News! Tech! Tools! Talks! Games! And Stuff Worth Sharing!

[jonaz.dk]

So it seems the big Embracer round of cost cutting is not completely over.
Swedish Tarsier Studios have been hit by the sweep, to a currently unknown extent. Haven't seen the news else where btw.

According to a recent linkedin post. Poor 3d artist got Embracered twice.

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/ur ... 4146945%29

[jonaz.dk]

Sea Of Rifts from Out Of Bounds Games ApS is currently in public testing..
Edit: I will be running next weekend from 29th-31st of March.

[jonaz.dk]

After 5+ years of development some of our very local office mates, 'FlatPonies' has secured a publishing deal for their game Rebots. With the new and little known publisher Astra Logical. Grats to the ponies!

There will be work to do for the new publisher. The estimated wishlist is not super high. Currently at 195 followers after circa 3.5+ years of having a live Steam page. In other words.. my current sales forecast is sadly quite low. Let's hope the best for the title and the new found publisher will be able to push it out there! Best of luck!

[jonaz.dk]

DK related release!
MP2 Games in Viborg is part of porting work on indie game Pepper Grinder. Developed mainly by 'Ahr Ech'.

Played the demo a bit back. Game plays pretty smooth!

[jonaz.dk]

Finally Silkroad Studios has a live Steam page and a title reveal of their formerly titled project 'Project Foxtale'.
The game is now known as Yokai Tales: Fox

Earlier they actually managed to go completely viral with 1.7 million views on a Japanese Twitter post. Absolutely crazy!
However there didn't exist a Steam page and references to company and project was not really there. So a big missed opportunity there. However I am sure it will be a sales point when talking to publishers proving that there is actually a very large interest for the project out there (at least in Japan) so that's great!



The 1.7 Million views tweet:
https://x.com/NNoroshi/status/1755063865648521608?s=20

[jonaz.dk]

The Magical Mixture Mill from Glowlight is now out of Early Access! Grats and nice to see the 'Very Positive' reviews!
Also sales are not super wild. But great to see a big recent spike when exiting Early Access. Almost factor 10!

[jonaz.dk]

DK project spotting! Developed by Icelandic (But residing in Denmark) Jón Kristinsson

Tiny Tires!

Oh man! It takes me back to playing Micro Machines on the Amiga back in around 1993. Good times!

[jonaz.dk]

Forgot to mention the 'first person booter' Glum: A Wicked Misadventure from DK Cindercat Games!

Got a bit gametime with the project at Copenhagen Gaming Week. Feels slick!

[jonaz.dk]

Danish Game Awards 2024 is a thing this year.

Danish Game Awards afvikles d. 20. april 2024 i Herning, i forbindelse med Gamebox Festival.
More on https://www.danishgameawards.dk

Voting for nominations here:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1sf18bm ... ested=true

[jonaz.dk]

DK release!
The Girl Who Kicked a Rabbit develped by takunomi (Sketchwhale on the Discords)

Marries the concept of crafting attacks and buffs while in turn based combat. Works brilliantly judging from my short time with the demo.

Grats on the release to takunomi!



There is also a free demo for you to sink your rabbit teeth into!


DK walkthrough of the demo

[jonaz.dk]

And now a look back at the classic Danish Hugo games.

Also including the easter eggs at the end!



Easter Eggs in Hugo Games

Hugo Easter eggs part 2

[jonaz.dk]

Epic Marketplace free for the month April 2024



https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplac ... 0&tag=4910

[jonaz.dk]

Trophy Games doing great!

Preliminary Q1 results indicate 76% revenue growth - Trophy Games Raises Guidance
https://trophy-games.com/news/prelimina ... s-guidance

[jonaz.dk]

Dev ➤ Test ➤ Repeat, May 2024 coming up!

[jonaz.dk]

More nostalgia from the Amiga days.. this time the little known hidden messages inside the games where the developers was (mostly) trash talking the crackers. Great banter and fun stuff!

[jonaz.dk]

Frayed a free survival game developed in Aarhus by Dream Jam Games will be releasing in a few short hours.

[jonaz.dk]

An update on the Embracer situation.
The restructuring program should have been done by end of March. So that's great it's finally coming to an end and the developers can relax a bit and work on some cool games! Locally the most effected gamedev studios were Campfire Cabal who got the big axe and 3DRealms/Slipgate which are now fully under Saber Interactive. Let's see if we have seen the last of Campfire.

So no more head cutting for the time being hopefully. Also mergers and acquisitions are on hold for the time as well.

Btw. I didn't find any other sources regarding the recent Tarsier layoffs. So I presume it might not have been so bad. Hope so!

Embracer CEO Wingefors Declares Restructuring Process Complete
The restructuring process initiated by Embracer Group is complete, said CEO Lars Wingefors at the investor conference following the sale of Gearbox. He believes the company is well on its way to becoming a "more focused" business. The group has no plans for M&A activity for the time being.
https://www.gamesmarkt.de/business/more ... 58c256f42b

[jonaz.dk]

DK Steam Early Access release from some time ago, Card Battle Simulator developed by Nordic Softworks ApS

Not a single negative review so far! Very good!

[jonaz.dk]

We have all seen the amazing work that has been going on on Nanite in Unreal Engine 5.x

The recent addition with displacement mapping in 5.4.


The future version of Unreal Engine 5.5 seems to have Nanite support for skeletal meshes in the pipeline.
VERY cool! ;D (If you are doing more hi-end graphics work for appropriate target platforms)

It seems Nanite is coming full circle now with the addition on skeletal meshes support! Absolutely Incredible stuff you could only dream of a few years ago. The tech examples might not look super sexy. But when you know the potential as a developer/artist you might see it a bit different.

[jonaz.dk]

Really cool tech btw. Let's see if one of our local studios can match or surpass this.

Inside Kingmakers - 2024's Biggest Gaming Surprise So Far

[jonaz.dk]

So there is a new initiative in town to show off indie games to a wider audience. It's called the Triple-i Initative. Forned by a lot of devs and publishers operating in the space. Among them Ghost Ship Publishing.

Two DK games are on display in the round. What the Car and Dino Lords.

Lots of really cool looking stuff right here!
The Triple-i Initiative 2024: A New Gaming Showcase


17:10 Slay the Spire Ⅱ
18:00 Risk of Rain 2: Seekers of the Storm
18:40 Kill Knight
19:50 Shadows of Doubt
20:50 My Time at Sandrock
21:20 Dinolords
22:30 Gestalt: Steam & Cinder
23:40 Vampire Survivors (Playstation)
24:10 Vampire Survivors: Operation Guns
25:40 Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn
27:15 Never Alone 2
27:47 Cataclismo
28:50 Death Must Die
30:15 Endzone 2
31:30 Dyson Sphere Program (Update)
32:30 UnderMine 2
33:40 Norland
34:10 WHAT THE CAR?
35:50 Darkest Dungeon 2 (Update)
37:33 RKGK / Rakugaki
38:35 Broken Roads
39:53 Ravenswatch (Update)
40:53 Cat Quest Ⅲ
41:57 Hyper Light Breaker
42:55 The Last Spell - Dwarves of Runenberg
43:55 Laysara: Summit Kingdom
44:57 Wizard of Legend 2
46:00 Let's School
46:33 Brotato: Abyssal Terrors
47:20 Tchia (Nintendo Switch)
48:23 Streets of Rogue 2
50:35 Old World: Beyond the Throne
51:10 Palworld (update)
51:25 33 Immortals
53:30 MOUSE
54:10 V Rising - Legacy of Castlevania
56:05 The Rogue: Prince of Persia

The Steam page for What the Car now includes a demo


New teaser trailer for Dino Lords

[jonaz.dk]

C++ Talk & Meetup @IOI Copenhagen
Thursday, April 25

https://www.eventbrite.dk/e/c-talk-meet ... tdtcreator

[jonaz.dk]

HOW CREATING A SPINOFF FOR A HOT GENRE LEAD TO SUCCESS FOR DEEP ROCK GALACTIC SURVIVOR
Success metrics Last month, the developers behind the Deep Rock Galactic Survivor (DRG:S) announced that they sold over 1,000,000 copies of their game since its February Launch. DRG:S is an survivor-like (aka action-roguelike) (aka bullet-heaven) (aka Vampire Survivors-like) spinoff of the mega-popular 2018 co-op FPS: Deep Rock Galactic. Shortly after
https://howtomarketagame.com/2024/04/08 ... -survivor/

[jonaz.dk]

Optimizing a voxel engine.. pretty neat!

Github link here
https://github.com/vercidium-patreon/meshing

I Optimised My Game Engine Up To 12000 FPS

[jonaz.dk]

Latest update from Hutlithut and Void Crew




And also an interview in Danish with CinderCat Games

Verdens første first-person booter har været i Amerika! Arkaden besøger CinderCat Games
https://arkaden.dk/verdens-foerste-firs ... cat-games/