Dungeons of the Amber Griffin - Interview

EnklawaNetwork interviewed Tomasz Rozynski, the CEO of Frozengem Studio, about Dungeons of the Amber Griffin:

Visiting Dungeons of the Amber Griffin - an interview with Tomasz Rozynski

Despite many promotional efforts, the region of Kashubia and its folklore is still not known well enough, even in Poland. The Frozengem Studio's team is going to change it using one of the most popular mediums: video games. I spoke to Tomasz Rozynski, CEO of this independent Polish developer, about this project. Meet Dungeons of the Amber Griffin – a dungeon crawler set in a world of Kashubian folktales and legends.

EnklawaNetwork.pl: For all of those who are not familiar with your game: what is Dungeons of the Amber Griffin? What are your main objectives?

Tomasz Rożyński: Dungeons of the Amber Griffin is a cRPG game set in a fantasy world. In collaboration with the Museum of Literature and Music of Kashubia and Pomerania in Wejherowo, we create a unique gaming, original universe of Kashubian fantasy. It contains a bestiary of Kashubian mythic creatures based on Pomeranian legends and writings from the Dictionary of Kashubian Dialects by Father Bernard Sychta. We build a world full of magical items, weapons and other equipment, intertwining real stories and fairytales with the main plotline.

The main goal of the game, besides having fun from exploration of the magical world, is bringing knowledge about our cultural heritage to a wide audience. For rxample, slaying monsters will let players unlock new pages of the bestiary where they can find wonderful illustrations and descriptions based on our beliefs. This way we would like to raise interest in younger players from all around the world (but in older ones too). We want to teach through entertainment. (smile)

EN: Games are a very attractive medium to promote a region’s history or local folklore, allowing high freedom of expression. Why exactly did you choose a dungeon crawler genre?

TR: It was a bit accidental. In the past, I worked on such games singlehandedly in my spare time. I burnt a lot of midnight oil to build a fantasy world, create items and play around with code. At some point, I decided that a game without a narrative could only be a boring "brawler." By coincidence, while living in Wejherowo, I discovered an exhibition about Slavic beliefs, rituals, alchemy, etc. A light bulb went on in my head to contact the Museum in Wejherowo as they had an enormous collection of what I needed. Maybe they could help me. I emailed the director, who appeared enthusiastic about the idea. It is how it all began. 

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Thank you for the info, Mrozie!