New studio created by multi-national team of indie veterans of Braid, Carto and Ethereal fame.
April 11, 2022
[This unedited press release is made available courtesy of Game Developer and its partnership with notable game PR-related resource Games Press]
Author: Furniture & Mattress
CALIFORNIA AND ARGENTINA, APRIL 11th, 2022 - Co-founders David Hellman (Braid), Nick Suttner (PlayStation, Carto), and Nicolás Recabarren (Ethereal) are jazzed to announce that they’ve teamed up to create Furniture & Mattress - a fully remote independent games studio, working on their unannounced debut game, with support from the newly-announced Astra Fund. While the game will stay under wraps for a bit, the team are looking to explore their shared love of adventure and exploration, clever puzzles, and weird humor.
“When you’re working on a puzzle, sometimes you need to make a big mess before putting things back together,” says co-founder David Hellman. “You have to push through some chaos before finding the right order. Drawing can be like that, and so can a lot of things in life, on a personal scale and a big societal scale too. Those are some of the things we’re exploring in our game mechanics and story.”
David Hellman is creating all the art and animation on Furniture & Mattress’ first project, his first full video game undertaking since his beloved work on Braid and Braid: Anniversary Edition. Nick Suttner is handling narrative, production, and business development, leaning on his expertise collaborating on titles such as Carto, Bloodroots, and Guacamelee! 2. Nicolás Recabarren will be leading the project’s game design and programming, having shipped several smaller, experimental games, and also Ethereal, winner of IGF 2019’s Audience Award. For their debut game, Furniture & Mattress are partnering with IGF-nominated composer Tomás Batista (Fidel Dungeon Rescue), who also worked together with Recabarren on Ethereal, to compose an original soundtrack and audio for the game.
As a designer who often explores innovative mechanics in shorter-form experiences, Recabarren was keen to flesh out a particularly promising idea of his into a full length game. “I love puzzle games and playing with surprising new mechanics, but they rarely keep me hooked until the end. I wanted to create a cohesive world in which you’re not just solving puzzles because it's interesting, but because you care about the needs of other characters, and want to help. So I reached out to Nick to help me build it” says Recabarren. Suttner loved the idea of the collaboration, and reached out to Hellman soon after to round out the core team, who had been looking for his next project. With design, art, and narrative sorted, the team knew they needed a superstar composer for their first project. Batista instantly understood the mood of the project from his earliest compositions, and joined up to create all of the game’s audio.
“We’ve all been making games in some capacity for a long time, so it was important to us to do it in a healthy way - biting off something of the right scope, paying ourselves properly, and sharing in the creative vision of the game,” says co-founder Nick Suttner. “It was also critical to find great partners to work with for the things we can’t do ourselves, like Astra Fund and Popagenda. We want to give this game its best chance at success.” Supporting Furniture & Mattress’ first title, Astra Fund is a philanthropic venture fund backed by Carina Initiatives, and the team is excited to be working together on this title. Furniture & Mattress’ debut title is one of the first games funded by Astra Fund.
“From the very first chat we had with Astra, we felt pretty cosmically aligned with their mission and values,” says Suttner. “Their support is allowing us to maintain our independence and self-publish the game we want to make, and they’ve just been a total joy to work with.”
For more information on Furniture & Mattress, visit https://furnimat.games/.
For special interview requests, get in touch with [email protected]
About Furniture & Mattress With a broad range of experience developing and publishing independent games, David Hellman, Nick Suttner, and Nicolás Recabarren started working together in 2020 on a project that would represent their shared creative vision. In 2021, they founded Furniture & Mattress to develop and self-publish the game, received project support from Astra Fund, and formalized their collaboration with composer Tomás Batista for their debut title. Furniture & Mattress is focused on making a rad game while maintaining their independence, paying themselves a living wage, and working with the best partners they can find.
About Astra Fund
Astra Fund is a game fund backed by Carina Initiatives, a foundation dedicated to sending more kids from more communities to the frontiers of math and science. Our grants and investments are made to support the creation of more and better thinking games, and getting those games into more homes.
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