CATCHING UP WITH HYPER LUMINAL GAMES


Dundee’s Hyper Luminal Games doesn’t just aim to make good games, it wants them to do good and leave players feeling even better. Seeing it’s two new titles in production, Richie Shoemaker senses good times ahead


W Stuart Martin, CEO Rob Madden, creative director


e last checked in with Dundee’s Hyper Luminal Games in 2018 as it was about to release its debut, Big Crown: Showdown, a multiplayer combat platformer that preceded Fall Guys and that in hindsight


shares more than few similarities – all of them good, apart from perhaps not being quite as successful. Since then the studio has gone from strength to strength and as well as completing work on the educational business sim Venture Valley, has two new titles deep into development, Pine Hearts and Cloud Jumper – both of which look like future contenders for 2023’s MCV/DEVELOP Game For a Better World Award. Keen to find out more, we fired off some questions to Hyper Liminal co-founders Stuart Martin and Rob Madden, CEO and creative director respectively.


It’s been four years since MCV/DEVELOP profiled your first release. What have you been up to since and how is 2022 shaping up? Stuart Martin: After the release of Big Crown Showdown in 2018, we began engaging with various work for hire developments – working with clients in the US and UK. We continued the growth of our team scaling from the 10-person team at Big Crown’s launch to the now 50+ strong development studio we are today. We have remained committed to building out original IP titles and experimented with multiple prototypes before finally settling on Cloud Jumper and Pine Hearts to take forward as our next self-owned releases. 2022 is shaping


34 | MCV/DEVELOP May 2022


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