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I am very happy to announce that the German Academy for Children’s and Young Adult Literature has awarded “Quintana – Jäger des verlorenen Schatzes” as App of the Month!

I was responsible for creating the game- and narrative design in cooperation with crushed eyes media.

Quintana Quest is a browser-based visual novel / Point-and-Click-Adventure developed as part of the interdisciplinary educational project “Abenteuer Donaulimes,” aimed at making the largely invisible Danube Limes World Heritage Site in Bavaria accessible to young learners. Designed for students aged 10-12, the game combines storytelling, historical accuracy , and interactive gameplay to foster engagement with Roman frontier history. By embedding real archaeological sites, museum artifacts, and historically informed characters into a narrative-driven format, Quintana Quest offers a compelling example of game-based learning in heritage education. The project links digital exploration with museum visits, providing teachers with curriculum-aligned materials and promoting meaningful interaction with cultural heritage. This case study illustrates how digital tools can bridge gaps in visibility, understanding, and emotional connection in the interpretation of World Heritage.

The full case study can be found here.

Half a year after releasing the mobile versions Fishing Friends is now available free-to-play on Steam for PC and Mac:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3726350/Fishing_Friends_3D

The next releases will be on the Windows Store and then the browser version.

Tight lines! :)

I recently talked to Lina Sophie Knees of Handelsblatt about the opportunities and risks of “Vibe Coding”. The article is in German, but hey, who cares about language barriers these days?

I have been coding with LLMs since GPT-3.5; using it initially for relatively simple data analysis tasks in Python. Then GPT-4 came along and its coding capabilities improved remarkably. Gone was the spaghetti code, bug-fixing loops became shorter and suddenly I was able to build data wrangling solutions in Google Apps Script and Python that dramatically improved my game design workflows.

Then came the o1 preview model last year, which changed the game again. It enabled me to develop an entire AI chatbot web app prototype for a client – from scratch to deployment – in just a few days.

And now I am using the o3 model in the ChatGPT app and the agent mode in VS Code to create tools for Unity – and it just works and solves my problems! Beyond that I am experimenting with agent frameworks to find new ways to interact with the vast datasets of our F2P games. This is the science-fiction stuff I was dreaming about 40 years ago creating and playing games on my C64.

Games London selected me as a mentor for the Game Changer 2024 cohort. I will share my experience in game design, product management and business strategy.

Breaking into the games industry is tough – especially if you’re a founder from an underrepresented background. That’s where Games London’s “Game Changer” programme comes in. Running from August to December each year, it’s a government-funded accelerator designed to help London-based game companies sharpen their business strategy, secure investment, and connect with global opportunities. It sits under the broader Games London umbrella (which also runs the London Games Festival) and is backed by the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.

Game Changer isn’t a casual incubator – it’s a competitive programme tailored for founders ready to grow. Participants gain access to a mix of workshops, masterclasses, and one-to-one mentoring, covering everything from business vision and finance to legal frameworks and marketing. Alongside this training, founders develop their investor pitch and test it in front of real funders at the Game Changer Finance Market. The programme also takes participants abroad – past cohorts have travelled to major events like Slush in Helsinki – giving London studios direct access to international investors and publishers.

The impact is designed to be long-term. Across its first cohorts, Game Changer has supported dozens of London studios spanning console, mobile, VR, wellbeing, and edtech. Over two years, it aims to back 80 companies in total, equipping them not just with funding opportunities but also with the confidence, networks, and practical tools to scale. For many founders who lack connections to traditional investor networks, this can be transformative.

Still, it’s not for everyone. Places are limited, and the programme demands real commitment. But for London-based studios led by founders who are often overlooked, Game Changer represents exactly what its name suggests – a rare chance to level the playing field in a global industry.

Our latest game “Viking Survivor: Thor vs Hel” is now available free-to-play on Google Play and the iOS App Store.

Viking Raider: Hordes from Hel is a roguelike survival RPG set in a dark Norse world. You play as a fallen warrior reclaiming lost powers while fighting endless waves of undead Viking hordes. Each realm brings unique challenges, from the icy wastelands of Niflheim to the fiery depths of Muspelheim, with powerful bosses and magical enemies testing your survival.

The game lets you craft your path to victory with a wide range of weapons, armour, and spells. You can upgrade gear, fuse items for stronger abilities, and even call on another player through the Fusion system to turn the tide of battle. Simple controls, daily quests, and loot-filled chests keep progress rewarding, while optional ads provide extra gems without interrupting gameplay.

UPDATE: Quintana Quest received the “App of the Month” award!

I am pleased to announce the launch of “Quintana Quest“, one of the projects I have worked on this year. This browser-based Visual Novel/Point & Click Adventure is set in 173 CE, at the frontier of the Roman Empire along the Danube River in Bavaria.

Commissioned by the Museum Quintana in Künzing, “Quintana Quest” was developed by crushed eyes media. Game art was created by Sasanpix. My role involved developing the game’s concept and narrative, turning the archaeologists’ input into a storyline that brings historical characters, events, and places to life. 

The game is designed for use in secondary school history curriculums, offering a new way for students to engage with history.

As a history nerd, working on this project with archaeologists and diving deep into research was an incredible opportunity and great fun. I learned a lot. History does not repeat itself, but it often rhymes. Many thanks to Roman Weindl, the director of Museum Quintana, for making “Quintana Quest” a reality.

After months of bootstrapping we (Robot Riot) launched our 3D fishing game THE FISHING CLUB on Facebook. A blog post on how we developed the game as a remote team without writing a single e-mail during the process will follow soon.

2013 seems to be the year of game design workshops:

In January I talked to students at Norwich University of Arts about game design processes and how we develop games at Robot Riot.

In May I ran a workshop at Digital Shoreditch focussing on the question of how to get students coding.

That got me invited to The Big Bang London fair where I ran two game design workshops. In this format I used Scratch to develop a fully functional game prototype within 20 minutes. Although the game was incredibly simple it was perfect to give an overview of how game design processes and game development works – and what makes games fun.

I will also run similar game design workshops at the Digital Summer Camp in London.