"Burn Bright" Without Burning Out: How the Salamandra Team Makes Games That Hit Different

Imagine this: you're putting words together from letters, and suddenly, between the lines, there's a meme about Ukraine, an interesting historical fact, or a sharp cultural reference. No, it's not magic. It's Colorwood Words – and the Salamandra team is behind it. But that's just a small taste of what this business unit is all about.

In 2025, Burny Games moved to a business unit model – internal mini-studios where teams make their own decisions without waiting for unnecessary approvals. Salamandra is one of them. Led by Producer Maria Myronenko, the unit has around 20 people and a portfolio of products already known to millions of players.

Maria Myronenko, Producer Burny Games

What do they make?

Colorwood Words is a cryptogram puzzle where players build words and phrases from letters. Sounds simple? It is – but in 2025, the game received a Ukrainian hyper-localization complete with memes, historical facts, and cultural references. Now millions of players around the world are quietly learning a little bit about Ukraine without even realizing it. That summer, the game reached the top of the Ukrainian App Store and Google Play charts and hit over 5 million downloads. Not bad for "just a puzzle," right?

Another project is Colorwood Associations, created together with Portuguese studio Infinity Games. It's the first product in Burny Games' publishing portfolio: players find meaningful connections between words and group them into logical sets of four. Also 6 million downloads.

Who's behind it all?

Maria has nearly a decade of experience in game development. She started as a game designer and now runs her own team. Her management style? Multitasking combined with attention to detail – in the best possible way. "I'd rather double-check or clarify something than let it slide," she says. Yes, she's the kind of person who spots a mistake long after everyone else has moved on.

The Salamandra team is made up of curious, creative people who enjoy figuring out how things work even when it's not technically their responsibility, Maria explains. Think of them as a group of "let's find out how this actually works" enthusiasts. And importantly, knowledge-sharing is genuinely part of the culture here: if you know something well, you'll almost certainly find people who want to learn it – and explaining how something works is, for many, a real pleasure in itself.

Colorwood Associations

A fair warning from Maria: don't expect a "family" atmosphere in the sense of "we all hug each other and nobody asks anything of anyone." What you'll find instead is a love of the work, shared goals, and an awareness that the world moves so fast you have to run just to stay in place. But without burning out. "You need to understand the difference between being passionate about your work and burning yourself out completely – we do everything we can to avoid the second one," she adds.

At the same time, that doesn't mean there's no room for fun outside of work: the team regularly gets together for team-building events, goes on work trips, and looks for opportunities to meet in person when they've only ever worked together online. So the serious, focused approach to work goes hand in hand with a genuinely warm and human vibe beyond it.

If you've read this far and something inside you just clicked – then we're probably heading in the same direction. Open positions are available at the link. Don't wait – hit games don't make themselves.