Nordic Game Discovery Contest Tag Archive

“Candle Knight” announces new trailer, release date and prestigious festival win!

September 19, 2022• Videogames

The Mexican 2.5D action-adventure game Candle Knight just announced an amazing new trailer, dropped a playable demo and also their official release date

Mexico City, Mexico – September 2022 – It was just announced that Mexican 2.5D action-adventure Candle Knight will officially release on January 20, 2023 – and to celebrate that a brand new trailer has also been released alongside a playable demo on Steam

Wield your flame to overcome menacing creatures lurking in the shadows of a ruined castle, use the dynamic difficulty system to your advantage, traverse challenging platforming sections and solve cryptic puzzles inside surreal paintings in this 2.5D action adventure platformer.

In addition to all this, Candle Knight also recently won a qualifier spot at the prestigious Nordic Game Discovery Contest (NGDC) as the competition moves to its sixth season. The win was announced recently during the BIG Festival in Brazil and the sixth season of NGDC Grand Finals will be held in November.

“When I heard that Candle Knight won the Contest, I was blown away. I couldn’t stop thinking about all the effort our team had put into the project and the road it had traveled. This moment marks a huge milestone for our game and supports all the love and hard work that we hope all the players can feel.” says André Torres, Special Effects director at Dracma Studios.

While we’re waiting for Candle Knight to be released, you can already sign up on the wishlist at Steam or try the new awesome demo. You can find Candle Knight on Steam here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1879680/Candle_Knight/

Check out the brand new trailer here: https://youtu.be/g5q7DBTWags

Follow Dracma Studios at Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Reddit, Youtube and on their Website for more information.

For assets, please go to: https://prnordic.box.com/s/qm031vhr7xc8bhjokutwaqgsa9hl3o1t

About Dracma Studios
Dracma Studios is a Mexican indie development studio that was founded in 2019 in Yucatán, México, with a team of talented developers from all over the country with the goal of creating amazing games and unforgettable experiences that resonate with our players and that brings the industry closer to our country, creating opportunities for the next generation of Mexican and Latino Game Developers.

About the Nordic Game Discovery Contest
Building on fourteen years of organizing successful games industry activities, including the annual Nordic Game conference, regional funding programs, overseas networking events and other developer support initiatives, Nordic Game launched the Nordic Game Discovery Contest (NGDC) in 2016 – an exciting, competitive challenge where selected game projects are showcased live in pitch competitions at partner events across Europe and around the globe. Learn more about all the NGDC Season VI qualifiers – and get ready for Season VI right here.

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Zombie Apocalypse ravages small Italian village, it’s Game Over Carrara!

October 19, 2021• Videogames

Game Over Carrara is a free-to-play, point and click adventure mobile game with action elements built from faithful recreations of the real-world locations in the Italian city Carrara, transformed into apocalyptic scenarios. Check out the amazing just released cinematic trailer!

Carrara, Italy – October 19, 2021 – Broadcast live as the final session of the online LevelUp conference in Rome, the Nordic Game Discovery Contest qualifier in Italy delivered a new finalist to the upcoming NGDC Season V Grand Finals in November.

The competition at LevelUp was fierce – the studios behind the games Freud’s Bones and Children of Silentown did almost as well as Italian one-man developer Elvis Morelli through the four rounds of the competition, making it very hard for the judges to make their final decision.

But in the end, it was Morelli’s innovative mobile game Game Over Carrara that made the strongest impression on the judges, consisting of representatives from Tencent Games, WhisperGames and Global Game Jam.

Game Over Carrara was born from the idea of involving an entire city, an ancient and splendid Italian village, and turning it into a game. Like many other cities in Italy, Carrara is becoming a forgotten village, and therefore with an aim to bring life back into Morelli’s own hometown Carrara he invites the undead to the city. Through his game, Game Over Carrara, the player gets to explore Carrara, who has been hit by a zombie-apocalypse.

Carrara is a city in Tuscany in the Apuan Alps, famous all over the world for its unique marble, used even since Roman times. All the greatest works in history have been made with marble from this beautiful village in Italy. Elvis Morelli wishes to send a message of how beautiful the city of Carrara is – even in an apocalypse.

An amazing cinematic trailer have just been released, please check it out at: https://youtu.be/xYTzMf7Pvk8

Playing Game Over Carrarayou will meet characters who are real citizens of Carrara. Through social media a cast was created for the public to choose the roles of some actors. As well as the player meeting the local citizens of Carrara throughout the game, the player meets shopkeepers and agencies in the area, who supported the game by sponsoring the first two episodes and alo providing a chance for them to be involved in the game as part of the narrative, avoiding invasive advertising.

Inspired by Hideo Kojima, Elvis Morelli created a game that goes beyond the concept of gaming, entertainment and storytelling. With a passion for dramatic writing, Elvis wanted to transcribe his own fantasies to the screen.

“Reading some Gamification examples I immediately got hooked on the idea that a video game could do something else besides entertaining the viewer” said Elvis Morelli the founder and creator of Game Over Carrara. “My goal is to introduce Carrara to as many people as possible, and it would be a dream to know that one day a tourist wishes to visit it after playing my video game.”

The first two episodes are available for Android on Google Play, (iOS soon) for free. There is also a Demo of an Extra DLC episode. The third episode is in development, and will be available in early 2022. There will be a Steam Bundle release for PC and MAC once all episodes are available.

For assets, please go to: https://prnordic.box.com/s/mmpkhtlsgc3unyktyie4kpag01oam0ti

For more information please look up: http://www.gameovercarrara.com

About Elvis Morelli
Elvis Morelli is an Italian independent developer, he started in the late 90s playing games by making some video games for friends, in 2005 he moved to Thailand for a few years, founding 7 Raven Studios  (still an existing company that develops video games). I worked there as a Game Designer and Graphic Designer on some games for Nintendo GBA and Nintendo DS until 2009. I designed Broken Circle GBA, and contributed to Word Safari GBA, Beastly Frantic Photo Nintendo DS, Heathcliff: Frantic Foto Nintendo DS, etc. In recent years he has focused on Game Over Carrara as an experiment in the concept of gamification, with the aim of re-evaluating this splendid ancient Italian village.

About the Nordic Game Discovery Contest:
Building on fourteen years of organising successful games industry activities, including the annual Nordic Game conference, regional funding programs, overseas networking events and other developer support initiatives, Nordic Game launched the Nordic Game Discovery Contest (NGDC) in 2016 – an exciting, competitive challenge where selected game projects are showcased live in pitch competitions at partner events across Europe and around the globe. Learn more about all the NGDC Season IV qualifiers – and get ready for Season V right here.

About the Nordic Game conference:
Nordic Game is the leading games conference in Europe, and 2021 marks its nineteenth and twentieth editions. Gathering thousands of industry professionals in Malmö annually, Nordic Game is the one and only “home turf” meeting place for the highly successful game developers of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. Nordic Game doubles up again with NG21 on 26-28 May and in November, following last year’s digital debut at NG20 and twice the knowledge, emotion and business at NG20+.

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Project Haven, a classic 90s-style squad tactics with a modern twist, shoots its way to huge recognition at established game conference

October 14, 2021• Videogames

Project Haven is a deep, squad-based tactical game set in “the last city of Earth, Haven”. Players get to experience cutting-edge technology that meets old-school design in this story-driven game of urban squad tactics, playable solo or cooperatively across a massive 45+ mission campaign.

Lisbon, Portugal – October 14, 2021 – As the Nordic Game Discovery Contest Season V tour comes closer to the finish line, a new finalist for the NGDC Grand Finals at NG21 Autumn this November was chosen in Portugal.

The NGDC online qualifier during GameDev Camp in Lisbon featured three selected contestants: Art house murder mystery Who Killed Mr. White from Notagamestudio, 3D puzzle stealth side-scroller Tamed: The Unseen Show from PopCoin Studios and Project Haven from developer Code Three Fifty One. All three studios are from Portugal.

Although the first two put up a good fight, it was Code Three Fifty One with Project Haven that took the victory and earned a seat in the NGDC Season V Grand Finals this fall.

In Project Haven, players lead the Steel Dragons, a mercenary outfit fighting for survival (and profit) on the mean streets of Haven City, the last metropolis on Earth. A corrupt government rules from above, as criminal gangs roam in the alleys of the city’s poorer districts. It’s a tough, violent place where a streetwise merc can make a lot of money, or die trying. Recruit a team of mismatched mercs, take contracts from the wealthy and fight. Project Haven features detailed turn-based tactical squad combat. Every shot is precision-aimed and ballistically modelled. Every bullet capable of doing terrible damage to a body through an advanced locational injury system. Position your squad through a gridless movement system and hunker down using a flexible stance-based cover system. Project Haven features some of the most involved tactical combat in games today, with a slick and accessible mouse-driven UI.

Inspired by strategy classics like the Jagged Alliance series, Project Haven quickly emerged from the flurry of ideas and possibilities. “Being a small team developing a fairly large game it’s great to see our efforts recognized and side by side with some of the best upcoming games in the indie industry.” says the indie game developer Code Three Fifty One about qualifying for the grand final of the Nordic Game Discovery Contest. 

Project Haven is set for release in 2022 and the full version will feature a massive 45-mission story-driven campaign, plenty of uniquely voiced mercenaries to command and a colossal and deadly arsenal of weaponry to master and customize with sights, grips and alternate ammo.

Check out the trailer at: https://youtu.be/3tBejmSyP7o

For assets, please go to: https://code351.com/presskit/project_haven/

Find Project Haven on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/443190/Project_Haven/

About Code Three Fifty One:

Code Three Fifty One is a small independent Portuguese video-game development company created by Joana Dimas and Sérgio Gil. Ever since a young age Joana was interested in human behaviour and video games. After finishing her degree in Psychology she enrolled for a PhD in Computer Science, in the hopes of merging these two areas. Code Three Fifty One is the realization of that goal. She joined forces with her partner Sérgio, an experienced developer, with the intent of creating games with strong characters and enhanced player experiences. Project Haven is the first of these games.

About the Nordic Game Discovery Contest:
Building on fourteen years of organising successful games industry activities, including the annual Nordic Game conference, regional funding programs, overseas networking events and other developer support initiatives, Nordic Game launched the Nordic Game Discovery Contest (NGDC) in 2016 – an exciting, competitive challenge where selected game projects are showcased live in pitch competitions at partner events across Europe and around the globe. Learn more about all the NGDC Season IV qualifiers – and get ready for Season V right here.

About the Nordic Game conference:
Nordic Game is the leading games conference in Europe, and 2021 marks its nineteenth and twentieth editions. Gathering thousands of industry professionals in Malmö annually, Nordic Game is the one and only “home turf” meeting place for the highly successful game developers of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. Nordic Game doubles up again with NG21 on 26-28 May and in November, following last year’s digital debut at NG20 and twice the knowledge, emotion and business at NG20+.

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Thought-provoking game draws attention and gets recognition from established gaming conference!

October 7, 2021• Videogames

There You Are features stop-motion-inspired graphic design and with its step-by-step game process it structures the story to move forward as we explore the story of the family and solve the goals presented throughout the game shaping the whole story.

Los Angeles, California, USA – October 7, 2021 – The exciting sixth qualification round of the Nordic Game Discovery Contest (NGDC) took place during the Exposición de Videojuegos Argentina (EVA) this week. Three selected game studios competed in the online pitch battle, hosted by Nordic Game’s own Jacob Riis and judged by the brilliant Eugene Maleev from Xsolla, Esther Tan from WhisperGames and Alexey Izvalov from Global Game Jam.

In the end, US-based studio Funky Dango swayed the judges most with their game There You Are, an exploratory narrative experience about moving away from the past and accept loss, featuring stop-motion-inspired graphic design and two endings from the player’s choices and actions.

There You Are dives into the topic of grief through the story of a young girl, Su, and explores what has happened to her family, as well as the young girl and her father’s relationship as they move forward and accept the past and the loss of her mother. While many games already touch upon this type of topic to a certain extent, There You Are uses both storytelling methods and game design principles to exquisitely craft each story beat and depict an emotional bittersweet story.

Started from a thesis project about unresolved grief by one of the developers, There You Are was created with the idea that in life the loss of loved ones is inevitable. Those who can remember our first encounter with death know that childhood experiences can be frightening and lonely. If handled with warmth, understanding, and caring, our early experience with death can be an opportunity to learn about living and dying. 

Rong Deng, the founder of Funky Dango says “To be a qualifier at Nordic Game was a happy surprise!! It was a big fortune for us could be selected to attend the Nordic Game Discovery Contest. We are so grateful that we could have the opportunity to show our game to publishers and get direct comments and feedback from them. Nordic Game provides us, indie developers, a bridge to discuss, and learn from each other. We cannot express how thankful we are!!!”

The player has the opportunity to decide the fate of the story and get one of two different endings based on the player’s choices and actions throughout the game.

There You Are is free to play and is available at: https://solr.itch.io/there-you-are

Release on Steam is planned for the near future

There You Are Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63HUEsHjBiU

Please find assets here: https://prnordic.box.com/s/kd9ht0inenr8y07uz1rngbfx3v4k6ewb

About Funky Dango

Funky Dango was founded in 2021 by Rong Deng and Rui Huang. Funky Dango focuses on creating engaging and thought-provoking games with colorful, vintage, and stylized art direction. Each game from FD will taste like a dango, a chewy delight. In 2021, Funky Dango released its debut title, There You Are. It got awards, showcases, and selections from domestic and overseas, including EVA Digital 2021, DreamHack Beyond,  Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival 2021, World Cinema Antwerp Belgium 2021, Urban Mediamakers Festival, and World Cinema Milan.

About the Nordic Game Discovery Contest:

Building on fourteen years of organising successful games industry activities, including the annual Nordic Game conference, regional funding programs, overseas networking events and other developer support initiatives, Nordic Game launched the Nordic Game Discovery Contest (NGDC) in 2016 – an exciting, competitive challenge where selected game projects are showcased live in pitch competitions at partner events across Europe and around the globe. Learn more about all the NGDC Season IV qualifiers – and get ready for Season V right here.

About the Nordic Game conference:

Nordic Game is the leading games conference in Europe, and 2021 marks its nineteenth and twentieth editions. Gathering thousands of industry professionals in Malmö annually, Nordic Game is the one and only “home turf” meeting place for the highly successful game developers of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. Nordic Game doubles up again with NG21 on 26-28 May and in November, following last year’s digital debut at NG20 and twice the knowledge, emotion and business at NG20+.

Read More →

First game to qualify for The Nordic Game Discovery Contest 2021 – “The Endless Wyrd”

January 19, 2021• Events & Trade Shows, Videogames

South African produced game “The Endless Wyrd” wins big at NGDC and is heading for Early Access release this fall!

January 19, 2021 – In this dice-based, deck-building, roguelike adventure, scavenge the Wyrd and escape the approaching Thing of the Dark. Load your dice with powerful augments to create your own synergies and combos and stack the odds in your favour. In the rabbit hole of the Wyrd, the only way back up, is down.

Produced in South Africa, “The Endless Wyrd” recently won the first qualification round of the NGDC Season V, which took place during Africa Games Week in Cape Town in early December and have therefore qualified for the big Nordic Game Discovery Contest this coming summer in Sweden!

“To us, The Endless Wyrd is the quest for the stupidly overpowered and we can’t wait for players to uncover the ridiculously overpowered synergies and combinations that we have in store“, says Janke van Jaarsveld, CEO of Design Imps, “We are also very proud of the game’s South African roots, boasting the unique comic art style of Willem Samuel, who’s band, SkreeAlleen, incidentally also lent their talents to the soundtrack.“

“The Endless Wyrd” is scheduled for Early Access release in Q3 of 2021 and an early Alpha demo is currently available on Steam. “At Design Imps we are committed to the concept of “Together we can make it better”. It was the reason we implemented an easy to use modding system for Fhtagn! – Tales of the Creeping Madness and the reason we want to have Early Access. We believe that with the input of players we can make this game amazing!”, says Janke.

Check out the reveal trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6roy7syGfQc

One Minute gameplay trailer: https://youtu.be/tDDkoAWuXqo 

The Endless Wyrd is available as an Early Alpha Demo on Steam here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1227330/The_Endless_Wyrd/

For assets, please go to: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/19VKDsabTZktiM-y590xo7WMBpFoS6XYA?usp=sharing

Press Kit: https://www.indiedb.com/games/the-endless-wyrd/presskit

About Design Imps:

Design Imps was founded in 2010 by Janke and Ilana van Jaarsveld as a bootstrapping Indie Studio in Pretoria, South Africa. Through the help of friends and family and after years of paper prototypes and double jobs, the company finally started development of their first title The Creeping Madness, in 2017. To keep the project alive, focus was shifted in 2018 to create Fhtagn! Tales of the Creeping Madness, in order to secure much needed funds. The team decided to place a hold on The Creeping Madness in 2019, till the studio could grow more in size and experience and so The Endless Wyrd was born and production on this dice-based roguelite deckbuilder is scheduled to enter the Early Access phase in Q3 of 2021. 

For more information, look up: https://designimps.com/

The Endless Wyrd Discord Server: https://discord.com/invite/XPVwgFT

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