For the sequel, our main vision was expanding the narrative of the original qomp. More Game Dev
Hello, we are Brad Austrin, lead designer, and Matt Raithel, executive producer, of Graphite Lab, the makers behind the newly-released qomp2. We partnered with Atari to make a sequel to 2021’s qomp, which itself was a creative spiritual sequel to one of the most iconic games of all time – Pong.
For qomp2, our main vision was expanding the narrative of the original qomp. A lot of the worldbuilding we did played off ideas first presented in the original game. It portrayed a very minimalist, monochrome world where danger lurked just outside the bounds of what one would see on a Pong game screen. With qomp2, we also begin the game with that same setup, though the ball controlled by the player this time is different from the one in the first game. It’s not a simple re-tread, but a means to show that in this world, there are multiple “balls” feeling trapped in situations where they can only get hit back and forth for eternity. This concept of feeling trapped and thinking you’re suffering alone is something that is gradually explored in qomp2 over time.
