Nicolas Stoll is a third-year Music Production student at BIMM University Berlin. As part of his final-year optional module, Game Sound & Music, Nicolas and his class visited a Berlin-based indie game studio called Torpor Games. Torpor Games are the creators of hit indie game Suzerain. This diary details his experience.
The start of 2024 at BIMM University Berlin saw me and some of my Game Sound & Music classmates take an exciting look behind the screens of the rapidly expanding gaming sector. We visited the workspace of Torpor Games, a Berlin-based development studio, founded in 2019.
Our Torpor games tour had it all. It was an amazing opportunity to directly communicate with some of the finest minds from Berlin’s gaming industry.
About the field trip
Torpor Games is a development studio, which was founded in 2019. Currently, Torpor operates out of Factory Berlin, a fantastically renovated industry complex bordering Berlin’s Kreuzberg and Treptow districts. Factory is one of Berlin’s key creative co-working spaces and dozens of innovative organisations, including startups, art collectives and games studios, call Factory home.
Factory was the starting point for our field trip that came together thanks to the team at BIMM University Berlin and our lecturer, Yuhua “Awu” Li. The field trip was part of the Music Production class Game Sound & Music: a deeply intensive three-month module that delves into the world of video game scoring.
For myself (and presumably many students working in the music industry), video game scoring has become an attractive and more-than-viable career path. From my childhood classics to the AAA smash hits of today, my fascination towards the development of the gaming industry came to an all-time high during our visit to meet the Torpor Games team.
Meeting the Torpor Games team
Upon entering Factory, we were warmly greeted by Ata Nowak, Managing Director and Co-founder of Torpor Games. In a small group of 10, we set out through the billowing hallways and staircases of the creative hub.
Upon reaching the second floor, we were taken to the space that the Torpor team occupied. I was taken aback by Torpor’s workspace layout. Lined perpendicular to the curtained walls of Factory, the team sat face-to-face at a huge table, separated solely by their individual screens and the amassed collection of figurines, industry awards and iconography from their recent hit game Suzerain.
Here, the powerhouse team of Torpor sat next to one another, tipping, tapping and brainstorming away at the development of their next big hit. Irrespective of what role they had to play, the team all sat together, which spoke volumes to the deeply collaborative nature of their shared work.
Creating a game is a complex feat that is not to be underestimated. It requires the collaboration of many distinctly unique technical and creative disciplines – ranging from coding, storytelling, 3D animation, musical composition, and sound design – coming together in perfect harmony to craft a truly immersive experience.
While all games are inherently fun, some inspire us to think, not only about ourselves but how we relate to our world when we zoom out to look at the big picture. Suzerain is such a game. Together with Ozgun Kilit (Co-founder and Technical Director), Ata took us on an insightful ride that detailed the challenges and obstacles faced when leading a small-scale video game company – and how to overcome them to get to the rewards!
From funding to organizing and co-ordinating a team, Ata explained how he and his colleagues came about to create a highly respected and renowned game that not only reached news outlets across the world but was even discussed in the German parliament.
”This is very important: young people play, games are their medium. Many games take up the topic of democracy, such as the game Suzerain, developed by a Berlin indie studio. You can play different political roles in this game and deal with different political systems. The transmission of values, the political value discourse and the interreligious discourse also play a role.”
75th Parliamentary Session on Culture and Media, German parliament
And since we were there as musicians, Torpor’s Lead Composer and Sound Designer, James Spence, joined us remotely from Japan to give us his first-hand account of scoring the hit indie title.
After three hours of intense exchange between the current industry and its potential future, we returned to the lobby where it had all started, eager to get our hands dirty and move on to the next level…
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