- Floppy Club are a four person time with a focus on bringing musical elements to games
- Their title Rytmos was an Apple Design Awards winner
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The games industry has many big-name studios with eager eyes on them, all waiting to see what their next big hit could be. But giant studios aren’t necessarily the home to what could be your next favourite game.
There are thousands of independent game studios and solo developers, all hard at work crafting new game experiences with often unique ways of looking at games. In this series we aim to highlight those very games and the developers behind them.
In this interview, we spoke with Floppy Club‘s Niels Böttcher and Asger Strandby, who told us all about their ambitions of bringing a musical element to games, as seen with their Apple Design Awards-winning title Rytmos.
PocketGamer.biz: Can you tell us a little about yourselves and how long you have worked in games?
Niels Böttcher and Asger Strandby: We started Floppy Club about five years ago. We have been making games in other companies for years before that. But never together doing games.
Niels used to freelance for companies like Ustwo, LEGO, and others, and Asger had been working for many years for Press Play and Flashbulb games.
And can you tell us about how Floppy Club came to be? Do you have others working with you?
We were both in between projects and shared the same office space. As both of us originally come from the music industry, we thought that making games that had a strong connection to music could make sense for us as a team.
That is why we decided to start our company and focus on games where music-making plays a central role.
We are still a small team – currently, we are just four people. Actually, we kind of like being a small team. If there are good people on the team, you can really get a lot of stuff done in a short amount of time. And if you get a good idea, you don’t have to think much about just trying it out.
Let’s talk about games! Your music puzzle game Rytmos came out last year, can you first tell us a little about the behind the scenes development of that game? Where did the initial idea come from, were there any big challenges in development? And what did you enjoy most about making this game?
The idea for Rytmos originally came from observing music sequencers. We were fascinated by the patterns in the beats and melodies and thought there could be an interesting puzzle game hidden within that structure.
After several failed prototypes, we eventually found the core of what the game is today.
After several failed prototypes, we eventually found the core of what the game is today.
One of the biggest breakthroughs was realising the game shouldn’t be too rigid. Initially, we had players trying to recreate very specific melodies and beats, which ended up feeling frustrating and restrictive. It didn’t capture the fun of making music.
When we shifted the focus to simply getting back to the start to create a loop, the game became much more intuitive. That change made the gameplay feel more free-flowing, creative, and, ultimately, more musical, allowing players to express creativity in their solutions.
Can you tell us more about designing a game based on puzzles that also need to match that with a musical element? This must take a lot of trial and error to get just right.
Absolutely! One of the biggest challenges in developing the game was finding the balance between creating engaging puzzles and making sure they produced great-sounding music.
We had this constant back-and-forth process: we’d design a puzzle, playtest it to fine-tune the difficulty, and then add sound – only to realise it didn’t sound right. At that point, we’d have to redesign the puzzle, keeping the music in mind, and then retest to ensure the new design didn’t compromise the original puzzle idea. Every puzzle in the game went through this process.
It took ages to create the music in the game, as it had to be redesigned every time a puzzle was changed.
It took ages to create the music in the game, as it had to be redesigned every time a puzzle was changed. On the other hand, it was also a super interesting process, as the puzzles had a big influence on how the music would sound. We would never have been able to create this music in a typical music software. The puzzles really dictated a lot of the musical direction.
The game is a cross-platform title on mobile, PC, and Switch. What was the process like ensuring it ran on all these platforms? Do you think your future titles will be designed with cross-platform in mind, too?
We were very lucky to get some help from a super-experienced developer for the Switch port, which was probably the most difficult one to nail. We definitely intend to design our future games for cross-platforms also.
Rytmos has been really well received, being nominated in the Nordic Game Awards and winning the Apple Design Awards for interaction games. How does it feel to achieve these accomplishments?
That feels amazing. We are really happy about those awards and didn’t expect any of them. The Apple Design Award, in particular, came completely out of the blue. To be honest, we actually thought it was a scam when we received the first email from Apple.
The Apple Design Award, in particular, came completely out of the blue. To be honest, we actually thought it was a scam when we received the first email from Apple.
Making games is fun but also hard work. It’s easy to create a wonky prototype. But it’s much harder to design a full game, ensure that people can play it, get it to run on so many different devices, and secure funding for the development.
After years of doing that, getting these nominations and awards is really nice. It’s super nice to feel that someone actually appreciates the many hours you put into the design.
What is it like being an independent studio in the current game climate? What are some of the biggest challenges you are facing? And on the other side of that, what are some of the advantages of being independent?
Right now, The game industry feels a bit tougher when securing funding, even though the market is showing some improvement compared to last year. Still, the biggest challenge for a small independent studio is finding the necessary funding or selling enough games to sustain a healthy business.
That said, we love being independent. The best part is the creative freedom – we get to pursue our dreams and experiment with quirky ideas, new technologies, and offbeat game concepts.
Larger companies often have to play it safe due to their massive budgets, but as a small studio, we have the flexibility to take more risks and explore innovative ideas.
And you’re based in Copenhagen; what is the state of the games industry like there?
At the moment, Copenhagen is actually a super nice city for game development.
At the moment, Copenhagen is actually a super nice city for game development.
There are mainly a lot of small and medium-sized companies, companies like Geometric Interactive, Flashbulb, Playdead, Triband, and others. Some pretty good games are actually coming out of the city – and very different games as well. Limbo, Inside, Cocoon, What The Golf, Trailmakers, and the likes are just some of them.
One thing that is especially nice about the indie game scene in Copenhagen is that people are extremely friendly and helpful to each other.
And what about future projects? Do you have any plans for more games? Will they have a musical focus, too? Is there anything we should be on the lookout for?
We are already developing our new game! We actually have a few games in the pipeline already and some tools for doing music in games as well.
As a studio we have decided to focus on games with a strong musical focus, so that is definitely what you will see in the future.
Are you an indie developer?
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Our Big Indie Zone gives indie devs the perfect platform from which to broadcast their new games and talents and our Very Big Indie Pitch event is a fantastic chance for media coverage and invaluable feedback from our expert judges.
