#BelgianGamesIndustry is at the top of their game

  Christophe De bont        31/08/2018

With gamescom all over, we finally have some time to take a look at all the other interesting #BelgianGamesIndustry stuff that happened while we were doing the Lord’s work at the show. Great things happened both inside and outside of Cologne. This includes events we already touched upon and stuff that escaped our attention altogether. Let it be clear though: the #BelgianGamesIndustry is at the top of their game.

• Larian Studios keeps on winning. After numerous awards (including a BAFTA for best multiplayer) for the pc version of Divinity: Original Sin II, the console version won best RPG at gamescom. The definitive edition of the hit RPG is out today and with a current review metascore of 92, it looks like Larian will continue reaping those awards for some time to come. Meanwhile, main man Swen Vincke will be one of the keynote speakers at DICE Europe in Cannes next week.
• The second biggest Belgian gaming succes of the year is Marie’s Room. After a phenomenal launch, the free narrative game by Kenny Guillaume and Dagmar Blommaert currently has over 3,000 user reviews on Steam and is one of the best appreciated titles on the platform. If you didn’t give it a whirl yet, you definitely should.
• They’re both strong contenders for the Belgian Game Awards 2019, taking place on Friday February 15 during 1UP Conference hosted by game enthusiast William Boeva. Expect more information on that in the coming weeks.
• Since announcing the event, 1UP Conference has also added several new names to their line-up. Joining Kate Edwards are a.o. Robbert-Jan Brems of Unity and Dave Voyles of Microsoft. They probably are saving the best for last though, so keep your eyes peeled in the coming months.

• Due to the gamescom madness it went a bit under the radar but the nice people at Rocket Vulture have released their free mobile game Drifty on iOS and Android.
• The Chinese telecom billionaire Li Ka-Shing is investing 4 million euros in Ghent based scale-up Cloudalize. Ka-Shing (what’s in a name?) was an early investor in Facebook, Waze and Spotify so he obviously has a nose for the next big thing in tech.
• As previously reported: both LuGus Studios and Bazookas (commissioned by VanIn) won at the Comenius Edumedia Awards in Berlin with Liftoff and Bingel respectively.
• Pajama Llama Games won the Rising Star Award at gamescom’s IndieArenaBooth. The studio also signed a publishing deal with Kongregate for Flotsam. The game’s supposed to surface sometime in 2019.

• The same goes for Ary & The Secret of Seasons, but developer eXiin has signed with Modus Games, part of Maximus Games instead.
• Digital Arts and Entertainment at HOWEST has been named one of the world’s best places to study game development numerous times. Both training program, students and graduates have regularly won awards and recently, they were able to add the Grads in Games Educational Institutional Award to their trophy cabinet.
• Tasked with the mission of keeping the talent they educate around, DAE Studios has been transformed to a full-blown game accelerator. They help aspiring game creators set up their own studio to create the game of their dreams.
• If you’d rather gain some experience contributing to someone else’s dreams, that’s also possible. PreviewLabs and Larian Studios are currently on the lookout for new talent to join their ranks. Positions come available left and right, so follow us on Twitter as we tweet about it almost instantly.