Calligram Studio

There are so many amazing and important games coming out from smaller studios all the time, and the Engadget Indie Pitch is here to highlight ones that you simply must see.

We've been around long enough to remember the days when Steam was curated by hand, with 20 or so titles added to the storefront in any given month. Today, roughly 2,000 games go live every month on Steam, and that's not counting all of the console, mobile and VR titles we have to consider. A vast majority of these games come from smaller teams, solo creators, artist collectives and independent studios who don't have immediate access to shiny showcases or marketing teams — which brings us to the Indie Pitch. We can't cover every excellent new game here, but we can offer a curated slice of indie pie every now and then.

The Engadget Indie Pitch features a Q&A with the developer of an in-production or recently released game that's caught our eye. Today, it's a chat with Calligram Studio co-founder Jigmé Özer, who's working on the audio deduction game I'M YOUR HOST after the success of Phoenix Springs.

Here's to your backlog.

What's your game called and what's it about?

Our game is called I'M YOUR HOST. It's an audio deduction game where you use a custom OS to restore a series of lost podcast episodes.

How big is the development team?

Three of us at Calligram Studio. Eleanor Summers is the artist, Alexander Smith is the sound designer and composer, and I, Jigmé Özer, do the rest.

How long have you been working on it?

About two years. We started pretty much after Phoenix Springs was released in late 2024; it was our first game and it was in development for seven years. The idea with this one was to have a short, manageable scope. Fingers crossed it'll be ready in a handful of months.

What's the origin story of I'M YOUR HOST? Share what inspired you.

I've done a lot of video and audio editing in the past, and I've always been fascinated by the bits that don't make it into the final cut. The dailies, or BTS footage, the bad takes. All the stuff left on the cutting room floor. It's like a liminal space between the worlds of reality and fiction. The idea with I'M YOUR HOST is to give players a straightforward linear narrative through the structure of the podcast episodes, but also to let them sense a parallel story emerge via discarded interviews, field recordings, and other audio clips. 

Editing is essentially manipulation. It's a big theme of the story, which revolves around paranoia and technological coercion.

Calligram Studio

Talk about the importance of audio, and particularly narration, when it comes to designing an immersive and methodical mystery.

If you close your eyes and listen to what's around you right now, you can try to imagine it's an audio recording for ten seconds. Maybe there's office chatter or the noise of ambient traffic in the distance. Audio packs such a huge amount of information in such a short timeframe. Who is talking, and what mood are they in? Where are they in the world? Are they lying? These are all clues we pick up on in split seconds, and it's a really fun texture to play with when constructing a deduction game.

What draws you to the retro-futurism aesthetic, and how does this visual style support the mechanics of I'M YOUR HOST?

Although we call it an audio game, the truth is that I'M YOU HOST is secretly a text game. And when it comes to displaying text on a screen, nothing is as evocative or texturally interesting as older computer operating systems. I researched a lot of retro UIs for the project, especially no-frills scientific research software. They have such a beautifully clunky quality. But I always kept going back to early Winamp and Avid, which is video editing software. 

There is a modern version, but my film school had an old analogue copy with a big chunky purpose-built keyboard and jog wheel — like a big dial you could turn to scrub the video frame by frame. It felt so tactile and tangible. I guess that's why it's more appealing than a modern phone UI where you gently tap glass with the tip of your finger.

Why are video games your chosen form of expression?

I think maybe there's a simple model of storytelling and technology that goes like this: First we told stories orally, then we wrote them down in books. Then we added audio and had radio plays. Then video, and that led to films and TV. Then interactivity, and that's where we're at with video games. And maybe the temptation is to think that interactivity means choice, but I'm much more interested in playing around with the linearity of time. 

Like, you die in an area once and respawn with a new skill or knowledge about an enemy. That's time travel. I get excited when I think about all the storytelling possibilities that the medium affords.

Calligram Studio

What's the biggest roadblock you've faced as a smaller developer?

Honestly can't think of anything. We've kinda made a conscious effort to carve out our own niche for the studio. Maybe one foot in the very obscure jam / itch.io stuff and one foot on the periphery of the industry. We're happy with our path so far. 

If the game flops, though, I'm sure I'll find plenty of culprits.

What can larger companies and publishers do to better support developers like yourself?

I'm trying to think of an interesting answer that isn't just: money. But it's hard to answer because we spoke to a few great publishers for this project and they were all very supportive. It just wasn't the right time or fit. 

However, if by larger companies you include distributors like Steam, then, yeah, I'd d happily make good use of the 30 percent cut we've been paying them. It's absurd that the sliding scale currently benefits AAAs, who pay a smaller fee the more units they ship. It feels completely backwards.

Let's bring it back home. Sell I'M YOUR HOST in one sentence:

Think Her Story, but weirder.

Calligram Studio

I'M YOUR HOST is in development and will be published by Calligram Studio. It will be available on PC, Mac and Linux and can be wishlisted on Steam. Its release date is "fingers crossed it'll be ready in a handful of months," or, TBA.