As our Year According To series enters its second week, it’s time to broaden our horizons and bring an international flavour to things. More specifically we’re paying a visit to Finnish developer Colossal Order and their CEO Mariina Hallikainen, albeit via the magic of Skype.
If you’re not familiar with Colossal Order, they were the developers of this year’s hit city builder Cities: Skylines, as well as the transport management series Cities in Motion. Over the course of our conversation I asked Mariina about the challenges in moving from the latter’s narrower focus to the broader systems at play in Cities in Motion, as well as the general development process for Cities: Skylines.
We also took the time to look at the game’s reception by the community and the way that same community has given back to the game with their mods. Colossal Order’s own post release support also came up, specifically the way they’ve split up free and paid content.
On the more business side of things, we chatted about Colossal Order’s growth, their recent successes (including winning Finnish Game Developer of the Year), and touched upon their plans for the future.
Of course, I also asked Mariina for some of her highlights from the year’s games, an I must say that her choices were somewhat surprising, but also quite interesting. Let’s just say that if you’re a fan of horses then this is the episode for you.
This podcast features strong language, jokes in poor taste and adult themes, if you’re offended by that then we recommend that you don’t listen to it at all.
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Tuffcub
Another Colossal
TSBonyman
Not really my kind of game but i still enjoyed the interview. Congrats to Mariina & all at Colossal Order on Cities : Skylines success.
Germanos
My words exactly :) Never played the game as the genre is clearly not something for me, but it was very interesting just listening to Mariina’s 2015 view. Great, looking forward to next one.
Kris Lipscombe
Really enjoyed talking to her. Think she picked some awesome games too.