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Merton’s Modern Storytellers

Merton’s Modern Storytellers

Rosalia Trupiano from indie gaming company OutOfTheBit tells us how it feels to be recognised among Merton’s best

Achieving runner-up for the ‘Enterprising Business Award’ is a huge achievement. What does this recognition mean for you and the team?

We are extremely proud, especially considering the wonderful line-up of local businesses. As local residents ourselves, we enjoyed cheering for our favourite businesses! From the Polka Theatre, where our children used to spend a considerable part of their time, to Bombay Delight, one of our favourite restaurants ever. For us, this was the first time we entered the Awards.

Although we have been around since 2008, only recently we moved to our own office in Wimbledon and we love the idea of being part of the local community of such a vibrant and unique town.

Could you tell us a little bit about what OutOfTheBit does?

We are a small independent studio developing video games for PC, consoles and mobile phones. Our passion is creating handcrafted interactive stories that give the player an experience, very much like reading a book or watching a movie. Our games are suited for a wide audience in terms of age rating and also sensibility, since we never include gore or violence.

What are you most proud of so far?

Of course we are proud of every single game we have developed. But if we really have to pick, we would say our proudest mobile app is the rhythm game Planet Quest. It was our first original project and even won a few awards for us.

Our first games for PC and consoles, Super Arcade Football and Super Arcade Racing, also stand out. Both are labours of passion, inspired by our love for retro games. With those games, we wanted to create something that captures those same nostalgic vibes.

At the same time, it’s hard to convey just how incredibly proud our latest release, Full Void made us. It was extremely well-received by the community, who showed so much love for it and for us, and the accolades it earned truly validated our efforts.

What sets you apart from other gaming companies?

The indie game scene is filled with talented developers and incredibly good and original games. We find our niche in 2D pixel art games that are handcrafted and tell a story. We make games that can be enjoyed by everyone and we imagine families playing it the same way they would watch a film.

Handcrafting every single element on the screen through the entire game is another point we focus on. And we don’t only refer to the art. The tools we use, from the game engine to the sound engine, are developed in-house, by Ali, founder of OutOfTheBit and lead developer. This allows us flexibility and efficiency.

You’re set to launch the new game Nanuka next year. Could you tell us a little about that?

Nanuka: Secret of the Shattering Moon is a single-player, 2D action platformer in pixel graphics with a distinct cartoonish style that will give you the feeling of playing an animated film. It is entirely hand-drawn and frame-by-frame hand-animated by Leo and Tom, the two artists on the development team.

The game features thousands of hand crafted animations and interactive objects, a combat system focused on rewarding players with visuals and sounds and a retro vibe that is signature to all our games.

Nanuka has been in development since July 2023 and is set to be released mid 2025, on Steam and all consoles.

We are sharing our development process through monthly devlogs on YouTube and we encourage those who would like to support us to subscribe to our channel and to wishlist Nanuka on Steam.