Dane Games and the Quirky, Old School Squire Squarefeet

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Development Exclusive Interviews Indie

Dane Games and the Quirky, Old School Squire Squarefeet

January 25, 2019 — by Catherine Quinton

The founders of Dane Games, Kasper Fischer Topp and Nanna Fischer Topp, describe their company as a small hobby-based company at present. They both have full-time jobs, as well as a family, so time and resources are limited. But they also have ideas, so they hope eventually to be able to work exclusively at their own studio.

The Pathway To Creating Squire Squarefeet

Kasper and Nanna first heard about Indie Prize in 2017, when they were at Gamescope in Aalborg, Denmark and saw a team win the People’s Choice Award. In 2018, they won the prize themselves, for a short demo of their game Squire Squarefeet and got the chance to compete at Indie Prize during Casual Connect Asia 2018 in Shenzhen. Their hope for Indie Prize is to be able to make connections and establish a network. They would love to meet others who are as passionate as they are about developing quirky, adult humor games. And it would be wonderful if they could also find a way to get funding for completing the Squire Squarefeet project.

Contributions Postmortem

Atoms: From College Project, to Adult Games and Beyond

January 16, 2019 — by Industry Contributions

The following Postmortem is by a winner of Gamacon 2018 which is a nomination partner of Indie Prize. As a winner, Juan Pablo Méndez Altuzar is provided with 2 free conference passes and free spot to showcase his game at Indie Prize. Gamacon is a convention for independent game developers. It is a conference which celebrates the artistry and fans of indie game development. Juan has decided to participate at Casual Connect USA 2019 in August at Indie Prize.

Juan standing with Hugo, Gamacon organizer and Juan’s booth with his prize to Casual Connect

At the event, Juan met a person that became his friend there, and this new friend seemed more excited about him winning than he felt. He relates that was because it all felt like a dream, “I was all like: really? Holy cow, I didn’t think I’d win.” When asked how he feels about coming to Casual Connect and competing at Indie Prize, he said “It does still feel kinda unreal, but it makes me really excited. I’ve seen a ton of videos of Indie Prize and oh, boy - I wanna go! I feel really pumped! It also pumps me to polish the hell outta my game to share it at Casual Connect.

My name is Juan and a few years ago I set myself the goal of releasing a simple game I could complete on my own.

The original idea for the game started as my college graduation project. I wanted to create an educational game that was as attractive as any commercial game. One that could simultaneously appeal to gamers and to students seeking to learn whatever the game wanted to teach.

Europe 2018 Video Coverage

Tom Wijman: Market Intelligence for Games | Casual Connect Video

December 11, 2018 — by Catherine Quinton

We never say no to a project or task that might seem impossible at first. - Tom WijmanClick To Tweet

Competitive gaming is the latest trend in mobile gaming. It brings the ‘core’ gaming experience from PC and Console to mobile devices. At Casual Connect Europe, the talk entitled The Unstoppable Rise of Competitive Gaming on Mobile, Tom Wijman who is a Market Consultant at Newzoo, described in detail the rise of competitive gaming, the trends that are driving it, and what this means for mobile gaming as a whole. He explored the impact that the growth of competitive gaming is having on mobile esports and how this differs between the East and the West.

Asia 2018 Contributions Development Video Coverage

MyTona: How to Make Your Arts Work | Casual Connect Video

December 6, 2018 — by Industry Contributions

In the gaming industry monetization is key to keeping in business and making new games. Conventional strategies include in-app purchases or ads and yet there is no single right answer for all games for a monetization strategy. Join Diana Platonova, CBO at MyTona, as she described evidence-based examples of what worked well for MyTona. In her talk, Customising for Your Audience: How Game Art Affects Monetization, at Casual Connect Asia, and see how they were able to incorporate these ideas into their game Seekers Notes. Diana advised, “Strive for excellence and never stop there. There is always something in your game that can be improved, changed or tested.” Tune in a video of the full lecture below.

Development Exclusive Interviews Indie

Benoît Freslon: Thinking Outside the EnigmBox

December 5, 2018 — by Catherine Quinton

We first saw Benoît Freslon’s game EnigmBox at Casual Connect’s Indie Prize in London 2018 where it won the Best Game Design award. Also at Casual Connect Asia 2016 in Singapore, EnigmBox won the Most Innovative Game and Best in Show: Critic’s Choice award. Winning these prizes gave Benoît the motivation to keep working with the experimental game. But as proud as he was of the awards, he was equally happy with the friends he made there.

Benoit believes the prizes he won with EnigmBox gave him credibility with publishers and partners. Specifically, Asian publishers would like to publish the game in China, but he is still in negotiations with them.

A Game With Potential

Now Benoît has a new version of the game, EnigmBox 2.0. He felt that the game, created in 2013, had become outdated in terms of design, user interface, user experience and game feel. As well, he had many new puzzles he would like to experiment with. And a significant number of players and publishers had asked him to create a version for Android. So, with the awards from Indie Prize confirming that the game had potential, Benoît decided to work on a new version of EnigmBox, but this time using Unity 3D.

Benoit began the process of creating the new version by listening to feedback from players and experts. Then he started redesigning and polishing the design, the monetization, the UI, the UX, the tutorial, the puzzles and even the colors.

Europe 2018 Video Coverage

Tobias Edl on Expanding the Reach of Social Casino | Casual Connect Video

November 30, 2018 — by Catherine Quinton

The beauty in our business is the continual change. - Tobias EdlClick To Tweet

When entering the European market in the games industry, one faces many challenges. Each country has differing language, legal, culture and demographics which means all of these variables need to be considered. It’s important to keep in mind that success in one country does not equal success in another. At Casual Connect Europe 2018. Tobias Edl, Head of New Business Relations at Whow Games presented the Complexity of the European Market. See the full lecture below.

Europe 2018 Video Coverage

Philippe Dao: Asmodee and the Best of Digital Board Games | Casual Connect Video

November 29, 2018 — by Catherine Quinton

For any developer who has tried to adapt a board game to a digital game, what are some of the challenges you’ve faced. At Casual Connect Euorpe, we had Philippe Dao, Chief Commercial & Marketing Officer at Asmodee Digital, address the insights and learns learned from Ticket to Ride, Carcassonne and Splendor in his speech called The Challenge of Adapting a Board Game to Digital. This included different angles like publishing, marketing and of course game design.

Development Exclusive Interviews Indie Studio Spotlight

Demagog Studio and Golf Club: Wasteland

November 20, 2018 — by Catherine Quinton

Demagog Studio and their game Golf Club: Wasteland was the winner at Horizon Pitchslap Belgrade 2017. After winning this award, they met with several members of the jury, who all were helpful with suggestions for the next steps to take with the game. One of them, Nikola Ĉavić, introduced them to Apple, giving them new impetus to the project. Now they are collaborating with both Apple and Unity and have won two more awards.

At Casual Connect Europe 2018 Indie Prize, Demagog Studio aimed to shine a light on Golf Club: Wasteland . It was released in June 2018 on iOS. They hope to bring Demogog Studio to the attention of a wider geographic audience.

A Multimedia Project

Igor Simić, who leads Demagog Studio, works in contemporary art and film and is represented by Galerie Anita Beckers in Frankfurt, Germany. The results of the sales of installation and video allow Igor to invest in other projects, such as Golf Club: Wasteland. This project is more than simply a game; from Igor’s perspective it is a multimedia project encompassing a video game, an original soundtrack, and music videos.

Events News

Say Hello to the 24th Annual Indie Prize Winners at Casual Connect Asia 2018!

November 14, 2018 — by Catherine Quinton

The games have been seen and played; the judging is now complete, and Casual Connect is happy to announce the winners of Indie Prize at Asia 2018. There is something for every taste and you are certain to find games you will enjoy playing.

The winner of Best Game Audio is Bushy Tail created by Fuero Games Sp. z o.o of Poland. This story-driven game, in which Little Fox searches for his lost parent, is told by three different children, who relate the story from their own perspectives as they process their own experiences, and, as a result, the story differs each time it is told.

*Bushy Tail* by Fuero Games (Poland) was awarded as the Best Game Audio at the 24th Indie Prize Awards during Casual Connect Asia 2018

Contributions Development

GameStylus: We Want to Allow all People to Create Their Own Games

November 14, 2018 — by Industry Contributions

By David Moren, GameStylus consultant

GameStylus is a small game studio located in Prague, Czech Republic. It started in 2013 with one idea: To create a simple game engine and game editor, which would allow anybody to create his/her own adventure games without lengthy programming. And so, many months later, the GameStylus.com web site and game engine were born. And first adventure games came, one of them reaching more than 1,4 millions of downloads.

GameStylus game studio was founded in 2013 by Petr Mandik, who had previous experience with adventure games development from his previous game company Agawa, which published adventure games in 1990s in the Czech republic. These were games for PC, published on CDs - who remembers these times? But the times has changed and this time he decided to target broader audience - mobile and PC gamers around the world. But as aforementioned, he wanted not only to create games, but also to offer his game engine and game editor to other people.

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