[Updated with quotes: 12:12 pm] Despite brand-new nominations in two separate award shows this year, Dutch developer Game Oven will close its doors in April.
Game Oven is best known for its unique mobile games that have gameplay going beyond the screen. Over the three-and-a-half years it has been in business, Game Oven has found that the pressures of supporting the studio and its games made it difficult to maintain artistic freedom despite seeing more than 2.5 million downloads for its paid and free apps. In a blog post today, designer Adriaan de Jongh says that the studio is now at a point where it needs another vision for a new game but doesn’t have the financial resources to find or make one.
The studio is one of the most creative in mobile gaming. Two-player touchscreen puzzle game Fingle had players tangling their fingers together, and their Friendstrap did similar things to encourage conversation over while playing together on one phone. Its latest, dance game Bounden, partnered with the Dutch National Ballet to create an experience that has two players twirling around each other while holding a phone. This game received nominations for an Innovation Award at the 2015 Game Developers Choice Awards as well as a Nuovo Award at the 2015 Independent Games Festival.
Eline Muijres, producer at Game Oven, tells GamesBeat that their successes weren’t enough to carry the studio.
“Not all parts of Game Oven were as successful as Fingle or Bounden, yet the expenses remained the same. A studio isn’t very flexible in that sense, and unfortunately, the success of Fingle and Bounden wasn’t able to pay for our successful and unsuccessful parts,” says Muijres. “The good news is that we’ll still be around making games. We’re looking forward to our next challenges and adventures — I know Adriaan is gonna make fantastic weird shit, Bojan will use his amazing programming skills, and I will work on Interloper, which I am very excited about!”
Game Oven says that it’ll continue to support their games following the studio’s April closure, save for Friendstrap, which it will remove from all mobile stores at the end of January.
Before disbanding, the studio still plans on releasing underwater rogue-like Jelly Reef on the iOS, Android, and Windows Phone platforms in March. Game Oven will be in attendance at both this year’s Game Developers Conference and SWSX to show and promote it.