Microsoft Studios, Bandai Namco Games, SCEE & Michael Meyers PR have awarded the prestigious Game Connection Development Awards.
San Francisco, USA – March, 4th 2015 – Studios Active Gaming Media, Hololabs, Brainseed Factory, MADFINGER Game, A Crowd of Monsters, Bigpoint, Square Enix Montréal, Sarepta Studio, and LyteShot win at this year’s Development Awards in San Francisco.
San Francisco, CA, USA – March 4, 2015 – Game Connection unveiled the winners of the 2015 Game Connection Development Awards today. Formerly known as “Selected Projects”, the award honors yet unsigned or highly original game projects and is open to console, mobile, social, casual, and online games at any stage of development with no restriction to genre, platform, or distribution method. Out of over 170 applicants, the jury picked twenty-four different game projects from 15 countries before narrowing down the winners in each of the ten categories. Vlad Micu from VGVisionary hosted the ceremony.
Japanese Active Gaming Media took home two of the ten trophies for Astebreed, making them the biggest winners of the day. The Shoot-Em-Up PC game was named both “Best Hardcore” and “Best Console/PC Hardcore Game.” Two German studios had a reason to celebrate, as industry veteran Bigpoint was awarded “Best Desktop/Downloadable” for the browser-based MOBA Shards of War. While indie-studio Brainseed Factory won “Best Casual” for their word-based puzzleTypoman (multi-platform). “We are highly honored to receive one of the most relevant industry awards,” said Bilal Chbib, Founder and CEO of Brainseed Factory. “Three years after the initial idea for Typoman was born, it has made huge leaps on its journey and increases our motivation to create a game players will hopefully fall in love with.”
The Canadian games industry can also boast two winning studios, as Hitman GO from Square Enix Montréal was named “Best Mobile/Tablet”, and “Best Social” went to Hololabs for their mobile scrap-gaming title Papercade. “We are very excited about the reception of Hitman GO,” said Genevieve St-Onge, Brand Manager at Square Enix Montréal. “We think it shows that taking risks in game design can definitely pay off. We cannot wait to show you what’s coming next.”
“We are thrilled to win the award for Best Social Game and to be included among so many talented developers for the award,” said Mike Wozniewski, President and CTO of Hololabs Studio Inc. “For all others interested in making games, we hope that Papercade can be the first step in expressing your ideas and creativity through games. Come join our scrapgaming community!”
US-based LyteShot managed to trump the competition in the main category “Most Original & Creative Project” for their self-titled mobile/live-action platform. Further winners include Czech studio Madfinger Games for mobile model-kit simulator Monzo (“Excellence in Art”), Norwegian Sarepta Studio for PC puzzle-adventure Shadow Puppeteer (“Most promising IP”), and Spanish indie A Crowd of Monsters for their multi-platform episodic noir story Blues & Bullets (“Excellence in Story & Storytelling”). “Being nominated and winning at the Game Development Awards has been a really good platform to get more visibility and interest from the big publishers,” Rafael González, President and CEO of A Crowd of Monsters.
The 2015 Game Connection Development Awards were given out in partnership with Microsoft Studios, Bandai Namco Games, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, and Michael Meyers Public Relations.
Categories
The 24 nominated projects for 2015 and final winners are:
Best Console / PC Hardcore (Microsoft Studios)
- Hand of Fate, by Defiant Development (Australia)
- Typoman, by Brainseed Factory (Germany)
- Hue, by Mudvark (United Kingdom)
- Shadow Puppeteer, by Sarepta Studio AS (Norway)
- Astebreed, by Active Gaming Media, Inc. (Japan)
Best Mobile / Tablets
- Hitman GO, by Square Enix Montréal (Canada)
- Epic of Kings, by Dead Mage (United States)
- Papercade, by Hololabs (Canada)
- Piano City, by Room 8 Studio (Ukraine)
- Raids of Glory, by Nitro Games Ltd. (Finland)
Best Desktop / Downloadable
- Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders, by MICROIDS (France)
- My Night Job, by Webcore Games (Brazil)
- The Dead Flowers Case, by Mando Productions (France)
- Shards of War, by Bigpoint (Germany)
- DUR ; by ZHdK (Switzerland)
Best Casual Game
- Hitman GO, by Square Enix Montréal (Canada)
- Piano City, by Room 8 Studio (Ukraine)
- Puny Stupid Humans, by GORANGE LLC (United States) & SteelMonkeys (Belarus)
- Sequenced, by Apelab (Switzerland)
- Typoman, by Brainseed Factory (Germany)
Best Social Game
- Shadow Puppeteer, by Sarepta Studio AS (Norway)
- Papercade, by Hololabs (Canada)
- Raids of Glory, by Nitro Games Ltd. (Finland)
- Monzo, by MADFINGER Games (Czech republic)
- LyteShot, by LyteShot, Inc. (United States)
Best Hardcore Game
- Astebreed, by Active Gaming Media, Inc. (Japan)
- Epic of Kings, by Dead Mage (United States)
- First Strike, by Blindflug Studios (Switzerland)
- Hue, by Mudvark (United Kingdom)
- Medusa’s Labyrinth, by Guru Games (Sweden)
Excellence in Art
- Monzo, by MADFINGER Games (Czech Republic)
- Epic of Kings, by Dead Mage (United States)
- Hitman GO, by Square Enix Montréal (Canada)
- Astebreed, by Active Gaming Media, Inc. (Japan)
- Raids of Glory, by Nitro Games Ltd. (Finland)
Excellence in Story & StoryTelling
- The Perils of Man, by IF Games (Switzerland)
- Blues & Bullets, by A Crowd of Monsters (Spain)
- Hitman GO, by Square Enix Montréal (Canada)
- Epic of Kings, by Dead Mage (United States)
- Shadow Puppeteer, by Sarepta Studio AS (Norway)
Most Promising IP (SCEE)
- Hitman GO, by Square Enix Montréal (Canada)
- Typoman, by Brainseed Factory (Germany)
- Mutant Football League , by Digital Dreams Entertainment LLC (United States)
- Shadow Puppeteer, by Sarepta Studio AS (Norway)
- Astebreed, by Active Gaming Media, Inc. (Japan)
Most Creative & Original Project (Bandai Namco)
- Papercade, by Hololabs (Canada)
- Sequenced, by Apelab (Switzerland)
- LyteShot, by LyteShot, Inc. (United States)
- Puny Stupid Humans, by GORANGE LLC (United States) & SteelMonkeys (Belarus)
- First Strike, by Blindflug Studios (Switzerland)
For more details on all of the nominated projects, visit the nominees’ page here.
Jury
The Development Awards is made possible thanks to the outstanding efforts of its Jury, a board of well-known and trusted publishers. For each competition, being part of the Jury includes the commitment to review each and every project submitted. Game Connection extends a very special thanks to:
- Levi Buchanan, Director of Sales, Chillingo
- Vincent Dondaine, Co-Founder, Bulkypix
- Sarita Churchill-Viramontez, Business Development Manager, Microsoft Studios
- Katie Morgan, Executive Vice President, Reverb Publishing
- Jack Chun, LINE GAME Global Business Development Manager, LINE Corporation
- Jere Makiniemi, Head of Developer Relations, Rovio Entertainment
- Samuel Gatté, Publishing & Product Support Director, NAMCO BANDAI Games
- Jennie Sue, Developer Relations Manager, :DeNA
- Kyu Lee, President, GAMEVIL USA, Inc.
- Stephen Lee, Executive Director and Head of Publishing, 6waves
- Bob Loya, Sr. Director, External Development, Activision
- Casey Lee, Head of Com2us USA, Inc, Com2Us
- Tatiana Timoshenko, Director of Licensing, G5 Entertainment
- Katie Morgan, VP of Business Development, Reverb
- Déborah Papiernik, EMEA Business Development Director, Ubisoft Entertainment
- James Batchelor, Editor, Develop-Online
- Jim Ying, VP, Games Publishing, Tango
- Guy Richards, Third Party Relations, Production Manager, Sony Computer Entertainment, Europe
- Neil Haldar, VP, Business Development, GREE International
- Careen Yapp, VP of Business Development and Account Management, GAIKAI
