How did Abhishek, Ruben & Time create the latest ValoArena game, Party Box?

Our team builds mixed-reality games that get people moving. The latest release for ValoArena, Party Box, is a collection of fast-paced mini-games designed to be played with the whole family. It’s fun, energetic, and built for shared joy. But behind the fun is a focused trio of game makers: Abhishek Jaiswal, Ruben Pino, and Timo “Time” Piipponen. In this blog, we take you behind the scenes of Party Box – how it came together, what the team learned, and what it’s like to build games at the intersection of physical and digital play.

Meet the makers

Abhishek Jaiswal – Game Designer

Abhishek joined Valo Motion in 2020 during his studies in Game Design and Production at Aalto University.

As the lead game designer for Party Box, he shaped the overall vision of the game: how it feels like to play, the rules of the game, and how everything fits together as a cohesive experience. This was also the first project where he took a more hands-on role in project management, making sure the team stayed aligned through every iteration.

“The challenge was to unify these small, silly games into something that feels like one experience, and while still giving players freedom to shape how they play”, Abhishek says. 

He also highlights that none of it would have been possible without the work of our freelance game programmer Janne, who translated the team’s ideas into functioning gameplay.

“Janne has been the game programmer of the project, bringing the ideas of the team to code and life. Having worked on many past projects at Valo Motion, Janne has been a crucial contributor,” Abhishek adds.

Ruben Pino – 3D Artist

Ruben joined Valo Motion in late 2024, and Party Box was his first project with us – and his first time designing for immersive reality. He created the entire visual world, from the board-game-style lobby to the mini-game environments. A long-time fan of stylized visuals, he brought a sense of nostalgia and playfulness to the game.

“We wanted the world to feel fun and familiar – not just for kids, but for parents too. That mix of style and movement was what made this project so exciting”, Ruben says.

Timo “Time” Piipponen – Audio Designer

After 6 years of freelancing with Valo Motion, Time officially joined the team in early 2025. He brings deep expertise in sound design, music production, and immersive audio. For Party Box, he created everything players hear, from background music to layered sound effects that react to gameplay. His goal was to make the sound experience feel natural, integrated, and fun, without ever drawing too much attention to itself.

“If you don’t notice the sound, I’ve done my job. It should just feel like part of the game’s world, not something added on top”, Time says. 

"I also got huge help from our current freelance sound designer, Kasperi, who did a lot of heavy lifting on making sure I got all sounds made on time, and how I wanted them”, Time adds.

5 steps how Party Box came to life 

#1 Where did the game's inspiration stem from?

Party Box didn’t start with a single concept – it actually started with leftovers. 

Over the years, our team had developed several small prototypes for the games at ValoArena: ideas that were fun, quirky, and promising, but not quite enough to stand alone as full games.

Abhishek saw an opportunity to bring these playful fragments together. Inspired by the fast-paced party games, Abhishek took the lead on turning the disconnected ideas into a unified game full of short, replayable challenges.

“We already had a handful of fun prototypes that didn’t quite fit anywhere. So we thought, what if we bundled them into one experience and built a world around them?”, Abhishek says.

That’s when the idea for a board-game-style setting came in: a central lobby where players roll the dice and jump into mini-games from there. A party game concept was born, and it gave structure and purpose to the chaos.

#2 What does it take to design the visual world of a party game?

Ruben’s task was to turn that loose idea into a coherent, playful world. The central concept: everything should feel like it belongs to a giant board game. Dice, tokens, and game pieces scatter across a virtual table, connecting very different mini-games into a single world.

“Each mini-game had to look unique, but still feel like part of the same world. So I focused on building a consistent space, the table, the background, shared props, and then layered different styles and content on top of that”, Ruben says.

“Each mini-game had to look unique, but still feel like part of the same world.” – Ruben

This required a lot of hands-on iteration. Ruben started by designing the lobby – a shared space players would return to after each round – and then worked outward from there. “Once we had the big picture, it became easier to build the smaller things. We always returned to the question: how do we make this feel connected?”

He also added a personal twist. As a parent himself, Ruben wanted to create something both fun for kids and nostalgic for parents. That’s why the world of Party Box is filled with small visual throwbacks – like chunky keyboards, walkmans, and old-school monitors.

“Some kids might not recognise those objects. But for parents, there’s a spark of familiarity. It’s a subtle way to bring generations together in the same game”, he explains.

For Ruben, working on Party Box also meant learning to design for a physical space, not just a screen. “In a traditional video game, you create a character and a world that exists in front of the player. In mixed reality, the player is in the world. That changes how you think about everything, movement, scale, placement”, Ruben says. 

#3 How do you create a soundtrack that supports (but doesn’t steal) the spotlight?

Sound in Party Box isn’t there to grab attention, it’s there to guide it. For Time, the goal was to create music and effects that felt like a natural part of the game’s world, not something layered on top.

Time joined the project early and collaborated with Abhishek to scope the audio experience. Each mini-game needed its own sound identity, but everything had to feel part of the same universe.

“I wanted the soundtrack to be playful and dynamic, but also coherent. So I experimented a lot with instrumentation: something between game show music, cruise ship nostalgia, and childhood memories,” he explains.

In addition to music, Time designed every sound effect players hear while playing, from dice rolling to player movements to button presses, and placed them in 3D space.

“ValoArena is a custom system. It has its quirks when it comes to audio,” he says. “So I paid extra attention to how sound feels in the space. Players need subtle audio cues to know where to look and what to do, without even realizing it.”

“Players need subtle audio cues to know where to look and what to do, without even realizing it.” – Time

To make this work, Time used a mix of live instruments and virtual tools. Some sounds are layered from real-world recordings, others are built digitally from scratch. “In the end, you want it all to blend in. People should feel the rhythm of the game, not hear it as a separate layer”, he says.

#4 How did the team work together to bring it all to life?

With just three people at its core, Party Box was built through constant iteration and tight collaboration.

“We had this triangle – me, Ruben and Time – and we kept testing, adjusting, and bouncing ideas off each other all the time. It was fast, flexible, and very collaborative”, Abhishek says. 

“We kept testing, adjusting, and bouncing ideas off each other all the time. It was fast, flexible, and very collaborative.” – Abhishek

Instead of long meetings or handoffs, the team could prototype an idea in the morning, test it after lunch, and refine it by the next day.

“It’s not a top-down process. If someone says, ‘What if we try this?’ – we try it,” Ruben says. “Sometimes it sounds weird on paper, but when you play it, it just works.”

Even though the three were the project’s core, they weren’t working in isolation. The wider Valo Motion team stepped in for testing and feedback, helping to shape the experience with fresh perspectives and real-time reactions.

#5 What made this project meaningful for the makers?

For all three game makers, Party Box was a chance to push their own craft, explore new creative ground, and work on something that felt truly rewarding.

For Abhishek, this was the first time he took a broader lead. Not just designing the gameplay, but also managing scope, keeping the project on track, and making sure the team had what they needed. “This time I also took on project management and learned a lot about scoping,” he says.

For Ruben, the entire project was a full leap into mixed reality and on-site teamwork. “It was all new – how the platform works, how to think about space differently, how to make the world feel immersive. And getting to work side-by-side with the team made a big difference. I really felt like my ideas were heard.”

“I really felt like my ideas were heard.” – Ruben

Time found meaning in shaping something that’s both technically challenging and emotionally engaging.

“I always create sounds with the player in mind. But with Party Box, I also thought about what I enjoy. If I like the music and get excited playing, I know we’re on the right track,” he says.

There’s also a deep sense of pride in watching the game come together — seeing it become something complete.

“At some point, you step back and think: I can’t change the game anymore without breaking it. It’s done. It’s its own thing now. That’s when you know it’s real”, Time sums it all up.