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Netherlands-based publisher Soedesco has a straightforward tagline: ‘Keep it simple’. That said, the company, based in Rotterdam, continues to expand its digital and physical offering across a range of genres and formats.
With procedurally-generated horror title Monstrum coming to PS4 and Xbox One, alongside film noir horror Dollhouse, Truck Driver arrives to keep Real Farm company in the simulation space, plus there’s a limited edition of Owlboy in the works and 8-Bit Armies is finally approaching a full release.
We catch up with executive manager Hans van Brakel to talk about the new releases.
Monstrum looks terrifying – what attracted you to the game?
It’s just like you said: Monstrum is terrifying, which is exactly what we want from our horror games. Besides that, Among the Sleep was one of our first success stories. With that game we gathered a lot of horror fans and we want to deliver more quality horror games to them.
Truck Driver follows on from Real Farm – what did yourselves and Triangle learn from Real Farm’s release?
We learnt that we need to take more time with our games. Therefore, Truck Driver has a longer development cycle than Real Farm did. We are using this extra time to get the community involved with the development. We’re planning multiple moments where the community will have the option to playtest the game and give their feedback. Last but not least, the experience Triangle got from working on Real Farm will also help a lot with the development of Truck Driver.
Owlboy was a huge success and now there’s the Limited Edition coming. What’s the thinking behind that, will fans buy the game again?
We are constantly developing new programs within Soedesco to support our games in new ways. We think it’s important to keep looking further than just the traditional ways of selling our games. Owlboy is the first game in our limited edition program and it sold out within a couple of days. The limited edition program is not necessarily focused on selling Owlboy for the second or third time to the same customers. It is focused on a new target audience: the collectors. That is why it was very important that we created something really special, and that’s exactly what we did. Now we’ve added the limited edition program to the internal structure of our company and started the development of a new program as well.
You’ve deepened your relationship with Creazn – can you tell us about Dollhouse and how you’re working with the developer now?
Dollhouse is a frightening film noir horror story, in which you
venture deep into the mind of detective Marie. An experience like
this one has never been created before. That’s why we have been involved with this game since 2014 and recently decided to take on the digital publishing as well, so that the developer could focus solely on game development.
8-Bit Armies still looks great, but it’s been a couple of years since the initial launch. How much has it changed, and how do you approach marketing for a title like this?
There aren’t any voxel-style real-time strategy games available on console. 8-Bit Armies is unique, so we are taking our time to do the console version right. Another unique feature for console is that 8-Bit Armies offers the possibility of cross-title multiplayer between 8-Bit Armies, 8-Bit Hordes and 8-Bit Invaders. This has never been done before on console and we are very proud to be the first to make it happen.
The 8-Bit RTS series is created by Petroglyph, which was founded by veterans from the legendary studio Westwood. That fact, in combination with the colourful voxel art style which appeals to many, makes this the perfect RTS to enjoy at every moment in time.
Soedesco will be exhibiting at gamescom 2018: Hall 2, Level 2, Booth C060 D061.
