Crossbridge was started last year by former developers at Swedish studio Toadman Interactive, whose parent company announced in January that it would be winding down operations.
Ola Nilsson, one of Toadman’s founders, hopes Crossbridge, which is based in France and has 90 employees across several countries, will be built more sustainably for the long term.
If you make six games instead of one, the hope is that you spread the risk a little. We have four titles coming in the next six months.
Ola Nilsson is CEO of Crossbridge, whose first game will be "Moomin: Midsummer Madness". Press photos.
Introducing the world
First up is "Moomin: Midsummer Madness", based on Tove Jansson’s fifth Moomin book, published in 1954.
It's something we've wanted to do for many years. Many in the studio are Moomin fans. So we've had our eye on it for a while.
It is a 2D “point-and-click” adventure translated into Swedish, Finnish, Japanese and English, among other languages.
I grew up with the TV series in the 90s. Now there will be a generation that grows up with the games instead and is introduced to this fantastic world and its characters.
Image from "Moomin: Midsummer madness". Press image.
Considered black and white
The developers have stayed close to the book.
At an early stage, we also considered making the game black and white, like the original. But then we got stuck in the fact that we thought a Moomin game feels most Moomin when it is more colorful, closer to the (Japanese) 90s TV series.
“Midsummer Madness” will be the third Moomin game in as many years, with the previous ones made by Norwegian studio Hyper Games. The studios have a close collaboration, according to Nilsson, who sees no risk of saturation.
We see it as if you read a Moomin book, you will probably read more Moomin books. If you play a Moomin game, you will probably want to play more, he says.
What do you think?