CGSociety :: Game Production Focus
12 January 2010, by Paul Hellard
Jakub Dvorský started Amanita Design in 2003 when he finished Academy of Arts in Prague with a free online flash game called 'Samorost' as his thesis project. In 2005 animator Vaclav Blin joined the studio and 'Samorost 2' was created. Since then we have found several excellent collaborators - musician Tomas 'Floex' Dvorak, programmer David Oliva, painter Adolf Lachman, sound maker Tomas 'Pif' Dvorak and animator Jaromir Plachy. The gang was almost complete.
Besides the independent and commissioned flash games like 'Samorost' series, 'The Quest For The Rest', 'Rocketman VC' and 'Questionaut', the artists at Amanita Studio created a couple of music videos 'Plantage' and 'Na tu svatbu', also websites, animations, illustrations and production design.
Even though they are scattered around the Czech Republic, the core business of Amanita is online games. However there are always side-projects that keep the gang fresh and original. Vaclav Blin is preparing a very strange interactive music video, Jakub is working on production design for an animated feature film, Adolf Lachman is a freelance painter and sculptor. The cities of Prague, Brno and Pardubice bubble along with all kinds of creativity from this troupe.
Starting from the blank canvas, the Amanita crew decided they wanted to create a full-length adventure game.
"We wanted to make it a bit different and more complex then our previous flash games," explains Jakub. "Then we came up with an idea of a robot as the main hero who lives in robotic world - that gave us a lot of space for various possibilities, with other characters and the environment full of machines, tubes, levers etc., perfect for creating and implementing various logical puzzles. It all started from just a quick idea and a brainstorming session."
