The large-volume federal funding for computer games started on September 28. Reason enough for us to take a look back: From the pilot phase, there are now over 200 funded projects running or about to start; others have already been completed. Among the funded games are also some Bavarian projects, which we present to you here in the article.

Update 03/02/2021

In the meantime, 31 Bavarian projects have been funded with a total of 3,388,178 euros through the De-Minimis funding (source: visualized project descriptions on the BMVI site). Five projects have been added in the last few months.

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Cathedral is a co-production between Tellux Next from Munich and Linked Dimensions from Mönchengladbach in North Rhine-Westphalia, funded with 95,898 euros. Cathedral is the prototype for a story-driven construction puzzle game that tells the gripping story of one of the world’s most famous cathedrals: Cologne Cathedral, which took almost 600 years to build. The player completes the construction of the cathedral piece by piece by constructing the individual building elements through the creative use of building materials and tools. In the process, the player must pay attention to both the physical stability and the cost of construction.

Under the title HeroZero IdleTower, Playata from Nuremberg is developing a simulation game for mobile: the player takes on the role of an aspiring super villain, but has to put up with all kinds of humorous setbacks while building up his rogue empire. The BMVI is providing funding of 112,643 euros. The HeroZero brand has been successfully in existence since 2021 and was originally developed as a browser game.

The three-dimensional VR riddle game Tesseralux by the Munich-based company Enigma Film is being supported with 195,461 euros. The player must guide a laser beam through up to 27 cube-shaped rooms in virtual reality. The individual rooms are arranged similarly to a Rubik’s cube (3x3x3) and have doors on their partitions that can only be opened by the laser beam. In each room there are various obstacles, mirrors and crystals with which the laser beam can be blocked, redirected and otherwise manipulated.

The studio McPeppergames from lower Franconia develops SnOOze and the Secret of the Witch, a medieval strategy game for mobile devices. The player takes on the role of the protagonist SnOOze from a bird’s eye view, with whom he explores a medieval world. In this world, he can collect raw materials, produce goods, must fight battles and solve tasks. In addition to economic building elements, the game also contains elements of a role-playing game. 69,024 euros were paid for it.

Update 12/01/2020

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Wayward Studios from Stockstadt am Main in Lower Franconia receives 79,338 euros for their title Space Crawler. Alone or together with up to three friends, players face the dangers of the crawl in this game that combines third-person dungeon crawler and space action adventure. Players travel one procedurally generated level after another with their spaceships, combining countless gun, shield and booster modifiers to complete their missions. The game is influenced by the style of classic anime, with its very own quirky rules, coupled with an even quirkier sense of humor.

178,116 euros are awarded to Milkroom Studios from Grünwald near Munich. Epic Palace – The Rise of the Bronze Age Kings is a real-time strategy game based on the great mythical kings of the Bronze Age, such as Agamemnon of Mycenae or Minos of Knossos. The player travels 3000 years into the past to take on the role of such a ruler himself in order to gain fame and power. The game is based on current scientific research and follows archaeological findings as closely as possible. It is supervised by an international team of researchers from the universities of LMU Munich, Haifa and Washington, who are themselves involved in excavations at important palace sites of the Bronze Age.

Update 11/03/2020

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Four more Bavarian companies can look forward to positive news from the BMVI. Gentle Troll Entertainment from Würzburg secured 108,766 euros in funding for their project Fairweather Getaways – Journeys into Uncertainty. The vision of the strategy game has its origins in the refugee movement triggered by the Syrian war and the debate surrounding humanity and isolation. At the same time, the team wants to show how democratic systems can topple and persecution of marginalized groups can develop. Thus, the players are meant to subtly encourage reflection on the political state of the here and now. Players run a thriving travel agency in an anthropomorphic animal world, planning destinations and itineraries for their clients – until a political shift to the right threatens democratic structures and a fringe group is persecuted as “undesirables.” The goal of the game is to support the “undesirables” in their quest for safety while staying alive yourself.

With Street Tycoon, Leto Games UG (with limited liability) from Memmingen is working on a GPS- and map-based multiplayer mobile game from the construction simulation genre. The player can purchase streets on maps of the real world and equip them with buildings that bring him rental income. With his friends, he can form companies and acquire his own neighborhood or famous places in the world and compete as a real estate mogul with other players from all over the world. 125,656 euros are available to implement the prototype.

The next two projects have already been funded by FFF Bayern during concept development.

Trollgames from Füssen are developing a simulation for mobile, which the BMVI is supporting with 97,376 euros: The King’s Dreams combines the historical setting of King Ludwig II of Bavaria with decorative elements and new merge mechanics.

2D jump & run action adventure game Unsinkable Sam tells the story of the most famous ship’s cat of World War II, who survived three sinking of warships of the War Navy and the Royal Navy one after another. The game is based on historical and historical facts. Behind it are Tellux Next from Munich and Pixelcloud from Ludwigsburg. The funding amounts to 103,066 euros.

Update 10/05/2020

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The BMVI has awarded funding to five more projects “made in Bavaria”: The Grünwald-based company Try Hard Interactive receives the maximum sum of 200,000 euros for its card game Baloot Royale. The most popular card game in the Arab world meets the most popular video game multiplayer mode. 40 players play against each other in teams of two.

Crimson Company is the name of both the game and the small Munich-based studio. What started as an analog card game with successful Kickstarter campaigns is now becoming a mobile game. The elegant dueling card game in a fantasy setting is based on the innovative mechanism of “board drafting”. 58,088 euros were raised.

Moebiusgames from Munich develops a mix of Lemmings and SimCity. In Panic Mode, players try to save the helpless and cute aliens, called Pammies, from certain death as disaster managers in the event of meteorite impacts or zombie attacks, for example. The funding amount is 87,610 euros.

HandyGames continues to expand its Townsmen brand and receives 51,522 euros for the new project. In Townsmen Expeditions, it is the player’s task to satisfy his inhabitants by providing food and entertainment and to build and maintain raw material production chains as efficiently as possible. The building strategy game is to be released for PC and console.

With the Trans-medial Immersive Massive Experience T. L. I. – Time Leap Investigation, straightlabs from Grünwald is working on a Trans-medial Immersive Massive Experience, which was funded with 153,574 euros: In a not-too-distant future, players use virtual reality (VR) to control protagonist Ethan Wades, a former member of a cyberterrorism task force who is sitting in a wheelchair and suffering from amnesia after an unsolved assassination attempt. In an effort to solve the crime surrounding his person, the protagonist finds a way to obtain information from the past using time travel and android technologies. Based on this, he founds the special unit “Time Leap Investigation (T.L.I.)”, which gives the game its name.

Status 09/11/2020

17 projects from Bavaria have been funded by the BMVI so far; of these, 16 companies provide information. From VR games to historical topics to casual games – the range of content and mechanics is diverse. The companies are also quite various and spread all over the State of Bavaria. Some of them are not funding newcomers, but have already been supported by FFF Bayern.

From the registered merchant to the GmbH & Co. KG

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Würzburg-based studio Elaborate Games e.K. received 127,727 euros from the BMVI for its PC game Civitates, which had already received FFF funding. In this genre mix between Grand Strategy and economic simulation, players explore randomly generated worlds, found cities, construct buildings and build up a flourishing economy. By the way: As a registered merchant, you can no longer make submissions for phase 2 of the federal funding.

NeoBird GbmH & Co. KG from Nuremberg are currently working on the puzzle platformer World-Splitter. Each level here consists of two parallel worlds separated by a dimension gap that can be controlled by the player. The funding amount here is 138,630 euros.

Diving into virtual realities

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Three VR games are among the projects:

DEFICIT Games GmbH from Lower Franconia continues to develop its sports game VR Skater. The game, which is based on real skateboarding, received 74,939 euros. Here, the player stands on the virtual board himself and has to prove his skills on the way to becoming a professional skater. The concept development of VR Skater was funded by FFF Bayern.

The VR action game Sweet Surrender VR by Munich-based Salmi GmbH lets players engage in fast-paced competitions in their very own creative play style. The development focuses on an agile movement system and a realistic physics engine.

The science fiction fans among you have certainly seen the film ANON by Andrew Niccol with Clive Owen and Amanda Seyfried. K5 Factory in Munich is developing a VR spin-off called ANON VR, which invites the player into the universe of the sci-fi nour thriller. 200,000 euros were granted for it.

From dark to colorful

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Iteration X will be about as dark as ANON VR. Reality Twist from Munich take on the novel Hologrammatica: The player is trapped in a constantly repeating simulation and must prevail against a powerful AI to free himself. Central gameplay elements include strategic foresight and exploration.

At least dark in title, Venice after Dark is from the Weltenwandler Designagentur from Grasbrunn near Munich. In the novel adventure, the player slips into the role of the South Korean Aiko, an “expat” who programs artificial intelligences for a German IT company.

Du&I take us into dark depths with their Puzzle Dungeon, which has already been funded by FFF. The Munich-based company combines classic line puzzle with atmospheric dungeon exploration in a dark, medieval fantasy setting. The BMVI is contributing 33,127 euros to the development.

Riverside by Zockrates Laboratories from Nuremberg, which was funded with 65,100 euros, is colorful in the truest sense of the word. In the hand-drawn 3rd-person adventure game, players can impressively design the game world by changing the look and thus also the functions of the world. Imagination and fantasy are to be particularly addressed here.

Upjers from Bamberg develop a not so deadly, but rather friendly and colorful Jurassic Park. In the game Dino Park, players build an amusement park with dinosaurs to attract as many visitors as possible. In doing so, they have to take care of the dinos, feed them, play with them and take care of them. In addition to the enclosures for the prehistoric animals, the park features other attractions for the guests as well as food stands. The maximum sum of 200,000 euros was awarded for this.

Play together

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A cross-border production distinguishes Mein Reiterhof – Pferde Turniere, Abenteuer. The Bavarian publisher Markt + Technik Verlag (Burgthann) and Independent Arts Software from Hamm in North Rhine-Westphalia are working together on the entertaining horse game for girls with funny horse riding games, an own stud farm with a stable full of horses and a huge open game world. The players can play together in a local multiplaer mode. The game was funded with 85,366 euros.

Two times Intellivision Entertainment Europe is represented. The Nuremberg subsidiary received funding for two games that will appear on the new Intellivision Amico console: SNAFOO is a remake of a classic video game and received 84,301 euros in funding. It is a family-oriented game of skill that requires quick reactions and pits up to four players against each other. BIPLANES is also an evolution of a “vintage” game. Up to eight players can participate simultaneously in a fast-paced flight action game. Here, the funding amount was 78,768 euros.

A look into the past

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Munich-based Conquista Games UG takes us back to the 17th century, more precisely to the time of the Thirty Years War (1618 to 1648). The real-time strategy game 1630 – The Thirty Years War was supported with a grant of 70,000 euros. While fighting for victory with musketeers, pikemen, cannoneers, cavalrymen and numerous special units, the player learns about the deeds of Gustav Adolf, Wallenstein and Tilly through play.

The First World War is the subject of All Quiet in the Trenches, which received funding of 122,687 euros. The Nuremberg-based Totally Not Aliens deals intensively with trench warfare on the Western Front. As a non-commissioned officer, the player balances on the fine line between morality and duty. In the end, his deeds do not change the war, but the lives of the soldiers.

Jerry McPartlin – The Flute of Anaza takes you across the ocean and into the past. The 2D adventure game by Bit Barons from Eckental is set in the US South of the late 1950s. While the hero experiences the radical cultural changes of his time, he delves deep into the myths of the vanished Anasazi Indians. 92,400 euros were granted for the game.

Kick-off on September 28, 2020

By the way, the exact name of the pilot phase is “De-minimis aid for computer games development by the federal government”. This designation means that companies can call up a maximum of 200,000 euros. However, this will now change with the new funding starting in fall. You will be able to get much more money for your projects. Take a look at the various workshops offered by the BMVI and the game. We have collected the information for you (German).