up to be our best year of trading to date. Exceptional team growth, fantastic development partners and an incredibly strong pipeline of work through 2022 has provided us with the confidence to commit a major investment into the development and self-publishing of Pine Hearts – due to release in the first half of 2023.
Looking back at Big Crown Showdown, it appears to share many ideas and features with Fall Guys - and of course preceded it. How do you look back on the game in that context? SM: We knew we were onto a winning formula with Big Crown Showdown. Play tests and event attendance let us see player engagement was great and the frantic nature of the combat created real excitement. The comparison to Fall Guys is purely a matter of resource and experience – we had the fundamentals but lacked the resource to reach the same ambitious heights. We know what we did well and what we didn’t deliver on – it’s only a matter of time before we get our own “Fall Guys” success!
Your second major project has been Venture Valley. How did that come about? SM: We had initially engaged with The Singleton Foundation to build Venture Valley in late 2019 as part of a co-development opportunity. The project is hugely ambitious with a real “games for good” value at its core. The Singleton Foundation aims to provide opportunity and inspire entrepreneurship through teaching financial literacy. Venture Valley is one aspect of their mission to showcase the fundamentals of business operation within a fun and engaging interactive game. Deploying games technology to provide more than just entertainment is something the team is incredibly passionate about and fits with our wider studio ambitions. In 2021 Hyper Luminal took the reins of the project and are now the primary developer working directly with the Singleton Foundation to achieve its goals.
What’s it like to work on a not-for-profit project - especially one that’s designed to reward gameplay that seeks profit? SM: Hyper Luminal’s roots in creating interactive experiences that bring games technology to other industries/sectors made us the perfect fit for the project. Venture Valley’s not-for-profit business model is only possible due to the Singleton Foundations generosity. The aim of the game is to teach fundamental skills in financial literacy and entrepreneurship hence the gameplay must buy into the idea of cash flow and profitability from a gameplay perspective. The need to generate money is critical to a business’s operation and knowing how to
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manage money is an essential life skill. The game itself will remain “free” to allow for greater accessibility for our players and allow it to target the diverse demographic it is targeted at.
“We’re really passionate about accessibility, and we spend a great deal of time considering how best to build games that players of all different circumstances can enjoy. Our stories are universal, so we feel our players should be too”
You are committed to games being used for good. How does Venture Valley embody those values, and how are you continuing to uphold them in your other projects? Rob Madden: The concept for Venture Valley has been built from the ground up as a game that offers more than just engaging play. The whole ethos of the project is to improve the financial literacy and entrepreneurial skills of players, particularly those in impoverished areas with a lack of opportunities. The game is completely free, accessible across multiple devices, and backed by a charity with an incredible history of philanthropy in the financial education sector. This has made it a perfect fit for our Studio. Further to this, the Studio continues its focus on
games for good in all developments; from gamified living aids for a UK housing association, to our own in-house developments that put sensitivity and accessibility at the heart of the experiences.
Cloud Jumper and Pine Hearts both seem like games that the world needs right now. What inspired them? RM: Both games are born from a desire to build
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