Read the interview in English
Back in 2003 that the first Samorost came out, not so many of the gamers community were familiar with Amanita Design, until the year 2009 that Machinarium was created, the Studio became world-renowned. After the second Samorost, and working on another art fields, Amanita is now developing Samorost 3. So we decided to arrange an interview with Amanita Design to see how is the development going and what has been the formula behind Amanita’s success.
BaziCenter: Please tell us about Amanita Design and how it came to existence.
Amanita Design: Amanita Design studio was established by Jakub Dvorský after finishing his university studies back in 2003. In 2005, animator Václav Blín joined the studio and Samorost 2 was created. Since then, Amanita Design team has expanded further to include several excellent collaborators – musicians Floex and Dva, programmers David Oliva, Peter Stehlík and Jan Werner, painter Adolf Lachman, sound effects expert Tomáš Dvořák and animator Jaromír Plachý. Besides making computer games, the studio has also created music videos, websites, animated works, and illustrations and has done production design as well. Amanita’s most successful titles so far are Machinarium (2009) and Botanicula (2012).
BaziCenter: How did Samorost came to life and what inspires these peculiar ideas of Amanita Design’s games?
Amanita Design: The first Samorost game was Jakub’s thesis project at the Academy of Arts in Prague (Czech Republic). It was created in Adobe Flash and was (and still is) playable for free on-line. Samorost was inspired by sci-fi books, old animated films by authors like Jan Švankmajer, Karel Zeman and others. Lot of inspiration came from old computer games, adventure games and most importantly by nature itself, from forests, rotten wood as well as old machinery, and rusty things and stuff like that.
BaziCenter: Does the name Samorost mean anything special?
Amanita Design: “Samorost” in Czech language means a root or piece of wood which resembles a creature; but it is also a term for a person who doesn’t care about the rest of the world. It’s a nice Czech only word which has various meanings.
BaziCenter: Since the release of first Samorost game until now that you are developing the third entry, how has Amanita Design changed besides increasing its staff?
Amanita Design: Samorost series were interrupted by developing Machinarium and Botanicula – two biggest Amanita’s hits, which helped Amanita to become world renowned indie game studio and gain financial independence. The company vision remained unchanged from it’s beginning: Let’s make games we love to play. We try to keep the company size small with family-like atmosphere and without stressing people with strict deadlines.
BaziCenter: In your opinion, is operating in the indie games scene a better position for a creative studio like Amanita Design or collaborating with big publishers?
Amanita Design: Amanita was lucky to release titles which became very successful and enabled it to become financially self-sufficient. Competition on indie game scene is getting tougher each year and number of indie studios which manage to achieve financial independence is very low. Amanita managed to self-publish all titles on almost all digital distribution platforms, which is the way we recommend to any indie developer. It is more complicated to self-publish than to go via publisher but the positives of being fully independent are predominant.
BaziCenter: Is Samorost 3 going to introduce new gameplay mechanics or element to the series?
Amanita Design: The gameplay design is similar to previous Samorosts, it’s a point-and-click adventure game where player is exploring locations, solving puzzles, collecting and using items. But this time we wanted to put emphasis on playfulness and simply enjoying the atmosphere of all Samorost 3 locations and planets. Lots of hidden achievements not necessary for completing the game were added.
BaziCenter: Have you faced any tough challenge while developing Samorost 3?
Amanita Design: Samorost 3 has been in development for 5 years it is our largest and most ambitious project so far. Naturally it has faced and is still facing many challenges. One of the hardest tasks was to define the graphical style of Samorost 3, we wanted it to look believable yet to be full of surreal elements. Inventing puzzles which are all original was also a tough one. From technical point of view Samorost3 is touching the limits of 2D capabilities of Adobe Air platform.
BaziCenter: Samorost’s soundtracks are some outstanding piece of work and undoubtedly a defining part of the series. Can you tell us a bit about how do you choose these soundtrack for the game or perhaps the process of composing them by Tomáš?
Amanita Design: Tomáš is taking soundtrack composing very seriously. He is carefully exploring each location and planet visual atmosphere before he starts composing. Each planet (there are 5 planets and 4 moons in the game) has it’s unique sound style and uses specific set of instruments. Also the musical dramaturgy is very complex and is more film-like this time.
BaziCenter: Are we going to see the mysterious man with the conical hat (I call him Oracle of Samorost!) again?
Amanita Design: Nope. But there are many other mysterious characters in Samorost 3.
BaziCenter: Have you decided a more precise release date for the Samorost 3?
Amanita Design: We try our best to finish the game build for PC and Mac by end of 2015, however the final stage of development – debugging and testing is always very unpredictable and can take more time than estimated. We want Samorost 3 to be perfect at the time of it’s release.
BaziCenter: Is there any possibility for a second Machinarium game?
Amanita Design: We are not thinking of making a sequel to Machinarium in upcoming years. But we are aware of the Machinarium high brand value, so there is always a possibility that it will be developed someday.
BaziCenter: What does Amanita Design has in store beyond the release of Samorost 3?
Amanita Design: Besides Samorost 3 we are working on 2 other titles in different stages of development. Team which made Botanicula (lead by Jára Plachý) is working on a game called Chuchel which will definitely be the most funny game in our catalogue. Amanita’s new team full of young talented people is developing yet unannounced game.
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BaziCenter: Is the third entry the last Samorost game or are we going to see more adventures of little gnome?
Amanita Design: I suppose little gnome will have a long long holidays before he decides to take another adventure.
BaziCenter: Do you have any plans to release Samorost 3 for the consoles such as 3DS, Wii U or Vita?
Amanita Design: Samorost 3 is built in Adobe Air (Flash), so the porting options are dependent on Adobe Air exporting capabilities. At the moment porting only to PC, Mac, Android and iOS is manageable. Unfortunately export to consoles is not supported and rebuilding the game to a custom engine with console support would be very time and money consuming. We will decide if we make it based on the game’s success.
