Broken Rules CEO Felix Bohatsch Explains How Gibbon: Beyond The Trees Got Its Political Edge

thegamer.com:

Gibbon: Beyond the Trees is a beautiful game. Sublime even. The Apple Arcade exclusive is more ambitious than most mobile titles while also weaving in a profound message. It tells a story about deforestation naturally propelled forth by the moment-to-moment gameplay, with traversal becoming more difficult as the rainforest is robbed of its trees. It does all this with detail and authenticity, using an art style that conjures a shimmeringly vibrant jungle doomed to man-made destruction.

Gibbon has since been ported to Nintendo Switch and to PC via Steam so more players can discover its moving homage to nature. I spoke with developer Broken Rules’ CEO Felix Bohatsch about bringing Gibbon to life and working with Apple. Known for the acclaimed and award-winning mobile title Old Man’s Journey, the Vienna-based indie developer has come a long way since its early days when it was just a group of students heading to GDC in 2007.

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I was curious about how Gibbon came together. To my surprise, Bohatsch has never visited the rainforest region depicted in the game. Gibbon is set in what looks like Borneo, a large island in Southeast Asia. Having visited the jungle on the Malaysian side of Borneo myself I was amazed to see how well the game authentically depicts the stilt houses, tribes, and urban markets that make up that part of the world.

Where did the idea for this setting come from? Bohatsch says he likes nature and animals and Gibbon is not the team’s first game inspired by an animal's movements – that would be their 2012’s Wii U title Chasing Aurora, which focused on flying a bird in the Alps, and the similarly avian-focused Secrets of Rætikon