Interview

The Big Indie Pitch interviews: Orbital Knight talk Bloodborne, Clash Royale and candy

We speak to Orbital Knight, runner-up of the first ever Big Indie Pitch in Prague

The Big Indie Pitch interviews: Orbital Knight talk Bloodborne, Clash Royale and candy

The Big Indie Pitch is a regular event run by the makers of PocketGamer.biz. It sees indie developers engage in a speed-dating-styled pitching competition for fame and those sweet, sweet promotional packages.

The event gives indies four minutes to pitch their games to a panel of press, publishers and industry pundits. The judges then pick three winners and everybody gets valuable feedback.

The indie view

The Big Indie Pitch is getting bigger and bigger as we bring it to events all across the world. To give you an idea of what the event is like, who attends the events and the games on show, we've sat down with a number of past BIP contestants to offer their views.

Today, we're speaking to Michał Bujko from Orbital Knight, who submited Candy Patrol to The Big Indie Pitch at White Nights in Prague 2018 and walked away with the prize for second place.

 

PocketGamer.biz: Tell us a little about yourself and your indie studio. Who is in the team and what are their inspirations?

Michał Bujko: We’re Orbital Knight, an indie studio from Poland. You may know us from our hit games Star Horizon and the Kickerinho series. Or you will surely hear about us when we drop Candy Patrol. All 18 of us are located in a cozy office in downtown Warsaw.

As for inspirations, the two most played games within the team are Clash Royale and Bloodborne. Cause nothing inspires you to creating a family-friendly casual games more than getting repeatedly pulverised by giant monsters.

Tell us about your latest project that you pitched at the competition.

Candy Patrol is a tower defence game mixed with shoot ‘em up. You’re a part of elite candy defense unit and your task is to keep lollipops safe from monsters trying to get a grasp on them.

Armed with a supersonic slingshot and high-tech gadgets, you'll fight your way through space and time to show everyone who’s boss.

How hard is it to survive as an Indie developer working in mobile?

Being sustainable from making games in the portable space is tough. It is a really saturated market,

How did you find the your experience pitching as a part of the Big Indie Pitch?

It was a truly amazing experience. We were always fans of early playtesting to see how people react to our games, but seeing all these super influential industry icons getting excited-then-anxious-then-excited-again while new waves of monsters approach them was something else.

It’s kind of like seeing Alfred Hitchcock watching your semi-professional horror flick sitting on the edge of the seat screaming “watch out!" at the screen.

What do you feel you have gained from the experience and what do you still hope to gain?

We definitely gained a lot of valuable feedback and broadened our network. The experience also got us a little more recognition and business opportunities.

Now fingers crossed these will convert into signed contracts and briefcases full of money.

What are your hopes for this game in the future and do you have any plans for any future projects?

The game has just been soft launched so all our hopes are for good retention and no critical issues on exotic devices. Once we’re happy with the performance, we’ll go live and start hoping for becoming the next top grossing game all your friends send you the invites to play.

As for the future plans, our SVN is littered with prototypes we revisit every now and then. It’s hard to tell which one will get picked as the next full-time project, but once we feel it is the right thing to work on, we'll make sure it gets shipped as a kickass game.


Want to show off your exciting new game? We host Big Indie Pitch events throughout the year, so be sure to keep an eye out on our events page for an event near you.

Upcoming BIPs include:

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Developer Evangelist & Big Indie Pitch Manager / Special Features Writer

Queen of all things Indie. Sophia is Steel Media’s Big Indie Pitch Manager and Developer Evangelist. She’s also a global speaker and lifelong gamer with a fanatical love of all things Nintendo and Japan. So much so that she’s written a thesis on one and lived in the other.