Better late than never!
I guess most people already know. But Arnt Jensen (Limbo + INSIDE) was granted the biggest art grant in Denmark.
'Kunstfondens hædersydelse' a life long art support grant.
Also it should be noted that this is a first for the games industry in Denmark. There isn't even a category for it. It's a grant labeled under movies.
Adding fun anecdote in relation to the whole artist thing.
Once at an industry party many many moons ago I was talking to Arnt.. and yes there were alcohol involved and things might have changed in the mean time and maybe he was just messing with me but!
Jonas: But you are a real artist Arnt!
Arnt: NO! I'm not an artist! I'm a social democrat!
Well... One MoMA exhibition and a permanent honorary national artfund grant later. That didn't age too well Arnt. Just saying!
A big grats to Arnt and the rest of the receivers! <3
Ouch! Umami Games is closing down!
Rather sure the team will find jobs rather quickly. But it always sucks when closing shop. Best of luck to everybody affected!
Riley Andersen (CEO and Co-founder):
This one hurts. Umami Games is closed.
When I started building start-ups 5 years ago I knew it would be a rollercoaster of highs and lows.
But I never knew how tough it feels if you create something you are really proud of. And one day, almost from one to another, it's just gone. Auch... crash and burn boom!
So that's how it feels. In reality it's a longer process and without securing funds and a growing interest for other technologies this was the right time to end Umami Games.
BUT WHAT A RIDE!
+ 15 million downloads
Nr. 1 on us AppStore
+ 100 games
+ 5 million $ revenue
And pivoting into casual-puzzle
I will forever be proud of team Umami, the creativity, cool games and tech we made! It was ambitious, it was fierce, it was speedy!
Mads Anthony and I are back on the rollercoaster. Because that's what we do. We build cool playful stuff that can entertain millions of players. We are super fascinated by creativity, UGC and AI - so lets see where this journey will take us
They are still in the game and the hardware looks slick.
But their VR division is still operating at a huge loss. Let's see how long they will continue operating in consumer oriented VR and now hybrid VR/AR with Quest 3.
The latest PSVR 2 headset I tried recently was great in relation to the past products. But still suffers from a lot of the same fiddly limitations that makes daily use somewhat of a hassle compared to all the other devices in your life.
Actual break though technology is need to push beyond the small VR niche audience.
Deep Rock Galactic - Survivor beta access request is open! Developed by Funday Games.
Neato! Will give it a spin!
Incidentally I just had a super nice chat with Funday CCO and founder Anders Leicht Rohde yesterday. Super cool guy and interesting to hear how things are going at Funday... crazy many things in the pipe!
The survivor-like genre is probably the new 'indie platformer' springing up everywhere.
I expect the game to do really well. It is already on a pretty insane position on the global Steam wishlist currently at place #141. https://steamdb.info/app/2321470/charts/ (Number will change over time naturally)
We might see more established IP's going down the same route of survivor-likes in the future.
It's sad, but hopefully, it's the start of something new. Crossing fingers that the closure can lead to some new and smarter startups with experience in the backpack.
I tried Crey very briefly a few years back, and it honestly didn't feel well-crafted at the time (it might have improved later). In light of competition from juggernauts like Roblox, Fortnite, Minecraft and others operating in the same space, I never observed Crey gaining any meaningful traction compared to the competition.
Moreover, it's a really difficult space. To my knowledge, Roblox is not a profitable company either. BUT! They own a vast chunk of the players.
The Crey main website is still up (not sure if the games are still operational?! probably not?) https://www.playcrey.com/
All social media links seem to have been taken down.
Crey CEO Janos Flösser was the main man behind Crey, with a very strong history of being the CEO behind the Hitman franchise of IO-Interactive. He has been incredibly good at attracting funding for the project and the investment firm Promentum Capital.
Sadly, this bankruptcy might hurt the local industry in general, as investors might become even more risk-averse if even the former head honcho of IO Interactive couldn't work his magic once again.
I would say it's all about finding the right project and team. It's difficult but not impossible!
Public numbers from Crey Holding ApS, the company owning the production company, seem to indicate that there should still be substantial capital in the company family, 50 million DKK in 2021 numbers. But honestly, I think it's the right call to not go further with a company that never found a sizable audience to run on its own accord after 5 or so years. Or has any realistic means of getting there either. There is no point in investing further if the thing just doesn't work. https://www.proff.dk/firma/crey-holding ... NVR7QI06Y4
Crey was probably born out of the aspirations from the single-player UGC platform BitGlobe (as I recall, it was started as a side project around IO Interactive). Sadly, BitGlobe never worked either.
And again! BEST OF LUCK to everybody involved!
I wish you all land somewhere good as soon as possible!
So the Apple Vision Pro (AR/VR) headset was just revealed.
Tech actually looks amazing >on paper< in the presented video.
Price be like...(and not unexpected) expensive yes! $3499 a piece excluding DK sales tax of 25%.
Hardly a platform for devs to focus on except if Apple pays for development as I don't expect it to be much more than a rather small niche for the rich. I think they will find it hard to build an ecosystem around at the current pricing. Consumer VR and AR is hard enough already.
Who knows!? The usual Apple problems regarding software development and buying the device might not even be worth a port alone of existing titles. They must know this.
And besides there seems to be no current controllers matching the standard of today's VR headsets. Severely limiting the use cases for the platform as a VR/AR gaming place to go.
Hence they focus more on main stream activities like movie watching, macbook big screening, face time and such. Quite the price tag to pay for things you can already do on your devices AND without the need to lug a large unwieldy headset around. The form factor does not look very practical beyond home use (possibly work screen if you won't sweat and over heat and eye strain.. all the padding back and front looks like it could get rather warm) and occasional use.
For most people it will not make sense at all to throw money at the Vision Pro. But naturally the richie richs will throw their money at things like this just because they can.
But great they are pushing out new exiting tech in the field.
Update: However if still interested after my rant.
There is an application form if you want to build something for the device in Unity for Apple's visionOS.
Again if you have something the Apple or paying clients could find tasty and put money into development it would be a good idea. Otherwise.. I would currently be rather skeptical of the investment in time and hardware would be worth the effort at this particular moment in time. If just for fun and geekdom.. sure, fire away! https://create.unity.com/spatial
So boom! The Forgotlings Kickstarter dropped yesterday!
Looks amaze!
Developed by (old industry friends) Danish Throughline Games and published by US based Hitcents.
As a continuation of the universe and characters from Forgotton Anne. (great game by the way) So looking forward to Forgotlings.
This time with seemingly a stronger focus on combat.
Forgotton Anne was successful in the sense of 'Very Positive' reviews and now that they are making a new game!
Personally a bit worried as the Kickstarter dropped out of nowhere and is off to a slow start. It would be generally advisable to build prehype so the Kickstarter can launch with a bang. Reaching 20%+ funded on day 1 should be the goal.
I hope Throughline and their publisher has some tricks up their sleeves.
The goal of 744,886 DKK is a bit on the high end. Taken into consideration the quality and appeal of the project.. in theory is should be realistic if they really start pushing it out there. Getting it out there is the real challenge. The project appeal is there and is certain to attract some attention! The question is if that is enough, I hope so!
Best of luck to Throughline Games! <3
I hope the absolutely best for the project!
Adding: Vizlab Studios from Viborg also worked on the project.
(Had a nice chat with the heads at Copenhagen MatchUp a little while ago, great guys!)
**Kickstarter update
So I played the demo..... It seem like they could use some help on getting a proper game feel and control layout. It's not exactly intuitive. Lessons from the first game was not learned. So that's not optimal.
Besides the Kickstarter seems to be going somewhere, there has been some crazy spikes now and then. It will be nerve wrecking to follow. From initial 'that looks scary' to coooould happen with a little luck and some more spikes. Crossing fingers!
Trophy Games Acquires Transit King Tycoon
Trophy Games Development A/S acquires assets from the bankrupt Finnish game developer Bon Games, strengthening its position in the Transport Game genre. Bon Games’ “Transit King Tycoon” has achieved a remarkable milestone of over 5 million downloads on the Android platform, and is currently generating a monthly revenue of 20,000 EUR.
(At least the games part, there are various companies in the KILOO family)
The owning companies (VANTAGE CAPITAL ApS and Kiloo Capital A/S) public figures seems to indicate they are financially well padded.
The most likely cause could be that the games division was closed down as a consequence of just not being able to find the next big thing after Subway Surfers was sold back (the vast majority of rights) to SYBO. But who knows, there might be other causes as well.
The founders has historically not been very talkative to the press, so we might never get the full story.
And oh maaaaan sad to learn about the closure! BEST of luck to everybody affected! <3
They gave it a lot of shots with a string of releases through out the years!
And as always! I hope everybody affected will land quickly on their feet and in time I hope we will see some new cool startups. Company closures is a great breeding ground for starting something from a clean slate by people who are in the same situation and are used to working with each other. Now is the time! Let's GO!
Hoping all the best!
ALS v3.0 for Unreal Engine. It's free on Github by the way. It's a super imressive system! (Current version is 4.24 by the way)
We are using it on DarkSwarm.. though it was not intended for top down shooters. So there has been some battles there.
Translation
boom!
