Orbyss - Interview with Yannick Audéoud of Misty Whale
Solo developer Yannick Audéoud spent 12 years working on Orbyss, a beautiful, highly polished 3D puzzle game.
Orbyss, developed by French solo dev Yannick Audéoud, is a 3D puzzle game where you control orbs to revive a strange, digital universe. As a spark of energy, you switch control between multiple orbs that you must use simultaneously for solutions, giving the game a feeling of playing co-op with yourself. Over its eight chapters and more than 40 rooms, the game adds interesting new mechanics into the mix that keep the experience constantly feeling fresh. In addition, it’s very pretty to look at, with art direction that breathes life into the game’s digital world. Orbyss is a fantastic puzzler, definitely one to check out if you like games that challenge you to think logically.
I had a great time with Orbyss and am happy that Yannick agreed to an in-depth written interview. He sheds light on his long journey making the game, his design process, the pitfalls of striving for perfection, and more. I made only minor edits for clarity.
The game is available now on Steam with an introductory discount.
Orbyss. Credit: Misty Whale
Sam Kahn, for The Geekly Grind (GG): Could you introduce yourself? Tell us who you are and what you do.
Yannick Audéoud (YA): I'm a solo developer based in France, and I've spent a huge part of my free time the past 10+ years creating Orbyss. By day, I'm a computer engineer, working in the field of serious games and immersive 3D environments, and by night, I pour that experience into building my own immersive experience that invites players to think differently and hoping they feel something deeper than just “beating a level.”
Orbyss. Credit: Misty Whale
GG: What was your journey that led you to game development and making Orbyss?
YA: I was ending my computer engineering studies and started working on a game prototype after playing a few puzzle games like Portal 2 or Q.U.B.E. They inspired me a lot at the time. I always wanted to create my own game, and it felt like a good student project to finish my studies. It will take a year or two, I thought. Twelve years later: the project’s ambition has grown year after year, and I became really serious about it!
Orbyss. Credit: Misty Whale
GG: Tell us about the game. What is Orbyss?
YA: Orbyss is a puzzle game where you switch between multiple rolling Orbs to solve puzzles, immersed in a world with a Tron-esque aesthetic. Across 8 chapters and more than 40 handcrafted rooms, you gradually uncover mechanics like freezing time, piloting drones, and composing sound (with accessibility options if needed) to reshape your environment. The main story mode does not require a lot of dexterity or pixel-perfect jumps: logic and taking the time to think are way more important than the platformer side of the game. There are also a lot of interesting additional challenges for perfectionists wanting to experiment with more tricky or elegant solutions to existing puzzles.
Orbyss. Credit: Misty Whale
GG: There’s a long history of marble-based puzzle games, but when I saw Orbyss I was immediately reminded of classic shareware game Oxyd. Was Oxyd an inspiration for Orbyss? How do you see your game building on or diverging from that legacy of marble-based puzzle games?
YA: I can't say it was, because to be honest, I didn't play a lot of marble-based games before! Having a ball rolling in Orbyss was actually a kind of prototype accident at first. But I became attached to it and started thinking about all the ways this ball could evolve and interact with its world. All the basics of the game were designed based on this.
Orbyss. Credit: Misty Whale
GG: The game’s description says it’s like “playing co-op with yourself.” Can you elaborate on that? What brought the concept about, and what was your design process like to iterate on that idea?
YA: Aside from classic puzzle games, there is a more unexpected inspiration for creating Orbyss. Do you know the game series Gobliins from the 90s? I played it a lot during my childhood. In these games, you can control several little goblins to make them cooperate and perform actions in different places in the scene. I really loved this mechanic, and this gave me the idea for the core gameplay mechanic of Orbyss: the ability to switch between several Orbs, so you can be in several places at the same time, and solve puzzles in a self-co-op fashion!
Orbyss. Credit: Misty Whale
GG: What non-gaming influences shaped Orbyss? Were there specific works of art, music, movies, etc., that informed any aspect of the game?
YA: Definitely the universe of Tron, and bioluminescent lifeforms for the main universe aesthetics. Contrasted, mostly dark, but with bright lights and creatures. Musically, I worked with the musician and sound designer Pierre Estève (Atlantis games series). His music has this organic minimalism that perfectly matched the atmosphere I was looking for. He also used to create large real-life artistic installations with lights and sound, and I feel like I have created my own with the world of Orbyss.
Orbyss. Credit: Misty Whale
GG: What was the most challenging part of making such an ambitious puzzle game?
YA: Having to do everything yourself can be hard at times, but I also like it. To be in control of every aspect of the game. In my specific situation, the main challenge was to stay motivated to work on the project. I have been working on it only in my free time, with no actual need to be financially profitable (because I already have a full-time job). So I had no deadline, and as a perfectionist, it's really easy to keep working on details forever and never actually finish. I had to implement a rigorous time management method to keep moving forward.
Orbyss. Credit: Misty Whale
GG: How do you design puzzles that feel challenging but never frustrating? What's your process for finding that sweet spot?
YA: A good puzzle doesn’t need to be hard; it just needs to make the player feel smart when they solve it. I always try to start by building a mechanic that’s fun to play with, even before it becomes a puzzle. The first rooms using this mechanic are really simple, impossible to fail, so the player can discover the basics. Then I add new constraints or combinations step by step to reveal new possibilities without overwhelming the player. I also rely heavily on visual cues and sound design to subtly guide players rather than punish them for mistakes.
Orbyss. Credit: Misty Whale
GG: What is your process behind deciding the pace of introducing new mechanics in the game? When is the right time to introduce a new gameplay twist?
YA: Orbyss is a succession of eight chapters, containing 40+ rooms in total. Each chapter brings at least one new main mechanic, exploited in all the rooms of the chapter, and often later in the game. I try to design each room so they all bring a unique twist, a very small and specific action that the player will have to do, something fun never encountered in the previous rooms of the game, making that room interesting. Then I build the room around that, forcing the player to encounter this twist. Sometimes, this even allows me to build the entire room topology in reverse, by pure logical deduction, like reverse engineering.
Orbyss. Credit: Misty Whale
GG: Looking at your LinkedIn, you work at Serious Factory. How has your professional experience in serious games and immersive environments influenced Orbyss's design?
YA: Most of the game's artistic direction and core mechanics already existed when I started working at Serious Factory, so it didn't have a huge impact on that aspect. But of course, there I gained programming experience and skills in project management, so it surely helped during the process!
Orbyss. Credit: Misty Whale
GG: How does sound function as both atmosphere and gameplay mechanic in Orbyss?
YA: A huge part of the work has been put on the sensory experience you can have playing Orbyss and discovering its world. Aside from the Tron-esque visuals, working with Pierre Estève allowed me to create a world where gameplay would interact with the world in a very natural way. Sound-based mechanics and the ambient music of the chapter in which they appear are designed together. So as the player, you don't only feel you interact with abstract objects: you also feel part of something bigger, having a broader and deeper effect on the world you're exploring.
Orbyss. Credit: Misty Whale
GG: The game includes full accessibility options for sound-based puzzles. What motivated you to prioritize accessibility, and how did you approach making audio puzzles work visually?
YA: Since sound is such an integral mechanic in Orbyss, I wanted to ensure that all players could still fully engage with it. The challenge was translating auditory cues into clear visual feedback without breaking the game’s minimalist atmosphere or making it too easy. When designing the sound-based mechanics, I had accessibility in mind all along, so it helped create a unified visual system for all these.
Orbyss. Credit: Misty Whale
GG: What's a question you wish I had asked about Orbyss or your journey as a developer, and what's the answer?
YA: There is the famous question, “Any advice for other indie devs?” My answer will probably not be very original, but I still think it's really important! Start small and finish something soon. Honestly, do the opposite of what I have done. I spent too many years on a single huge project, with no marketing or game release experience, so I made a lot of mistakes in this aspect. I love Orbyss and what it looks like today. But, I can't help thinking I could have done much more by splitting this enormous project into several smaller ones. The problem with developing games, especially working in your free time with no deadline, is that you can spend years fine-tuning something and never releasing it. Finishing is a skill in itself, and it’s one of the hardest to learn. Don’t wait for the perfect idea, just make a tiny game that expresses something you care about and ship it. You’ll probably learn more from releasing one imperfect project than from endlessly polishing unfinished ones.
