Aran Koning, Ruben Naus, Tom van den Boogaart and
Tijmen Tio met around five years ago when they started
doing game jams together, including the popular Ludum
Dare. When there wasn’t a formal one to go to, they’d just
jam at home.
Those events always came to an abrupt end, but they
wanted to keep it going. The collective grew from that,
leading the four of them to embark on what’s become an
infinite game jam. But they rarely work together.
“We basically never collaborate,” says Koning. At the
time of writing, they’ve released 54 games, though that
number will already be out of date when you read it. Only
a couple of games in this rapidly growing collection were
collaborative projects. So it’s a collective of individuals, all
equal within the studio, but always following their own
ideas and going off to experiment solo.
This contributes to the incredible range of Sokpop’s
massive back catalogue. There are cute sandboxes,
puzzlers, management games, racing games – and the
themes and art styles are just as varied as the genres. A
great deal of them fall into the category of ‘wholesome’
games, some more overtly than others, but otherwise it’s
remarkable how the foursome avoids repeating itself.SOK IT TO ‘EM
“I think we all try to make innovative titles in one way or
another,” says Naus. “We don’t want to just make Call of
Duty or something. We always have a pretty unique idea
for every game. Nobody is like, ‘I’ll just make a
platformer’. There’s always one cool idea, mechanic or
even art style that’s unique to that game.”“Something that might not work, but isstill
out,” Van den Boogaart says. For him, nostalgia
role in the games he develops. “I tend to recrea
played as a kid,” he says. “Five of my gamesare
played as a kid. It feels a bit more personal.”Al
smaller games, Van den Boogaart is also workin
larger follow-up to Bernband, a strangely comfo
about getting lost in an alien city. It’s an aimles
but around every corner some kind of sci-ficuriosity.
Naus, whose work includes Sok-Stories, a game
creation tool, and Soko Loco, a pixel art train tycoon game,
has plenty of concepts cooking away at once. “I have a lot
of ideas that are in the oven, and when they’re done, I
pick the one I think I have the most clear vision for. I
think about the games for pretty long in the background,
and when an idea comes to fruition, I pick that one.”
For Koning and Tio, however, it changes all the time.
It could be a game based on a movie, on another game, or
an experiment to try out a new mechanic or experience.
That goes for most of the collective’s games, though,
which constantly bounce around. But whatever they
decide to make, there’s always a looming deadline.ABOVE: Having killed
everything else, the
ninjas have finally
moved onto frogs.
LEFT: Ruben Naus,
Tijmen Tio, Aran
Koning, and Tom van
den Boogaart.FEATURE
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