age – and I admire adventures by Telltale Games with The Wolf Among Us being my #1.”
For years, Artifex Mundi has produced high quality video games for the personal computer and mobile devices. Could you please define the high quality standard or explain how these final products meet or even excel this condition?
“I guess there is no clear definition of high quality. It’s always a matter of how far you’re willing to go with polishing, improving, changing etc. From business point of view, one must almost always choose between low production cost and high quality. While both approaches might be reasonable business-wise, we’ve been always very passionate about our games and would not compromise with our quality. If we felt something could be better, we improved it. Again and again. We’ve been always prototyping a lot, making many quick iterations with concept art and simplistic gameplay to see if our ideas – which work on paper – do also work well in the game. This is a difficult and exhausting process, to redo things over and over again – but finally, this is our way to achieve quality and be satisfied with what we do. And hope our fans will feel the same when they play our games ;)”
Enigmatis: The Mists of Ravenwood
Before creating an innovative game, how does the team pitch ideas or collaborate as group? Is it lively? Any grab a coffee moments where you sit down and just chat?
“It’s different for literally every game. Sometimes we do a pitch contest – like for example with Abyss: The Wraiths of Eden. Sometimes we rely on one person with vision – like my brother Jakub, our Creative Director (He’s the mastermind behind our most successful series, Enigmatis). Sometimes, if we work on a sequel like with Nightmares from the Deep series, the team that made the first part determines the direction for the next installments. There’s always a lot of talking, chatting, brainstorming – but there’s no single formula, honestly :)”
We’re at a critical time when the gaming community wants to know more about how developers treat and handle women. What do you personally think about this particular matter, and how do you guys perceive women when creating these characters in your games?
“Well, HOPA genre is mostly played by women so in our games, protagonist characters are typically women ;) I actually can’t think of a single game we have developed with a male character as a protagonist so far. As for my personal approach to this matter, I think you should keep in mind what your audience wants and what the genre is, but we always first and foremost try to create interesting characters, be it a man or a woman. I just try to focus on creating engaging games for all players.”
Nightmares from the Deep 3: Davy Jones
Each franchise seems to have its own theme. However, each video game is still in first person view without seeing the main character, but they often have a female voice. Why do you guys gravitate toward having female leads?
“Our audience is mostly female, it is easier for them to immerse in the game if they can easily impersonate the protagonist. I guess that’s the same reason for which in some other genres protagonists are typically male.”
Does each female protagonist have a distinct quality in each franchise or ever change?
“Our games feature many different female protagonists. Curious and independent detectives can be found in few franchises, but they are not clones – they differ in humor and temper. In Nightmares from the Deep series, we are taking up a role of museum curator whose daughter has been kidnapped by ghost of a fearsome pirate. In the first installment rescuing her child is the only reason for the protagonist to delve into strange and dangerous world of cursed treasures, but in each successive adventure she finds new reasons to interfere with schemes of notorious Davy Jone’s – it almost becomes personal.”
Grim Legends 2: Song of the Dark Swan
In your recent project called Grim Legends 2: Song of the Dark Swan, it contains three female characters: an inquisitive protagonist, a silent victim, and an angst but broken-hearted sorceress. Could you explain the character design for each individual?
“Although the story is about a magical curse and rejected love, it became quite transparent to us at an early stage, that conflict’s axis is between women representing very different archetypes. We have a once-beautiful powerful sorceress that turned bitter and vengeful, following a path that we know very well from folk tales and the young queen, that might seem like a rather classical Damsel in Distress trope. Yet everything changes with game’s protagonist – not only is she an independent woman with huge agency, but also – as a healer – she combines analytical mind with compassion and care. In the end she’s the one to solve the long-lasting conflict and undo the curse. Not with violence, but with wits and not for the princess and half the kingdom, but because of an innate need to help others.”
After getting to know more about these characters (particularly, the women), what are some long-term goals that you wish to achieve in the future for Artifex Mundi?
“Diversifying our portfolio to develop more genres is our long time goal. While we’re definitely not done with HOPA genre yet, in 2015 we’ll launch a few f2p titles in genres close to HOPA and also completely different. We’ve been also always very fond of non-HOPA narrative games and I guess some hint as to our long-term plans may be found in my answer to the first question as well ;)”
Will fans one day ever see these familiar titles on the PlayStation 4 or XBox One?
“A simple question at last! ;) The answer is Yes.”
Finally, what should fans expect from the company or its products in the near future (like what are the next upcoming games)?
“We just released 2 games (Grim Legends 2 and 9 Clues 2) so we might be a little more silent for a while, but let me say we like trilogies, so you might expect closures to Enigmatis, Grim Legends and 9 Clues franchises in 2015. And some more of course as well :)”
Again, thank you for spending some time with us and sharing your thoughts!
For more information, please visit the official website!
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