Chapter IV
ᛗ ⌬ ᚺ
Mausoleum Studio
Eleven people. One game. Four years of patient ruin. The studio behind Voidwalker.
⌬ MMXXVI · Lisbon · Studio interior
⌬ Section I — Who we are
Mausoleum is a studio of eleven, in a converted chapel, with one game in flight.
We left larger studios to build a single game — properly, slowly, and only once. We do not employ marketing. We do not run feature factories. We do not ship until the silence at the end of a level lasts the right length. Voidwalker is the first thing we will release publicly. It will be the only project on this site for a long time.
We are working in Bog Engine, a custom branch of an open-source pipeline written by Tobi over four winters. The build numbers begin with zero because we have not yet done anything we cannot still take back.
⌬ Section II — Working principles
Three lines of internal liturgy.
01 ⌬
We make games that wait.
A pause held three seconds longer than the player expects is the most powerful tool in our kit. We use it as often as we get away with.
02 ⌬
Every system serves a sentence.
Combat is grammar. Encounter design is punctuation. The player is reading the game out loud whether they know it or not.
03 ⌬
Difficulty is not the point.
Patience is the point. The game is difficult only because patience requires it. We will sand off any difficulty that is not in service of attention.
⌬ Section III — The eleven
Eleven names. Each owes you a sentence.
MMXXVI · Lisbon
№ 01
Game Director · Co-founder
Iyari Soldevilla
Worked on three projects you have heard of, two you have not. Began Mausoleum to make games that argue with the player rather than reward them.
№ 02
Art Director · Co-founder
Helder Tavárez
Painter first, designer second. Sets the tonal range of every scene. Believes a frame should look correct in greyscale before it is allowed to have colour.
№ 03
Lead Combat Designer
Mireille Achterberg
Spent three years on competitive fencing before games. Designs every encounter as a sentence: opener, qualifier, full stop. Hates feints she did not write.
№ 04
Lead Programmer
Tobi Onabanjo
Engine architect. Built the dimension-step system from a paper prototype involving two transparency sheets and a flashlight. Speaks in build numbers.
№ 05
Sound Director
Saskia Vermilye
Field-recorded the entire ambient layer in Iceland and the Pyrenees. Refuses to use synth pads for cathedral interiors. Built the drone you are not currently hearing.
№ 06
Narrative Designer
Brennan Kohut
Former medievalist; quit academia to write monsters. Wrote the Aurén tongue in eight months. Has opinions about runes that are difficult to interrupt.
№ 07
Senior Animator
Lila Kassab
Hand-keys every signature attack. Believes motion-capture is for cowards. Holds the studio record for longest single uninterrupted animation timeline.
№ 08
Environment Artist
Jovan Kostić
Built the Cathedral of Ruin from photogrammetry of three churches in Serbia. Will eventually argue with you about what counts as a ruin.
№ 09
Producer
Pilar Estévez
The reason any of this ships. Came from architectural project management, where the buildings stayed up. Now manages a team of people building things designed to fall down.
№ 10
Encounter Programmer
Ren Halloway
Patterns the Iron Cantor encounters; teaches enemies to anticipate the player's third decision. Considered ranked chess up to FM. Now codes for spite.
№ 11
UI / Field-codex
Audric Ferrand
Designs every page the player will read. Built the in-world codex as a living document; eight versions exist in the build, all subtly disagreeing.
⌬ Section IV — Years in development
Four winters. One spring not yet promised.
Anno Domini → MMXXVII
2022
Mausoleum Studio founded. Iyari and Helder rent a former dental clinic in Lisbon.
2023
Vertical slice approved by the Mass-Pact prototype. The Cathedral of Ruin first walkable in November.
2024
Voidwalker announced at Day of the Devs. The trailer is six minutes of one room and two breaths.
2025
Closed alpha. The Aurén tongue receives its first nineteen runes. Combat enters second design pass.
2026
Voidwalker enters final production. Bestiary at forty-three confirmed entries. Ship target: late MMXXVII.