Rise and Shine Three years after And Yet It Moves, Broken Rules is still toying with motion. Johannes Kรถller takes a look at their new game, Chasing Aurora. On the back wall of Broken Rules humble abode, there's a poster defining Chasing Aurora's aesthetic identity. Central on the white sheet, a Sierpinski triangle, playful geometry mirrored in the game's Origami visuals. "Playful Flight," reads one corner, backed by images of birds flapping their wings, caught in awkward landings or takeoffs. "Merciless Nature," says the next, picturing that Romantic concept of the sublime, nature at its most beautiful and terrifying: Forest graveyards, foggy peaks and precarious ravines. The last is titled "Coming of Age," a combination of the two themes. Birds perched on the edge, ready to leap. Their new project is similarly daring. And Yet It Moves threw you off that edge, locked in continuous freefall. Chasing Aurora hopes to make you soar.
"We wanted to create a game based on the dynamic of flight," says Broken Rules' Martin Pichlmayr. "Early versions had the player jump off a cliff before sailing through the air. In a way, it's a direct extension of And Yet It Moves." But the game is more than a simple follow-up. Having grown from three men to eight in the wake of their big break, the team now has the means to pursue more ambitious goals and a new in-house engine to put them into practice. Consequently, Chasing Aurora is already looking to be a much more crisp and polished title than its predecessor, with clean visuals and compact gameplay. Its recipe for the age-old dream of aviation is surprisingly simple. The thumbstick moves you through the 2D skies. Rhythmic button-mashing lets you control the pace of your wings,