While we are getting closer and closer to releasing Orwell, we would like to introduce some of the amazing people who worked with us on our first commercial project.

Please meet: Hannes Flor

Here is a short interview so that you can find out more about him and his work:

What are your favorite games?
Well well well, where to start! I do have a soft spot for adventure games, so Telltale, Wadjet Eye, and Lucas Arts (of course) are responsible for a lot of them. Monkey Island 1-3, Indy 4, Grim Fandango, Primordia, the Blackwell Series, The Walking Dead, and The Wolf Among Us are all up there (though Myst, King’s Quest 6, and Beneath a Steel Sky shan’t be forgotten either.)

Then there’s a number of titles I can’t neatly store under an umbrella, like Vampire: The Masquerade, Arcanum, Gothic, GTA Vice City, Hotline Miami, LA Noire, Call of Juarez, Trackmania Sunrise, Hexcells, and 1000 Amps. And of course Prince of Persia (2008) is just goddamn perfection.

But my absolute favorite, the ones I could talk your ear off about their amazingness for weeks on end, is the Mass Effect series. I just love Mass Effect. Love them. All of them. Best games ever made. Ever. (God, do I love them.)

What kind of work did you contribute to Orwell?
I did the compositing on the intro cutscene, and I have yet to figure out a simple way to explain what that means exactly. But I basically took a video capture of the intro and placed all the 2D animations of people, birds, etc. over it in a way that makes it look like they’re actually in the scene, walking down the street and stuff. The “Orwell View,” where the citizens’ faces are tracked and matched against police records, was also one of my tasks.

What other projects are you currently working on?
I just started working on a small point-and-click adventure called AURORA. It’s a minimalistic scifi adventure about drive and obsession and its cost. I’m just about to finish up all the boring technical stuff, which means I soon get to start actually designing and scripting it.

I’m also involved in another project my company, Hypnotic Owl, is working on: a neat little math game about dividing numbers into their prime divisors. We call it Prime Division. But we’re still working up to an official announcement, so I shan’t say too much.

Can you tell us more about awesome projects you have worked on in the past?
I was Lead Compositor on Daedalic’s A New Beginning, which I think miiiiight have something to do with me getting this job, seeing as I met Daniel there and all that. I’m also very fond of The Wizard, a dungeon puzzler about Kevin, the most handsome wizard in the whole country, who gets his gorgeous face stolen and has no choice but to chase the wretched thief through the mazes beneath the wizard academy to get it back.

But the one I’m most proud of is called The Day the Laughter Stopped, a serious interactive fiction game about consent and choice. It’s somewhat difficult to talk about because it’s very easily spoiled, but if you have a few minutes and aren’t deterred by the trigger warning, I’d love for you to check it out.

 

Find out more about Hannes here:
Website: www.hypnoticowl.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/elCrabman