PREVIEW: SBC SUMMIT
Creating games to remember T
Bullshark Games has never been interested in releasing games simply to fi ll a calendar. Every title starts with the same question: is there something here that players will actually remember?
hat approach has shaped Bullshark from the beginning. It is a relatively small studio, which gives it the freedom to stay hands-on with every game created. Ideas are challenged, mechanics are tested extensively, and they are not afraid to keep refi ning something until the pacing, volatility and overall experience feel right.
One of the games that demonstrated what this approach can achieve was Age of Seth. It became one of the studio’s strongest- performing releases and showed just how powerful a game can be when its theme, mechanics and anticipation all work together. More importantly, it gave Bullshark valuable insight into what players responded to and what we could take forward into future games.
NEW RELEASE
The upcoming release, Doctor Dust, is one of the games the studio is most excited about this year.
There are elements of Doctor Dust that players who enjoyed Age of Seth may recognise. Bullshark deliberately wanted to revisit some of the ideas and feelings that worked particularly well there, but without simply creating Age of Seth again with a
different theme. Doctor Dust has its own world, personality and gameplay identity. At the centre of the game is the mysterious masked Doctor Dust, a character designed to be instantly recognisable and to give the game a strong personality from the moment players open it. Around him, the studio has built an experience focused on anticipation, escalating potential and those moments where a seemingly ordinary spin can develop into something much bigger.
That sense of progression is something the team increasingly focus on at Bullshark. Earlier
in the journey, it was easy to assume that adding more mechanics automatically created more depth. Experience has taught otherwise. A game does not necessarily become better because there is more happening. Often, the opposite is true.
Today, the team spends much more time thinking about how mechanics interact, how quickly players understand what is happening and, most importantly, how the game feels over an entire session. The best features are not always the most complicated ones. They are the ones that create anticipation and give players a clear reason to care about what happens on the next spin. Doctor Dust refl ects that philosophy. It takes inspiration from concepts that have already proven themselves within the portfolio, particularly Age of Seth, but applies everything learned since then about pacing, presentation and progression.
Of course, you can never predict exactly which game will become the next major hit. Players ultimately decide that. But internally, Doctor Dust has given the studio many of the same feelings it had when developing Age of Seth, and that makes it particularly optimistic about its potential.
For Bullshark, that is also what makes game development exciting. Even with all the data, testing and experience available, there is still a moment when a new game goes live and you discover whether players see the same potential in it that you did while building it.
Bullshark is hoping Doctor Dust will be one of those games.
CATCH UP AT SBC
Bullshark Games will also be attending SBC Summit Lisbon, and looks forward to catching up with partners and friends from across the industry.
16 OCTOBER 2026 GIO
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