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DevelopmentExclusive InterviewsIndie

Dane Games and the Quirky, Old School Squire Squarefeet

January 25, 2019 — by Catherine Quinton

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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.

Europe 2018Video Coverage

Tom Wijman: Market Intelligence for Games | Casual Connect Video

December 11, 2018 — by Catherine Quinton

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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.

DevelopmentExclusive InterviewsIndie

Benoît Freslon: Thinking Outside the EnigmBox

December 5, 2018 — by Catherine Quinton

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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 2018Video Coverage

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

November 30, 2018 — by Catherine Quinton

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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 2018Video Coverage

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

November 29, 2018 — by Catherine Quinton

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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.

DevelopmentExclusive InterviewsIndieStudio Spotlight

Demagog Studio and Golf Club: Wasteland

November 20, 2018 — by Catherine Quinton

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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.

EventsGame DesignNews

Indie Prize Asia 2018 Participants from Western Europe

November 7, 2018 — by Catherine Quinton

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The participants in Indie Prize at Casual Connect Asia always show amazing creativity and diversity, and this certainly true of these entries for Indie Prize Asia 2018 from Western Europe. From creative learning apps to complex puzzles to adventure games, and even some filled with horror, there is something here for every kind of gamer.

Game Title: Looters
Developer: Karizma Studio
Platform: Android
Country: Iran
Video: https://bit.ly/2REDTyf

Once upon a time there was a magical game studio named KARIZMA. They were known across the land for developing games, and one day a glorious castle emerged from the studio. The castle was filled with magic and gold so it attracted every looter in the world. Eventually the castle became known as Looters.

Europe 2018Video Coverage

Aleksey Savchenko: Understanding the Needs of Developers | Casual Connect Video

September 26, 2018 — by Catherine Quinton

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Live your life so you have something to be proud of every day, then let it go and set higher goals. -…Click To Tweet

Are you ready to use Unreal Engine 4 for development in casual genres? Learn how to utilize this amazing tool in smart and effective ways. Tune in to a presentation by Aleksey Savchenko, a licensing manager at Epic Games, at Casual Connect Europe. This session, Unreal Engine 4: Perspectives for Casual, discussed smart and effective ways of using, including tips and tricks of the toolset, optimization and pipeline. Aleksey also concentrated on some specific hypothetical cases in HOG/HOPA genres to give a good example of what can be done with UE4 in this field.

DevelopmentExclusive Interviews

Vasiliy Sabirov: Making Games Better with Analytics

September 19, 2018 — by Catherine Quinton

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Vasiliy Sabirov is Lead Analyst at devtodev, a full-cycle analytics platform that helps developers to improve their games. Vasiliy has seven years of experience in game analytics and describes his transition to devtodev as smooth and effortless. He began as a business analyst, then worked in a B2B service for games. He followed that with working for a game development company and from there to devtodev.

Making Decisions That Mean Something

Vasiliy Sabirov is Lead Analyst for devtodev

Vasiliy’s work as Lead Analyst covers three major areas. The first is helping developers understand why analytics is so important to games and how analyzing their games can make them better. At devtodev, this has included writing books, hosting webinars and, most recently, launching a free online course in game analytics. Vasiliy also participates in international gamedev events as a guest speaker, something that involves a great deal of travel and offers opportunities to exchange ideas and opinions with other professionals.

His second major area of responsibility is creating and improving the devtodev platform. He generates ideas for reports that are useful for different game projects in different genres and that help developers understand the meaning behind the numbers in their games. And he is also responsible for analytics outsourcing for some of their clients.

Vasiliy describes, “It is really important for me to feel that my decisions mean something and influence something for the best. And the more things I can influence, the faster those decisions are implemented, the better. I’m getting all those things working at devtodev.”

Europe 2018Video Coverage

Reko Ukko: Balancing Art and Business in Games | Casual Connect Video

September 18, 2018 — by Catherine Quinton

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As long as there's creativity involved, I'm happy. - Reko UkkoClick To Tweet

In a highly competitive industry, Best Fiends has managed to grow its mobile entertainment franchise into a $100 million brand. In a talk at Casual Connect Europe entitled How to Leverage Game Design to Sustain Brand Awareness, Reko Ukko, VP of Game Design at Seriously, shared his insights on how to successfully grow an audience and increase engagement through storytelling, new feature updates and holiday themed events.

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