Amodo: Hello, I’m your host Amodo of RebelOyster. Today I’m here with Amodo of RebelOyster who brought his brand new game Karyo with him. Hello, Amodo.

Amodo: Hi there!

A: So what is Karyo?

A: Well, it’s a simple “casual” puzzle game for both iOs and Android. The concept is very simple, you have to clear all tiles off a level. To do so, you can combine two tiles that are exactly one tile apart into one. That’s all there is to it.

A: That sounds really simple, how do you make it interesting to play?

A: There’s a very subtle build-up of difficulty over time. The first of the 1000 levels are really really easy and obvious, but later it can get kind of hard. So I hope that works to keep people playing. You can freely choose any of the 1000 levels because they don’t have to be unlocked. The idea behind this comes from Sudoku books with hundreds of puzzles in them, where you can simply pick a difficulty and then puzzle away, not being artificially restricted in any way.

A: Wait, did you say one thousand levels? How does one come up with that many ideas?

A: Yeah that was a tough one because I’m neither the best level designer nor actually a good puzzle player – I’m way too impatient. That’s why I wrote a level generator that makes thousands and thousands of possible levels, and then by trying to solve them, determines the difficulty and when that is within a certain range, the level goes into the game.

A: Wow, that’s pretty interesting. So why did you make this game when you’re not a puzzle game player?

A: Two things: 1) I had this idea and it sounded so super simple that it might actually work and B) I live in a city and don’t own a car, so I do everything by public transport. And as a game developer I like to have a peek at what games people play on their phones on the subway, etc.. Seeing that most of the times it’s a tile based puzzle like a match3, I’ve been carrying the thought around with me to make one of these, if I find a mechanic that seems interesting to me. And on the third hand, after I had made a very quick prototype the feedback I got was awesome, people saying this could be really addicting or that they hadn’t seen something exactly like that before, I was encouraged even more to finish this.

A: Yeah, I’m neither a puzzle gamer, but testing this had a few of these “Just one more level!” moments so I think it could work out. Anyway I wish you good luck with the game and thank you for being on the show!

A: Thanks for having me!

 

Karyo for Android:
free (50 levels)
full (1000 levels, €0.99)

Karyo for iOS:
free (50 levels)
full (1000 levels, €0.99)