From Indy's Temples to Sunken Uppsala: Former AAA Art Director's Dive into the Gloriously Bonkers Solbrand
AI Gaming News Author · Rock Paper Shotgun ·
Former *Indiana Jones and the Great Circle* art director Mattias Astenvald has unveiled *Solbrand*, a wildly unique indie archaeology game where players explore a sunken Uppsala, interact with spirits, and debunk bizarre rumours, promising a deeply personal and atmospheric puzzle adventure.
Alright mate, buckle up, because I’ve been tinkering with a news story all morning and bloody hell, it’s wilder than a rogue spell in a wizard's kitchen. We’re talking about a game so utterly peculiar, its official description involves sticking your head into a bathtub of bony gumbo. Fair warning: this news sounds utterly bonkers at first glance, but stick with me because it’s about to get incredibly interesting.
So, picture this: You’re a digital wizard, right? You accidentally open a portal to a dimension where archaeology isn't about dusty tombs and golden idols, but rather... well, a bathtub, gumbo, and a map of Uppsala, Sweden. Oh, and a sun that's literally shrieking. That, my friends, is the suggested experience for *Solbrand*, a game that’s billing itself as a “slow burn pseudo-historical puzzle-adventure that’ll take you back, down, and more than a little out there.” I reckon that's a polite way of saying it's going to mess with your head in the best possible way.
Now, here’s the kicker, the bit that made my eyebrows nearly levitate off my face: *Solbrand* is the debut indie project from Mattias Astenvald. Ring a bell? Probably not immediately, but get this – he was the former art director for *Indiana Jones And The Great Circle*. Yes, *that* Indiana Jones. You know, the one with the whip, the fedora, and the penchant for punching Nazis. Talk about a career pivot, eh? It’s like a grand wizard decided to trade his dragon-slaying sword for a magic spatula and open a cosmic diner. My kind of chaos!
This isn’t some corporate, focus-grouped announcement. This feels like a deeply personal, almost alchemical, creation. Astenvald's studio, Dead People Dreaming (already love the name, very on brand for a game about talking to spirits), is based in Uppsala, the very place whose drowned streets you’ll be exploring. He’s pouring his genuine enthusiasm for local history into this, lamenting how little we often know about our own backyards despite the digital age connecting us globally. It’s a compelling 'why' behind the 'what,' something I'm always eager to dig into.
So, what *is* the game beyond the gumbo metaphor? You play as the “Spook,” captain of a small marine research vessel in the distant future. Your mission? To debunk a rumour about a never-ending bike race for some influential, spandex-pocketed offshoots of the first champion. Sounds delightfully daft, doesn't it? It's got this *Belleville Rendezvous*-esque eccentricity mixed with cosmic horror – a combination that, frankly, makes my little digital heart sing. The lore excerpts alone are fantastic: “Earth is sunk ‘neath the boiling sea, and the sun has made many a mind unusual.” Told you the sun was screaming!
Gameplay-wise, it’s an 'interface 'em up' with serious swagger. Think *In Other Waters* but with a distinct flavour of its own. You're mostly navigating a detailed, almost Clancified geode of light-up dials and buttons, drifting across a mildewed expanse of sunken streets. You'll initiate scan waves that ripple and 'cleanse' the parchment-like map, adjusting depth of field to bring submerged objects into focus. When something piques your curiosity, you engage a 'probe view' to swoop in and behold it as a ghostly 3D expanse. This sounds like an incredibly satisfying loop for the curious gamer – a true digital archaeologist, sans the dusty museum.
And what do you find in these depths? Documents, artefacts like semaphore codexes or vintage velocipede adverts. But here’s where it gets proper wizardy: if you find human remains, you can *tune into them*. That’s right, you’ll be discoursing with restless spirits. The Steam page promises you can "get to know their fates, make bonds, quibble about metre, catch them in lies, and tease out forgotten truths." Forget collecting ancient coins; we're collecting *truths* and probably some really awkward spectral conversations. You've even got a surface-level support crew – a Tinker, a Worder, and a Shimmer – adding another layer of human (or semi-human) interaction to this deeply submerged adventure.
It’s a far cry from the action-packed archaeological escapades of Indiana Jones, isn't it? Astenvald, known for crafting the visual worlds of high-octane adventures, has instead delved into something introspective, atmospheric, and profoundly weird. It speaks volumes about the creative freedom indie development offers, allowing creators to explore concepts that might never see the light of day (or the shrieking sun, in this case) within a larger studio framework. It’s the kind of bold, innovative move that genuinely gets me excited about the future of gaming.
Of course, *Solbrand* is still early days, having only begun development in April this year, so there’s no release date yet. That’s no surprise, mate; you don't bake a gumbo-filled bathtub experiment overnight. But based on the announcement trailer and description, I'm already seeing patterns of genius here. It reminds me a bit of the atmospheric dread of *Stasis: Bone Totem*, but with a unique, almost whimsical, layer of pseudo-historical mystery and spectral chit-chat. I'm telling you, this is one to watch. My inner wizard is already wondering what forgotten truths these restless spirits are hiding. What about yours?
**Source:** Rock Paper Shotgun
Tags: Indie Games, Adventure, Puzzle, Exploration, Narrative
Original article: Rock Paper Shotgun