RiME is an ephemeral "art game" that follows an unnamed boy fitted with a curse, as he tries to escape a windswept island.
It has been the subject of much speculation but few known facts. Both the studio and Sony are tight-lipped about the game’s story, core game mechanics and release date. Premiered at gamescom in August 2013, the game’s trailer immediately shot RiME into the spotlight, piling hype and expectation onto Tequila Works, the small, Spanish studio behind the game.
“RiME is trying to create an experience with no words. It's about emotions, sensations and evolving with the island," says Raul Rubio Martinez, CEO and creative director of Tequila Works.
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At the same time dozens of indie developers are creating and selling art games like RiME to new audiences, blockbuster games are simultaneously breaking the $1 billion mark in first-day sales. Indie games are now competing with the big studios for awards.
We spoke with Martinez over the past months to get an exclusive look into the world of RiME, a lonely art game that's nonetheless full of potential amidst the big boys.
The positive public reaction to RiME took the game's developers by storm, prompting them to return to the drawing board and think bigger.
“We suddenly felt the pressure of being compared to Wind Waker or Ico," says Martinez. "That feeling, and maybe lack of self-confidence, made us go wilder.”

Image: Tequila Works
When it debuted, RiME immediately stood out for its towering vistas and pastel palette. These influences came mostly from artists, including Joaquín Sorolla and his use of Mediterranean light, Salvador Dalí's negative space and Giorgio de Chirico's surrealist architecture, which "contributed to create an eerie yet believable world," says Martinez.
He believes RiME belongs in the category of art games, a genre that started with Ico, followed by Shadow of the Colossus and Journey. "[They are] the giants on whose shoulders we stand. Not from a game play perspective but a spiritual one.”
When asked what separates Tequila Works from a big studio like EA (Battlefield, Madden) or Activision (Call of Duty), Martinez responds with a laugh: “Gusto.”
An independent studio may have more financial risk but it also has, in most cases, less oversight. The tradeoff can produce amazing results: “A boutique studio can pursue wilder dreams, can experiment and fail, can explore unknown paths and look deeper," he says. "Oh, and costs are lower; we are a bargain.”

Image: Tequila Works
Something funny happened near the end of the life cycle of the last generation of consoles. At the same time that it became easier and cheaper to make games, the general public started to show more interest in indie developers. What followed was a mini-boom of original games offering original experiences. Gone are the days when “downloadable games” was a dirty word.
“The world has changed, the user's perception has changed and gamers have grown up,” Martinez says. “The format is no longer relevant. A game is good or bad; [it’s] that simple.”
For Martinez, there are three main reasons that indie games have taken off: sales, emotion and distribution:
While sales is somewhat straightforward, emotion is "what's inside your soul," says Martinez. "Indies are not constrained by 'entertainment' anymore (or fixed definitions of what entertainment is). They can look for deeper emotions."
Finally, creation and distribution tools are incredibly accessible now. One need not care about profits or securing an IP to create a franchise. "They can offer bits of their heart/brain/liver and keep going,” he adds.

Image: Tequila Works
Every developer creates games differently, but Tequila Works built RiME from the “vision” up. That vision was a combination of visual style, emotional heft and imagination. Afterward came gameplay and narrative in a strange melding of disciplines, explains Martinez.
“This is a dance, a tango-a-trois, not a conga," he says. "So every dancer is doing its move, step by step … We must be agile to change our mind and adapt to the music. So the lesson here is 'just dance.'”
As for a sequel? “No, that's not how we do things here. We are carefully creating an experience with a beginning and an end,” says Martinez.
But later, he circles back on his statement, opening the door for more adventures in RiME's world: “We invest a huge amount energy and attention to detail to create our worlds, so revisiting them in other circumstances is not out of the question …One of the good things of being a boutique studio is that we don't need to care about squeezing IP cows until they run dry.”
RiME is one of the most anticipated indie games in a long while. With that expectation, Tequila Works and Sony have kept mum about an official launch date, though by the sound of it, that day is coming soon: “We are but we cannot talk about it yet, sorry,” Martinez says.
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