“We were seeking uniqueness from day one”: Konrad Adamczewski discusses 11 bit studios' games, history, development, and philosophy

Over the years, the developers at 11 bit studios have consistently managed to create, experiment, and push the boundaries of the genres they set their games in. Titles like This War of Mine and Frostpunk, from the Polish indie studio, showcase their nuanced take on the idea of war and survival and how morality comes to play into this.

The individuals that make 11 bit studios have shown that they are not afraid to put players in a tough spot about making almost impossible decisions that will reward/punish them in their playthrough. The aforementioned titles take on the serious themes of violence and an apocalyptic cold and refuse to see them only as a background event.

In a conversation with Sportskeeda Esport's Angshuman Dutta, Konrad Adamczewski, PR Specialist at 11 Bit Studios, discussed in detail the history and philosophy of the studio, especially with these two titles.

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Konrad Adamczewski of 11 bit studios talks about how the studio chooses the stories they tell in their games

Konrad Adamczewski (Image via Konrad Adamczewski)

Q: To begin with, I will like to ask about the philosophy behind 11 bit studios' choice of games. Both This War of Mine and Frostpunk are extremely well thought-out games that evoke a sense of awe and dread in the players while subverting their genres. What are the developers at 11 bit studios in creating these meaningful projects?

Konrad - This War of Mine was a project that paved the way we, at 11 bit studios, are taking up now - a way of making meaningful, thought-provoking games. Before that, we made a series titled Anomaly. And despite the setting being rather common science fiction, we experimented with the formula popular at the time, with the genre of tower defense and flipped it, since the players were controlling the offenders, and not the defenders.

Surviving the war (Image via 11 bit studios)

11 bit studios is seeking uniqueness from day one. Even the company name, 11 bit studios, reflects that. In computing, bits are counted in even numbers, like 8 bits, 16 bits, so 11 indicates something uncommon. This War of Mine proved to us that artistically sensitive games could turn into a commercial success. But after making it, some team members were literally exhausted emotionally.

11 bits studios decided to try something different, so we came up with a game about commanding a society pushed to the brink of extinction, about the authority. If This War of Mine was a game about survival on a minuscule scale, then Frostpunk is a game about survival on a full scale.

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Q: The first title I played from 11 bit studios was This War of Mine and that changed my perception regarding the representation of war in video games all those years back. What was the reason that you decided to depict the Siege of Sarajevo from the perspectives of the civilians?

Konrad - It wasn’t initially in our plans. One day our CEO at the time, a COO today, Grzegorz Miechowski, said he believes that there is no game that portrays the war from that perspective. He was inspired by reading memoirs of people who survived the siege of Sarajevo, their hardships, and the idea was to capture this in the videogame.

The dilapidated house (Image via 11 bit studios)

Although Sarajevo was the main inspiration, it was more like a spark that ignited the process of looking at the war, and civilians in particular, as a big picture. A hopeless picture of people suffering can be found all around history.

Screw the war, the message that is written on one of the walls in the game, but using more indecent words, is also the ultimate message of the whole title. Armed conflicts harm ordinary people, and are bad wherever they happen.

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Q: I remember reading somewhere that a person commented on the This War of Mine that it was not a game for them, it was their childhood. That statement has stuck with me. 11 bit studios' launch trailer perfectly encapsulates that sentiment - War always happens at somebody’s doorstep.

How has your experience been since the release of This War of Mine regarding its depiction of war? Do you think there has been any further nuance in the representation of war in mainstream video games since the release of 11 bit studios' This War of Mine?

Konrad - I don’t think 11 bit studios changed the way games treat the theme of war. It mostly remains a background for an action flick. And while This War of Mine isn’t fun in the way fun is understood in the wider entertainment industry, it’s still entertaining. Just like the ambitious cinema as compared to the bland blockbusters that serve as a dose of pure entertainment, which is perfectly fine.

But what’s more important, is that This War of Mine was recognized outside the industry. Not only by mainstream media, which saw its uniqueness but also museums around the world, that had exhibitions tied to war or entertainment. This War of Mine is known to people in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Poland, so I believe we made some people realize that games are not just time-consuming silliness, but an artistically sensitive medium.

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Q: One of the most interesting stories I read about This War of Mine was the fact that 11 bit studios provided free copies of the game when copies were leaked online. What is the story behind this?

Konrad - If I recall correctly, someone wrote about pirating the title on some discussion forum. We saw that and decided to throw some keys into this thread accompanied by an honest message to not pirate it but buy since we make a living out of them. The story even made it to the media, so you could say 11 bit studios got some free visibility thanks to our generous hearts.

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Q: Last year, This War of Mine was added to school reading list in Poland. What is 11 bit studios' response to that?

Konrad - We believe it's an astonishing achievement because This War of Mine became the first game ever to be introduced into the national education system. It’s a breakthrough step for the whole gaming industry and further confirmation that games, with their interactive narratives that let you take an active part in events, can be put next to ambitious movies and books.

The consequences of war (Image via 11 bit studios)

Even before that, 11 bit studios got requests from university lecturers from around the world that wanted to use This War of Mine to talk with their students about war, ethics, or psychology. We knew the usefulness of our game for educational purposes, so we’re extremely proud that after years of trying to convince the right people, it finally happened.

Right now some schools and teachers in Poland, to whom 11 bit studios provide copies for free, already use This War of Mine in their lessons. Some are even doing it for the second time, with new classes and we’re still preparing additional educational materials that could hopefully help in convincing people further that a game can be a useful tool in school.

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Q: In both This War of Mine and Frostpunk, the mechanics of choice play a major role. These choices push the player beyond the binary boundaries of wrong and right and make up for interesting experiences. What is the 11 bit studios' thought process on designing these choices?

Konrad - From my perspective, and I bet our designers could elaborate on that, choices are a result of the setting. During the war, your choice would be who to treat with the medicine, who needs more food than others, or who shouldn’t leave the shelter during the night.

In Frostpunk, the choices are more about bending the moral boundaries. But they are still tied to practices of totalitarian regimes or the psychology of people struggling in given conditions. Our designers studied the stories of famous polar expeditions.

Like the lost expedition that had been led by John Franklin in 1845, the pioneering achievement of Roald Amundsen’s who had reached the South Pole as the first human in 1911, or a story of Robert Falcon Scott’s party, which was the second one to have had reached the South Pole but never made it back. Then the crash of the Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 in 1972 was no less inspiring.

Here, ordinary people had been forced to fight for their lives in dreadful conditions, resort to cannibalism and pushed to the limits of human mental and physical abilities. Like in the case of Aron Ralston’s accident, retold in the movie 127 Hours.

Those kinds of references helped us understand the flavor of the icy setting, its hostile environment, and the drama of the human psyche better. Those are wider examples that influenced not only the nature of choices, but you can see we do a lot of digging while designing our gaming experiences. But in general, we try to ask uncomfortable questions, and players are answering them by making actual choices.

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Q: With climate change beckoning on the horizon and intolerance rising with each passing day, the dystopia of Frostpunk seems nearer with each passing moment. With Frostpunk and how it leans towards two extremities in either theocracy or autocracy, what were 11 bit studios' inspirations in creating this particular title?

Konrad - The first Frostpunk prototype was called Industrial. It had steampunk esthetics but was very economical in terms of gameplay. It was good but lacked a message and overall vision. And after This War of Mine, we didn’t want to make a game without a message.

Then the vision clarified itself as a tale about the society fighting frost. Winter seemed to be a great enemy especially combined with the power that heat would have in that situation and a steam technology used to generate it. Alternate reality allowed us to push the levers pressuring societies to extremes that are not possible in a realistic setting.

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Q: It has been a little over a decade for 11 bit studios. How has the experience been of all these years? What would be your highlight of the past decade?

Konrad - Business-wise, we’re in our best condition ever. We recorded historically high revenue in 2020 and recently increased investment into video games produced for us in external studios to 8 million dollars and a further 13 million for signing new titles. So our publishing division is constantly spreading its wings.

We have three separate in-house teams parallelly working on three projects with Frostpunk 2 being the only one that's been announced, so we grew significantly from the dozen people team that made This War of Mine. We’re at the point where we're thinking about the acquisition of smaller studios, but it’s too early to talk about details here.

The future looks bright, so the highlight had to be This War of Mine's success that helped us make our mark in the industry and start gathering a dedicated fanbase.

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Q: To conclude, I would like to ask the part that most of us are excited to hear about - what can you tell us about Frostpunk 2? Anything regarding what to expect from 11 bit studios, when we might hear of a release date?

Konrad - We deliberately try to be as vague as possible at this point, also with the release date, since we don’t want to put additional pressure on the development team. But in terms of gameplay, we don't want to make just a sequel. We aim for a game that continues on the core themes set in Frostpunk but lets them grow and evolve, rather than just reformulate the same core conflicts, mechanics, gameplay elements, or narrative.

It's a simple “what happens after” situation. The consequences of base Frostpunk events are at this point irreversible and the main focus for Frostpunk 2 is what this truly means for humankind.

This is still meant to be a game of social survival, possibly more than ever. The issues of societies under pressure, and next to our extended research, even the everyday news shows that, touches on some of the nastier elements of human nature. So we're not aiming for darkness and relentlessness for pure shock value.

But Frostpunk's world moved forward. Coal played a pivotal role in the original game, it fueled all the steam technology, and it's the same with the oil. While it’s not a game about oil, as the first one wasn't one about coal, it is a good metaphor for us at 11 bit studios for core themes and dynamics that we want to show in Frostpunk 2.