The Games Developer Conference (GDC) is the largest annual gathering of professional video game developers in the world, and we are delighted to be attending this year's event.
As part of an exciting trade mission with Trade and Invest Wales, we were at GDC in San Francisco from 20 to 24 March 2023 and were thrilled to be taking seventeen of Wales’ biggest and brightest games companies with us.
Read on to discover more about the games companies and the products they showcased or find out more about our trade missions to GDC here.
Animated Technologies is a digital agency based in North Wales driven by storytelling and creativity. Their highly-skilled teams create engaging animations and interactive virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) to help businesses grow. Whether a business is looking for a captivating animation to explain its product, an immersive VR training experience, or an app to guide people around a historical town, Animated Technologies have the skills and capabilities to help companies achieve their goals.
Goldborough Studio is an independent game developer that games and character-led content using pencils, pixels, knowledge and, according to them, a little magic. Based in West Wales, the studio has worked on visual development, character design and content for 11 games, four feature films and two animations since it was founded 11 years ago. In 2023, Goldborough will release its first internal titled called Yami – a PC and next-generation console game. They are also currently developing a new IP.
Based in Cardiff, Space Colony Studios is a collection of independent artists, writers and developers working together to create the Stories from Sol anthology of games. The multi-part, narrative-focused series was said to be created to express Space Colony Studios' love of retro science fiction and interactive storytelling. The first title in this series, called Stories from Sol will be out in late 2023.
North Wales-based games company, Bird in Sky was founded by developer duo Matt and Mic. The two started making games together in the late 90s, but it took 17 years before their labour of love 3030 Deathwar was released on Steam. The top-down space adventure has won fans from all over the world. Now, Bird in Sky wants to make a sequel. They're on the lookout to find a publisher who, according to Matt and Mic, wants "to partner up to make the greatest space-adventure sequel the galaxy has ever seen: 3032".
Imersifi is a virtual reality (VR) software studio that specialises in creating fully interactive training experiences for enterprises. As the only masters-level qualified VR studio in Wales, Imersifi is renowned for its expertise in interaction design, data integration, and user-centric instructional design. The expert team has a track record of delivering VR training solutions for a variety of industries including medical, health and safety and engineering. The studio has a unique offering; it can create fully bespoke and easily updatable VR experiences with integrated learning.
CritterCraft is an experimental WEB3 metaverse developed by Gaz Thomas and Chaz Barter, who have over 30 years of game-making experience. Together they've developed and published over 100 titles, with their original creations being played over one billion times. Critter Craft's gameplay includes crafting the world's first Twitch-integrated NFT games.
Wales Interactive is a multi-award-winning video game and interactive movie developer, publisher and investor. Co-founded by Dr David Banner MBE and Richard Pring, the company has evolved from a games creator to a publishing label – collaborating with some of the most talented games developers and filmmakers from across the globe.
Their ever-growing portfolio of titles has been played by millions, including Maid of Sker, Late Shift, Sker Ritual, Ten Dates, The Complex, Five Dates, The Bunker, and many more.
You can read all about how Wales Interactive is putting Wales on the video games map in our profile on the company here.
Sugar Creative are an award-winning studio that aims to deliver wonder through innovation. The company was founded in 2008 and has worked with international partners including Aardman, Toyota, Allianz, Dr. Seuss, Kingspan, Ubisoft, BBC, and OSMO.
Some of the agencies' current flagship projects include a partnership with Ubisoft creating a global first-of-kind immersive experience that will bring the world of Assassin's Creed Valhalla to life in XR; a brand new story engine creating narrative virtual reality experiences; a partnership with National Museum Wales to give a voice to the underrepresented interpretation of the museum collection; and an inclusion and innovation project that will develop the ability to effectively incorporate British Sign Language (BSL) into VR as an equal language.
You can read more about who Sugar Creative are and what they do in this article.
Swansea-based Black Dragon Studios is an independent video games development company. Together, their highly-skilled team have a combined experience of over 30 years in developing games, practising and teaching creative design, and software development.
Since its launch in 2018, the company has created games across several platforms, including PlayStation 4, the Nintendo Switch, Oculus VR, and the Vive VR headset. In 2023, Black Dragon is focusing on games for the Xbox Series X/S and the Switch.
Sammy Snake is a streamer, advisor and project lead in the games community. He's also the founder of Nova Rally – a 3D, racing strategy, blockchain game. Players choose a car and drivers before battling it out on the racecourse in the racing simulation. You can also become part owner of a virtual racing team.
Games Alchemist Ltd is a video game developer firm based in South Wales that work on console and PC games. Founder Tobias Johnson is a Bafta-winning director for Creature Battle Lab: a 3D creature creation game developed for Welsh Government through the Microsoft Greenshoots award.
The company's latest project is Big Job: a third-person cover shooter set in 1980s dystopian Britain with stealth elements. The games have received support from us here at Creative Wales and have a staggered release planned on PC and console. Games Alchemist is currently seeking publishing, investment, porting, marketing, Q&A testing, and localisation opportunities for the game.
RUNWILD Entertainment Ltd is an independent game development studio based in South Wales. Formed in 2016, the team is made up of veteran developers and several contractors based around the world. The company aims to become world-renowned for co-op PvE multiplayer games and bring players together in unique and inspiring adventures.
Cloth Cat is an award-winning development studio based in Cardiff that makes games and interactive experiences for a range of platforms. Specialists in Unity engine with several game releases to their name for PC, mobile and web; they have additionally created over twenty HTML5 games since becoming established. With a recent rebrand comes exciting change and focus on games for PC and console.
DragonfiAR is a games studio that develops immersive and captivating mobile, virtual reality (VR) and desktop games.
Their specialities are virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) combined with narrative and massively multiplayer online (MMO) games. The studio aims to create games that bring players into imaginative worlds with thrilling stories, compelling characters, and unforgettable experiences.
iungo Solutions was founded by Jessica Leigh Jones MBE and Tom de Vall to create the connective tissue between employers, training providers, and talent. By developing immersive and experiential learning programmes, iungo develops and up-skills talent for high-skilled roles in emerging and priority sectors including games development and other creative industries.
Since its launch, iungo has developed a bespoke upskilling programme designed to engage under-represented talent in the gaming industry. Their nine-month flexible programme upskills aspiring game developers to a professional level, with the option to establish a new games development enterprise through a specialised incubator programme.
ClearPixel VR provides virtual training labs for practical neuroscience training. Based in Cardiff, they offer safe, repeatable environments where individuals can learn about different lab equipment and practise industry techniques. Ultimately, their goal is to rethink and reshape current industry and educational training procedures.
Bomper is an independent creative production studio based in Caerphilly. Their team of in-house artists, illustrators, animators, art directors and producers work on projects across advertising, branding and broadcast. From VFX to hand-crafted animation, their work spans many formats and mediums.
Some of their projects include: creating two animated music videos for Foo Fighters and partnering with award-winning game publisher Big Fish on a series of comedic shorts for their title EverMerge.
Read this interview with one of their marketing managers to discover what it's like working for Bomper.
Virtus Tech is a virtual reality company that provides a no-code web-based VR platform. The platform features a simple drag-and-drop system, which is used by educators, content creators and teams to create, collaborate and scale VR productions in a completely visual canvas. With no coding needed, everyone can focus on what they do best.
Virtus says their customers call them the Squarespace of VR as organisations can build their own VR content and deploy it on any device. It has currently been adopted by the UK NHS educational system, where simulations are created and used by over 35,000 for training.
For more information on this trade mission to GDC get in touch with us here.