The successfully Kickstarted, and PC and PS4-bound, side-scrolling platformer Orphan is one helluva dark game – both in its kid-tries-to-survive-an-alien invasion plot and its shadowy visuals – and it just so happens to resemble another similarly silhouetted indie – puzzle-platform curio, Limbo.
Most developers would probably give you a stern look if you compared their games to another studios' efforts, but for Brandon Goins, the one-man team behind Windy Hill Studios, the association with Playdead's dimly lit jaunt isn't one that bothers him anymore. "It was more chance than anything. I began working on the general idea of a night-time game, but my own experience as a photographer made me want the scenes to look somewhat photorealistic," he explains in a previous issue of GamesMaster. "It only looked natural when the foreground was silhouetted. Immediately I knew it looked like Limbo, and I often wonder if I would have even thought such an art style was acceptable if it hadn’t been for Limbo, but it looked good and I didn’t want to change it."
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