King Art

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
King Art
legal form GmbH
founding 2000
Seat Bremen
management Marc König, Jan Theysen
Number of employees 70
Branch Game software
Website www.kingart-games.de
Status: 2020

King Art , spelling KING Art , is an independent developer studio for video games based in Bremen , which has focused on adventure games.

history

King Art was founded in 2000. In the first seven years the company created several browser games as commissioned work for providers such as Gameforge or Upjers . From 2008 the company, whose creative director Jan Theysen is a fan of point-and-click adventures , worked on such games for Windows PCs. The first adventure release, apart from a small game for the Nintendo DS , was The Book of Unwritten Tales in 2009, which was technically based on the OGRE engine, received positive reviews and was the best-selling adventure of the year in German-speaking countries. Despite problems with the publisher - HMH went bankrupt, there was a dispute with the legal successor JoWooD over the exploitation of the game - King Art was able to create a follow-up game, The Book of Unwritten Tales: Die Vieh Chroniken , which was published in 2011 by the Hamburg adventure specialist Crimson Cow was released. The next adventure, The Raven , was experimentally released as an episode game in 2013 for the purpose of increased media attention. In late 2013, the turn-based strategy game Battle Worlds: Kronos was released , which was partially funded by a crowdsourcing campaign on the Kickstarter platform , in which 120,000 US dollars should be raised, but 260,000 US dollars could be achieved. In 2014 King Art was a sponsor of the German Gamemusic Awards. In 2015 King Art created another browser game for Upjers with My Sunny Resort . In the same year the adventure The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 was published, which like Battle Worlds was partially financed by Kickstarter, appeared in episode format and was also developed for game consoles . In 2015, a Kickstarter campaign was also carried out for a fantasy role-playing game called Die Zwerge , which is based on the novel of the same name by the writer Markus Heitz . The publication date was December 1, 2016. In October 2017, King Art and Playa Games launched a crowdfunding campaign on the Kickstarter platform for a shakes & fidget adventure.

King Art is well networked within the German developer scene. In 2014 and 2015 , the joint YouTube channel DevPlay was operated together with the studios Daedalic Entertainment , Deck13 , Piranha Bytes and Black Forest Games , on which the developers presented Let's Plays together . Together with five other studios, the company also merged in 2013 to form the German All Stars network and announced the joint production of an episode game called Red. Black. Fate. whose profits are to be used for charitable purposes.

In 2016, the studio announced the development of the real-time strategy game Iron Harvest . The game is based on the retro-futuristic alternative world 1920+, which the Polish painter Jakub Różalski had designed in numerous pictures and which already served as the basis for an award-winning strategy board game ( Scythe ). As with Scythe , Różalski provided concept art for the development of the game. In March 2018, King Art started a Kickstarter campaign to get extra money to develop and expand the game. US $ 1,298,726 was raised from over 16,600 supporters in 30 days. This represents a German record for the financing of a game via crowdfunding. Through an alternative payment offer via King Arts product page, the total amount rose to over 1.5 million dollars. Iron Harvest is slated for release on September 1, 2020.

Published games (selection)

year title genre Systems Publisher annotation
2008 Inkheart Adventure Nintendo DS Tivola Publishing Based on the novel Inkheart
2009 The Book of Unwritten Tales Adventure Windows, Mac, Linux HMH Interactive
2009 Black Mirror 2 Adventure Windows Dtp entertainment Script only; technical implementation by Cranberry Production
2011 The Book of Unwritten Tales: The Cattle Chronicles Adventure Windows, Mac, Linux Crimson Cow
2013 The Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief Adventure Windows, Mac, Linux, PlayStation 3 Nordic Games
2013 Battle Worlds: Kronos strategy Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS Crimson Cow
2015 The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 Adventure Windows, Mac, Linux, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One Nordic Games
2016 The dwarfs role playing game Windows, Mac, Linux, PlayStation 4, Xbox One THQ Nordic , EuroVideo Based on the first volume of the Die-Zwerge book series
2017 Black Mirror Adventure Windows, Mac, Linux, PlayStation 4 THQ Nordic Reboot of the Black Mirror trilogy

Awards

King Art products have won several awards at the German Developer Prize.

  • 2010: Winner in the category "Best Sports Game" ( Drivals )
  • 2014: Winner in the category "Best Strategy Game" ( Battle World: Kronos )
  • 2015: Winner in the category "Best Sound" ( The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 )
  • 2015: Winner in the category "Best Console Game" ( The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 )
  • 2017: Winner in the category "Best Studio" ( KING Art Games )

At the Aeggie Awards of the specialist magazine Adventure Gamers , The Book of Unwritten Tales won the readers ' awards in the categories "Adventure of the Year 2011", "Best Writing - Comedy", "Best Character", "Best Graphic Design" and "Best Traditional Adventure" as well as the jury award in the category "Best Traditional Adventure".

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b AdventureClassicGaming.com: Interview with Jan Theysen. Retrieved April 25, 2016 .
  2. ↑ Review overview on MobyGames.com. Retrieved April 25, 2016 .
  3. ↑ Gameswelt.de: The Book of Unwritten Tales 2. Accessed April 27, 2016 .
  4. ↑ AdventureCorner.de: Interview with Jan Theysen. Retrieved April 26, 2016 .
  5. ↑ Kickstarter.com: Battle Worlds: Kronos - Turn-based strategy revisited. Retrieved April 26, 2016 .
  6. ↑ GermanGamemusicAward.de: Call for applications 2014 ( Memento from November 7, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  7. ↑ GamesUnit.de: Open Beta Start of My Sunny Resort. Retrieved August 17, 2020 .
  8. ↑ Kickstarter.com: The Book of Unwritten Tales 2. Retrieved April 26, 2016 .
  9. ↑ Kickstarter.com: The Dwarves - A New Storydriven Fantasy RPG. Retrieved April 26, 2016 .
  10. ↑ Games-Career.com: Let's Play with a difference. Retrieved April 26, 2016 .
  11. ↑ Gamestar.de: German developer association "German All Stars" develops a new game. Retrieved April 27, 2016 .
  12. ^ Charlie Hall: Iron Harvest is a new diesel punk RTS based on alternate history WWI (updated). In: polygon . November 3, 2016, accessed December 28, 2018 .
  13. ^ Iron Harvest Kickstarter. In: kickstarter.com. Retrieved August 11, 2018 .
  14. ↑ Iron Harvest Kickstarter Record. In: gameswirtschaft.de. Retrieved August 12, 2018 .
  15. ↑ AdventureGamers.com: 2011 Aeggie Awards. Retrieved April 25, 2016 .