The experimental platformer Ynglet was surprisingly released earlier this month as part of the Guerrilla Collective presentation, and that brought Swedish developer Nifflas' latest invention to life. Now, we knew its art was the work by Sara Sandberg, but where did game design and music come from?
"Let's see... I mean, mechanically, I'm inspired by Ecco the Dolphin, which is really funny, because I've actually never played Ecco the Dolphin", confesses Nicklas "Nifflas" Nygren in Gamereactor's video interview. "So, I'm inspired by a game... or more like an idea of what I think the game might be like. Like, for example, back when I came up with the idea for Ynglet, I didn't know that Ecco the Dolphin actually has areas where you jump around between bubbles in the sky. That's a thing I found later. So, that's a lot of the gameplay inspiration".
However, the answer about the sound is even more interesting:
"The music inspiration is tricky", warns Nifflas. "I mean, it's kind of a bit similar to my previous non-algorithmic music, except that's algorithmic... I think that I was mainly inspired by algorithms themselves, so I implement an algorithm, and then I find out what it can sound like musically, I try to experiment with algorithms and see what... yeah, I've never had a full idea of what they going to sound like before I actually implement them".
How do you think mathematics-based sounds could inspire composers and musicians? Ynglet is available on Steam and, for now, no console versions have been announced.