Contemplate quadline’s conundrums

Solo indie developer Ivan Kovalov places his passion for innovation at the centre of his work. His approach has proved worthwhile as quadline is his second game to become an Indie games festival winner in the space of three years. We talked to Kovalov to understand more about his unusual puzzler.

Ivan Kovalov: It’s an ultra-minimalistic, stylish, abstract puzzle game that can be played on any form factor in any orientation. There are no disruptive tutorials, as you learn its rules and systems as you play. It’s even colour-blind friendly and contains no words, numbers or timers. It’s just you and the puzzles.

I’ve always been passionate about innovating. I’m constantly looking for new player experiences and, after my last game, I wanted to experiment with puzzle design, difficulty curves and player onboarding. The idea for quadline didn’t come until late one night while I was working on another game. The spark came to me and I just had to see if I could prototype it.

For me, the challenge of development has been building to the strict rules that I set for myself. The focus on symmetrical design, along with the absence of numbers and text, certainly made development difficult, but these limitations made quadline what it is today.

I’ve always been interested in game development, but it wasn’t until 2016 that it became my passion. I attended a conference and was so fascinated and amazed by what indie developers were up to that I vowed to return the following year with my own game.

I then went on to develop my first full game, 'G30: A Memory Maze', and won a dozen different indie awards. It was a little dream for me that had come true, and now I’m so happy to be able to call myself an indie game developer and be part of the community.

Browse the other winners and finalists from the Indie games festival 2022 Europe.