Presenting the Indie Prize Finalists from Europe Part 2

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Industry News

Presenting the Indie Prize Finalists from Europe Part 2

May 24, 2018 — by Catherine Quinton

Indie Prize at Casual Connect Europe 2018 has attracted many entries from all over Europe, including Italy, France, Austria, Netherlands, Norway, Belgium, Spain, Ireland, Germany, Greece, Denmark, Sweden, as well as the United Kingdom. And the innovation in these games is remarkable. Competitive games have a variety of new twists that require speed, precision and skill to succeed. Adventure and narrative games pit the player against novel situations and obstacles. Settings range from the historically accurate (or inaccurate) to fantasy or dungeons or even the player’s mind. And a variety of puzzle games challenge players’ thinking in different ways. Whatever kind of gaming you prefer, there are games here you will enjoy. These fantastic games total 38 from Europe. The finalists have been broken up into two parts. To see the other 19, see this article.

Game Title: Falling Sky
Developer: Falling Sky
Platform: Desktop Win
Country: United Kingdom/Norway

Falling Sky is a cinematic 3D mystery game. It was developed at the National Film and Television School and the project leader and sole developer was Jonathan Nielssen. The game uses Unreal Engine and motion capture technology to create immersive, narrative-driven drama. It has a Twin Peaks influence and elements of open world adventure.

The characters of the game are brothers Daniel and Tommy, who are attempting to solve the mystery of their mother’s disappearance. Guided by a series of cryptic messages, the boys set off on a quest to find the truth.

Events News

Presenting the Indie Prize Finalists from Europe Part 1

May 22, 2018 — by Catherine Quinton

earth-with-internet-lights-desktop-wallpaper-960x540.jpg

Indie Prize at Casual Connect Europe 2018 has attracted many entries from all over Europe, including Italy, France, Austria, Netherlands, Norway, Belgium, Spain, Ireland, Germany, Greece, Denmark, Sweden, Portugal, as well as the United Kingdom. And the innovation in these games is remarkable. Competitive games have a variety of new twists that require speed, precision and skill to succeed. Adventure and narrative games pit the player against novel situations and obstacles. Settings range from the historically accurate (or inaccurate) to fantasy or dungeons or even the player’s mind. And a variety of puzzle games challenge players’ thinking in different ways. Whatever kind of gaming you prefer, there are games here you will enjoy. These fantastic games total 38 from Europe. The finalists have been broken up into two parts. To see the other 17, see this article.

Game Title: Circle of Sumo
Developer: Yonder
Platform: Desktop Win, Desktop Mac
Country: Italy

Circle of Sumo is a fast-paced competitive multi-player game where players alone or in teams fight for supremacy in the ring. This intense challenge requires power, precision, quick reflexes and cunning. Yonder describe the game as “a real mini-games box, a sort of kaleidoscope of playable pills with a joyful and inclusive soul.” But the competitive aspects are always retained. There are dozens of different arenas and the ring could be anywhere a circle could be imagined, even a traffic circle.

Exclusive Interviews Indie

Perfectly Paranormal and Creating a Winning Game: Don’t Take Yourself Too Seriously!

March 1, 2018 — by Catherine Quinton

What is the Indie journey like? What does it take to come up with exciting ideas, create your own company and develop a winning game? Recently Gamesauce was fascinated to learn from writer/animator Ozan Drøsdal about the process that began with a group of friends making a game and led to a company called Perfectly Paranormal developing the winning game, Helheim Hassle, at Konsoll Connect. As winners, the indie team has won the opportunity to compete at Indie Prize London which will take place at Casual Connect Europe on 29-31st of May 2018.

Gamesause: Tell us about Perfectly Paranormal. What led you to found this game studio?

Ozan Drøsdal: It all started during a boring semester in school back in 2011, where we decided to make an adventure game instead of doing homework. It was called Dudefish, it was made in Flash, the dialogue was recorded in our dorm rooms and it took us two years. We entered a competition or something with it back then and needed a company name (we weren’t a company yet at all) and we came up with Perfectly Paranormal. It’s inspired by the perfectly normal beasts from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. We didn’t form the actual company in a legal way before around 2015 when we were in the middle of working on Manual Samuel. A game everyone reading this should totally buy. It came out last year.

Contributions Events Industry News

Esports for Indie Mobile Developers: Mad Skills Motocross Championship Deep Dive

April 4, 2017 — by Industry Contributions

By Simon Sundén, head of Esports at Gumbler

With over 31 million downloads, Mad Skills Motocross 2 has continued to be a success for developer Turborilla since its launch in 2014. This is primarily due to a loyal player base, many of which are involved in real-life Motocross, as well as partnerships with the likes of RedBull for exclusive events. Looking to drive more community engagement, Turborilla decided to up the ante in October 2015 by introducing real-money challenges via Swedish skills-based esports platform, Gumbler.

Based purely on a player’s skill, Gumbler brings esports to mobile games by enabling players to win real cash through placing money on their abilities. After integrating Gumbler, Mad Skills Motocross 2 saw players win upward of $900,000 in 2016 - with some individual players earning as much as $6,000 per month.

Having seen the high levels of engagement from the Mad Skills Motocross 2 community, Gumbler worked with Turborilla to host its first World Championship at the beginning of 2017 with a prize pot of $20,000.

For Gumbler, the goal was simple as its Head of Esports, Simon Sunden explains:

USA 2016 Video Coverage

Aurora Klaeboe Berg: Boosting Growth From Within a Game

August 9, 2016 — by Catherine Quinton

Aurora Klaeboe Berg is currently a co-founder and COO of Megacool

Are you a developer struggling to get LTV greater than CPI? If so, you are certainly not alone; it’s a very common problem. At Casual Connect USA, Aurora Klaeboe Berg discussed this situation and how you can change it. Aurora pointed out that, “80% of users will only open your app once.” How do you overcome that?

Aurora is a co-founder and COO of Megacool and was previously VP of Business and Marketing at Dirtybit, the company that created the Fun Run game series. With an MSc in CommTech Engineering and Entrepreneurship, Aurora is passionate about helping game studios use their creativity to grow their user base.

In Aurora’s session at Casual Connect, they described different techniques that can boost growth from within your game. Think of the value of word of mouth effects! Aurora highlights key strategies to use in play testing and beyond. One example given: using the grandma test. “If a grandma gets it, anyone gets it!”, shared Aurora. To learn more, watch this video of the complete session.

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For a more detailed article about Aurora, click here.

Europe 2015 Video Coverage

Aurora Klaeboe Berg: Friends Playing Joyfully Together | Casual Connect Video

June 9, 2015 — by Catherine Quinton

For the team, we need 'someone a little bit crazy and that wants to be better.' - Aurora Klaeboe BergClick To Tweet

Many of us remember the competition of playing Mario Kart and the feeling of satisfaction as we whammy our friend with a red shell. This is the feeling that Aurora Klaeboe Berg describes in Fun Run. Aurora describes that familiar moment when you are “watching the split screen and seeing their reaction when you threw the banana, they slid and you won. With that in mind, they decided to tackle this challenge of creating a synchronous multiplayer game for mobile”.

Europe 2015 Video Coverage

Fredrik Fors Hansen and Creating Memorable Moments | Casual Connect Video

May 8, 2015 — by Catherine Quinton

Correct issues early on, 'Test early, fail early!' - Fredrik Fors HansenClick To Tweet

As a part of their session at Casual Connect Europe 2015, Aurora Klaeboe Berg and Fredrik Fors Hansen spoke about their success Fun Run. Fredrik discussed and broke down the game design decisions behind the hit game Fun Run and requirements for the successful sequel. He explains the most important aspect of Fun Run: “The introduction of multi-player to Fun Run is of immense importance. It adds the valuable outcome, it adds the intense races, you never get bored from it, you get constant challenges, you can strive to hit the leader boards, [and] you you can have the most important of it all - the social aspect, combined with competition”.

Contributions Development Game Development Indie Online Postmortem

Amphora: Engaging Players As Much As They Want It

April 16, 2015 — by Industry Contributions

Moondrop is a small indie game studio located in Hamar, Norway, focused on making games that are interesting, beautiful and respectful towards players. Two full-time developers, Stig-Owe Sandvik (designer/artist) and Andreas Fuglesang (CEO/programmer), determination, experimental methods and compulsive behavior are key ingredients when Moondrop makes games.

“What should have been a short project with combat mechanics and no story ended up as an atmospheric story-based puzzle game that took a bit more than 4 years to make”, the developers recall as they share the story of their game Amphora.