They might be giants

The hand-drawn archipelago of Minute Of Islands disguises some very big secrets

Minute Of Islands brings artistic verve to a mysterious archipelago

Brightly coloured raincoats aren’t just about fashion: they’re designed to make you easier to see in the gloom of a heavy storm, too. So it is with Mo, the star of Minute Of Islands, an attractive puzzleplat former in development at Germany’s Studio Fizbin. The archipelago that serves as the game world is entirely hand-drawn, and Mo’s bright yellow coat ensures she doesn’t get lost in the detailed backdrops.

“We decided to give the artists a big part in the level creation for both stylistic and game-design reasons,” the game’s art director Tim Gaedke tells us. “Painting each island individually, with every background a unique work of art, brings about the look that makes this world so rich and explorable.”

Mo is a young tinkerer in an unstable world that was once occupied by giants; they’ve gone – so it first seems, at least – but have left behind an array of otherwordly technology that, it soon transpires, requires Mo’s urgent attention.

“The art style is an amalgam of European comic styles,” Gaedke says. “The adventure stories of Hergé, the fantastic creatures and characters of Moebius, and the weird worlds of Lewis Trondheim – as well as my own background in comics – all had an impact on the look and worldbuilding of the game.” Highly commended in the visual art category at this year’s Independent Game Festival, Minute Of Islands is due on PC and consoles this year.

The game’s geography is closely based on the Nordic region, which many of the development team know well. Setting it across multiple islands, meanwhile, means the game can neatly be broken into chapters