Announcing the First Heroic Games Grant Recipients

In May we announced the Heroic Games Grant and after months of reviewing applicants we are excited to announce the first recipients. We are proud to be supporting both creators at the start of the game development journey and more experienced designers, developers, and artists.

The first two Heroic Games Grant recipients are:

1. Neverend - Open fire! by Marko Loponen (Lobster), built with Godot, Apache License 2.0
2. Ninja Battle by Bochi Games, built with Unity, Apache License 2.0

Neverend - Open fire!

Neverend - Open fire! is a debut game by Marko Loponen and his indie studio, Lobster. Marko is building the game in Godot for PC and mobile and licensing the source code under the Apache License 2.0.

Marko describes Neverend - Open fire! as:

"A turn-based player vs player (PVP) game with chess-like gameplay where players try to trap their opponents by covering the arena with fires from flaming arrows. Each turn, players can shoot a flaming arrow and have to move, if they can't move they lose. Players need to balance predicting their opponent's actions and executing their own tactics to outplay each other."

Marko is planning to allow players to queue against strangers or challenge their friends by sharing game lobby codes, similar to Among Us.

The following Nakama features are being used to power the online and multiplayer features for Neverend - Open fire!:

• Authentication, Sessions and Users
• Storage Engine
• Matches
• Multiplayer Engine with Server Authoritative Multiplayer

"I'm delighted to receive a Heroic Grant. As a developer without artistic skills, I will be using the grant to source professional art to make my game more appealing. Developing a game server from scratch is a lot of work, that's why I am excited to develop my game with Nakama and let it take care of crucial features like authentication, matchmaking and data transfer." - Marko Loponen

Ninja Battle

Ninja Battle is a new game being developed by Bochi Games, a collaboration between developer Alan Gaspar and artist Monica Murillo. Bochi Games are building their game in Unity for PC and licensing the source code under the Apache License 2.0.

Alan describes Ninja Battle as:

"A real-time top-down 2D battler, where players control sprinting ninjas who drop deadly caltrops as they run across the grid. Players need to strategically plan their route through the maze of caltrops, leaving traps for others, jumping over caltrops and creating escape routes for themselves."

As their game has developed their character has evolved from a simple ninja to an approachable fox character.

Bochi Games shared a prototype gameplay video which shows their core gameplay running on their rollback netcode. Next, they will be adding their final art and smooth animations.

The following Nakama features are being used to power the online and multiplayer features for Ninja Battle:

• Authentication, Sessions and Users
• Storage Engine
• Matches
• Multiplayer Engine with Server Authoritative Multiplayer

"Thanks to the Heroic Grant we are finally able to start building our dream game and at the same time give back to the community what we have learned. For a small studio like ours creating a social game was something very intimidating but after we found out about Nakama we are confident we can create amazing social games, we are very thankful for this opportunity!" - Alan Gaspar and Monica Murillo"

Over the coming months we look forward to sharing more updates on the progress of these projects, leading to an announcement of their completion and public availability. Watch our Heroic Labs blog and follow us on Twitter to stay up to date!