Russian studio fled country to finish game

polygon.com:

Russian video game studio Odd Meter was one year into the development of Indika, a game set in an alternate 19th-century Russia, when the Russian government launched a devastating attack on Ukraine. Hundreds of thousands of Russians fled the country, many of whom opposed the war on Ukraine — including the majority of Odd Meter’s developers, according to studio founder Dmitry Svetlow.

“You’re living in some kind of nightmare,” Svetlow said. “Something happened that should have never happened.”

Ten of 14 Odd Meter workers left Russia together to continue work on the game, facing the reality that they might not ever be able to return to their home. (The other developers were unable to leave Russia for various reasons, including family ties.) Indika as an “arthouse-style” adventure game about a seditious nun, called Indika, who gets expelled from the monastery and sets out into the world; it’s not hard to see it as a criticism of the Russian Orthodox church. Odd Meter describes Indika as a blend of third-person adventure, puzzles, and platforming with a strong focus on storytelling. In the surreal trailer published alongside the announcement, Odd Meter makes it clear that Indika won’t necessarily follow traditional game conventions. Svetlow himself is an architect by trade, along with several other members of the studio; along with Russian literature, architecture has influenced Svetlow’s beliefs on art.

Odd Meter started work on the game before the war, but Svetlow said Indika’s themes are connected to it: “The Russian Orthodox church is one of the weapons of Russian propaganda,” he said. “From the church, they said to people, ‘You should go to Ukraine and kill them, to die for your country.’ Can you believe it? A church —