The fine people over at VAF|GAME have just announced the results of the final funding call of 2021. There’s always more submissions for entertainment and artistic projects, but it’s been a while that a call passed by without any succesful serious or educational project. Step it up, serious games people!

On the other hand, you’ll notice that most projects that did secure funding are all brand new titles, often created by fresh new talent. Looks like our local well of creative video game developers has anything but dried up. With more funding support for video games looming on the horizon, that’s a good luxury to have.

“Stop talking and give us the results already, you goblin!” Okay, inner voice, calm down will you!? Sheesh!

Pre-production

• After doing a lot of (spectacular) work for hire, Poppins & Wayne are creating a baby of their own again. They receive € 44 128,46 to spend on prenatal vitamins (and research, mainly research) for their next VR experience Project Harry (artistic game)
• Godspear Games, the infinitely cooler sounding name of one-man indie studio Oscar Tulkens, gets € 17 500 for his cool storytelling game Textbound Tales (entertainment game).
• Tovenaar is a new Ghent based studio working on BattleSage (entertainment game), a spectacular action-adventure where you can fly around a dreamy open world. They receive € 63 727,67 to plot out their future flight path.

• Polygoat is teaming up with author Jonas Boets to create a video game based on his book series Little Liars Club (entertainment game). They receive € 33 000 to get things started – no lie!
• Rolling out of the innovation atelier track, Pilgrim (entertainment game) is a 2D puzzle platformer based on a concept thought up by graphic novelist Pieter Coudyzer. New studio Wired Sheep gets € 55 830 for taking the reins on development.
• Face First Games is a new studio born out of the 2-Games-A-Month incubator program. They’re getting € 35 000 to continue development on the fast-paced disc combat of Metro Warriors (entertainment game).

Production

• VAF support has been instrumental to the success of Triangle Factory’s VR shooter Hyper Dash. In order to give them as much leeway to turn their next VR shooter Breachers (entertainment game) into an even bigger Belgian success story, VAF is supporting the production with the maximum amount of € 250 000.

And that’s a wrap on 2021 VAF funding. Everyone’s really excited about all the new projects that are sure to put the #BelgianGamesIndustry even firmer on the map than before. Thank you for that!

Congratulations to everyone who received funding this year, and don’t let your head hang if your application wasn’t able to convince the commission members yet. There are new chances just around the corner, as the next funding call deadline is January 25, 2022.