Indie Dev Spotlight: Broken Bird Games and Their Success with Luto
Broken Bird Games is an indie developer company that is the brains behind Luto, a new horror experience released earlier this year. This week, I want to shine a spotlight on this indie company for its amazing work on Luto and discuss whether they have more planned for the future.
Broken Bird Games
Broken Bird Games is a small indie developer studio based on the island of Gran Canaria, one of Spain’s Canary Islands off northwestern Africa. According to the Broken Bird Games website, the developers explain a little bit about their background and goals through their company. Here’s an excerpt from their About Us page on their website:
We are a small independent studio rooted in the island of Gran Canaria, born from a shared dream of creating video games. Our goal is to deliver deep narrative experiences that reflect both our passion for the medium and for great stories.
With Luto, we made our debut in game development, achieving not only our first release but also laying a solid foundation for the future of the studio.
As stated above, Luto was their debut game and became an indie success in the horror genre.
Luto
The success of Luto, especially among critics, shot Broken Bird Games into the public eye. Luto is a psychological horror experience, where, as the main character, you are trapped inside your home, and every attempt you make to escape will lead you deeper into your own nightmare. It’s super interactive, especially with the narrator breaking the fourth wall constantly throughout the game. Luto earned a 79 Metacritic score, which seems a little low, but it earned so much praise for originality, symbolism, and its immersive concepts.
Luto captivated audiences with its rich story and narratively ambitious. Even during the preview of the game 2 years ago, there were people keeping an eye on the game, and I am glad the game took that long to develop, as we received a narrative horror masterpiece. It’s no wonder, given that Luto is a personal piece for the developers, drawing inspiration from their own trauma, grief, and anxiety about losing a loved one, and it definitely resonated with fans as well.
What’s Next?
Luto recently made its full release a few months ago and definitely succeeded in the horror space. As of right now, Broken Bird Games hasn’t released any plans for development of other games, focusing everything on Luto, which is expected, given how well the game was received. I am pretty excited to see what Broken Bird Games has cooking next in the near future.
