Tag Archives: Event

Indie Games Showcase from Google Play – meet the winners!

Posted by Patricia Correa, Director, Developer Marketing

We just wrapped up the Indie Games Showcase in Europe, Japan & South Korea! Back in March we started our search for some of the newest and most creative indie titles from these regions. The search culminated last week with the celebration of indie developers at events in London, Tokyo, and Seoul, and the selection of the winners from our finalists. Developers from 12 countries traveled to the events and showcased their games to the audience of gamers, industry experts, YouTube creators, and journalists.

The games were on show to the public, who spent several hours trying out their games and voting for their favourites, alongside the Google Play team. The top 10 finalists were then selected, and went on to pitch their games, and compete for big prizes in front of the jury.

collage of event pictures

Now, we are happy to announce the winners from each region! They will be returning home with a prize package that includes promotions on the Google Play Store, consultations with Google teams, Google hardware, and more.

We also want to take this opportunity to congratulate all the other finalists and developers who entered the competition this year. We are impressed by your creativity and passion, and hope you will continue to create amazing experiences for players worldwide.

European illustration with Eiffel Tower and Matryoshka dolls

Europe

logos for the Europe top 3

G30 - A Memory Maze by Ivan Kovalov (Russia)

Ordia by Loju (United Kingdom)

Photographs by EightyEight Games (United Kingdom)


The other finalists as selected by audience and Google Play votes were:

logos for the European top 10

#DRIVE by Pixel Perfect Dude (Poland)

Fly THIS! By Northplay (Denmark)

Golf Peaks by Afterburn (Poland)

Rest in Pieces by Itatake (Sweden)

see/saw by Kamibox (Germany)

STAP by Overhead Game Studio (United Kingdom)

Tesla vs. Lovecraft by 10tons (Finland)

mt.Fuji and other Japanese emblems

Japan

logos for the Japan top 3

Infection - 感染 - by CanvasSoft

MeltLand by 個人

Bear's Restaurant by 個人


The other finalists as selected by audience and Google Play votes were:

logos for the Japan top 10

Lunch Time Fish by SoftFunk HULABREAKS

ReversEstory by 個人

Kamiori - カミオリ by TeamOrigami

キグルミキノコ Q-bit -第一章- by 個人

クマムシさん惑星　ミクロの地球最強伝説 by Ars Edutainment

Girl x Sun - Terasene - Tower defence & Novel game by SleepingMuseum

Persephone by Momo-pi

Korean space needle and temple

South Korea

logos for the South Korea top 3

ROOMS: The Toymaker's Mansion by HandMade Game

Seoul2033: Backer by Banjiha Games

Cartoon Craft by Studio NAP


The other finalists as selected by audience and Google Play votes were:

logos for the South Korea top 10

Hexonia by Togglegear

Hexagon Dungeon by Bleor Games

7Days - Decide your story by Buff Studio

WhamBam Warriors by DrukHigh

Onslot Car by Wondersquad

Maze Cube by IAMABOY

언노운 나이츠 by teamarex

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Congratulations to the finalists of the Indie Games Showcase from Google Play

Posted by Patricia Correa, Director, Platforms & Ecosystems Developer Marketing

Google Play Indie Games Showcase Announcements gif

Back in March we opened submissions for the Indie Games Showcase, an international competition for games studios from Europe*, South Korea, and Japan who are constantly pushing the boundaries of storytelling, visual excellence, and creativity in mobile.

We were once again impressed by the diversity and creativity that the indie community is bringing to mobile, and we’re happy to announce the 20 finalists.

Check out the local websites to learn more about the finalists and the events.

European illustration with Eiffel Tower and Matryoshka dolls

Europe

Europe Finalists logos for Indie Games Showcase

AntVentor by LoopyMood (Ukraine)

CHUCHEL by Amanita Design (Czech Republic)

#DRIVE by Pixel Perfect Dude (Poland)

Fly THIS! By Northplay (Denmark)

Fobia by Tapteek (Russia)

G30 - A Memory Maze by Ivan Kovalov (Russia)

Gold Peaks by Afterburn (Poland)

Grayland by 1DER Entertainment (Slovakia)

Hexologic by MythicOwl (Poland)

Lucid Dream Adventure by Dali Games (Poland)

OCO by SPECTRUM48 (United Kingdom)

Ordia by Loju (United Kingdom)

Peep by Taw (Russia)

Photographs by EightyEight Games (United Kingdom)

Rest in Pieces by Itatake (Sweden)

Returner Zhero by Fantastic, yes (Denmark)

see/saw by Kamibox (Germany)

STAP by Overhead Game Studio (United Kingdom)

Tesla vs. Lovecraft by 10tons (Finland)

Tiny Room Stories: Town Mystery by Kiary games (Russia)

mt.Fuji and other Japanese emblems

Japan

Japan Finalists logos for Indie Games Showcase

ALTER EGO by 株式会社カラメルカラム

Infection - 感染 - by CanvasSoft

Jumpion - Make a two-step jump ! by Comgate

Lunch Time Fish by SoftFunk HULABREAKS

MeltLand by 個人

ReversEstory by 個人

キグルミキノコ Q-bit -第一章- by 個人

SumoRoll - Road to the Yokozuna by Studio Kingmo

Escape Game: The Little Prince by 株式会社 Jammsworks

Kamiori - カミオリ by TeamOrigami

Bear's Restaurant by 個人

クマムシさん惑星　ミクロの地球最強伝説 by Ars Edutainment

ゴリラ！ゴリラ！ゴリラ！by Gang Gorilla Games

Girl x Sun - Terasene - Tower defence & Novel game by SleepingMuseum

タシテケス by 個人

Destination: Dragons! by GAME GABURI

Cute cat's cake shop by 個人

Persephone by Momo-pi

Hamcorollin' by illuCalab.

Food Truck Pup: Cooking Chef by 合同会社ゲームスタート

Korean space needle and temple

South Korea

South Korea Finalists logos for Indie Games Showcase

다크타운 - 온라인 by 초콜릿소프트

Bad 2 Bad: Extinction by Dawinstone

셧더펑 : 슈팅액션 by Take Five Games

Cartoon Craft by Studio NAP

Catch Idle by HalftimeStudio

Hexagon Dungeon by Bleor Games

Hexonia by Togglegear

Mahjong - Magic Fantasy by Aquagamez

Maze Cube by IAMABOY

Road to Valor: World War II by Dreamotion Inc.

Onslot Car by Wondersquad

ROOMS: The Toymaker's Mansion by HandMade Game

Rhythm Star: Music Adventure by Anbsoft

7Days - Decide your story by Buff Studio

Seoul2033: Backer by Banjiha Games

Super Jelly Pop by STARMONSTER

UNLINK Daily Puzzle by Supershock

몬스터파크 온라인 by OVENCODE

WhamBam Warriors by DrukHigh

언노운 나이츠 by teamarex

We will welcome all finalists at events in London, Seoul, and Tokyo, where they will showcase their games to an audience of players, press and industry experts, for a chance to win the top prizes.

The events are open to the public, so if you would like to meet these games developers, try out their creations, and help choose the winners, sign up on the regional websites.

Congratulations to all finalists!

* The competition is open to developers from the following European countries and Israel: Austria, Belgium, Belarus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom (including Northern Ireland).

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Grow your indie game with Google Play

Posted by Patricia Correa, Director, Platforms & Ecosystems Developer Marketing

Google Play empowers game developers of all sizes to engage and delight people everywhere, and build successful businesses too. We are inspired by the passion and creativity we see from the indie games community, and, over the past few years, we've invested in and nurtured indie games developers around the world, helping them express their unique voice and bring ideas to life.

This year, we've put together several initiatives to help the indie community.

Indie Games Showcase

For indie developers who are constantly pushing the boundaries of storytelling, visual excellence, and creativity in mobile we are announcing today the Indie Games Showcase, an international competition for games studios from Europe*, South Korea and Japan. Those of you who meet the eligibility criteria (as outlined below) can enter your game for a chance to win several prizes, including:

  • A paid trip and accommodation to the final event in your region to showcase your game.
  • Promotion on the Google Play Store.
  • Promotion on Android and Google Play marketing channels.
  • Dedicated consultations with the Google Play team.
  • Google hardware.
  • And more...

How to enter the competition

If you're over 18 years old, based in one of the eligible countries, have 30 or less full time employees, and have published a new game on Google Play after 1 January 2018, you can enter your game. If you're planning on publishing a new game soon, you can also enter by submitting a private beta. Submissions close on May 6 2019. Check out all the details in the terms and conditions for each region. Enter now!

Indie Games Accelerator

Last year we launched our first games accelerator for developers in Southeast Asia, India and Pakistan and saw great results. We are happy to announce that we are expanding the format to accept developers from select countries in the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America, with applications for the 2019 cohort opening soon. The Indie Games Accelerator is a 6 month intensive program for top games startups, powered by mentors from the gaming industry as well as Google experts, offering a comprehensive curriculum that covers all aspects of building a great game and company.

Mobile Developer Day at GDC

We will be hosting our annual Developer Day at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco on Monday, March 18th. Join us for a full day of sessions covering tools and best practices to help build a successful mobile games business. We'll focus on game quality, effective monetization and growth strategies, and how to create, connect, and scale with Google. Sign up to stay up to date or join us via livestream.

Developer Days

We also want to engage with you in person with a series of events. We will be announcing them shortly, so please make sure to sign up to our newsletter to get notified about events and programs for indie developers.

Academy for App Success

Looking for tips on how to use various developer tools in the Play Console? Get free training through our e-learning program, the Academy for App Success. We even have a custom Play Console for game developers course to get a jump start on Google Play.

We look forward to seeing your amazing work and sharing your creativity with other developers, gamers and industry experts around the world. And don't forget to submit your game for a chance to get featured on Indie Corner on Google Play.

* The competition is open to developers from the following European countries: Austria, Belgium, Belarus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom (including Northern Ireland).


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Scratch Blocks update: Making it easier to develop coding apps for kids

Posted by Champika Fernando, Product Manager, Google, and Kasia Chmielinski, Product Lead, MIT Scratch Team

We want to empower developers to build great creative learning apps for kids. That's why, earlier this year, we announced Scratch Blocks, a free, open-source project created by the MIT Scratch and Google Kids Coding teams. Together, we are building this highly tinkerableand playful block-based programming grammar based on MIT's popular Scratch language and Blockly's architecture. With Scratch Blocks, developers can integrate Scratch-style coding into apps for kids.

Today, we're excited to share our progress in a number of areas:

1. Designing for tinkerability

Research from the MIT Media Lab has highlighted the importance of providing children with opportunities for quick experimentation and rapid cycles of iteration. For example, the Scratch programming environment makes it easy for kids to adjust the code while it's running, as well as try coding blocks by just tapping on them. Since our initial announcement in May, we've focused on supporting this type of tinkerability in the Scratch Blocks project by making it very easy for developers to connect Scratch Blocks directly to the Scratch VM (a related open-source project being developed by MIT). In this model, instead of blocks being converted to a text-based language like JavaScript which is then interpreted, the blocks themselves are the code. The result is a more tinkerable experience for the end-user.

2. Designing for all levels

Computational thinking1 is a valuable skill for everyone. In order to support developers building a wide diversity of coding experiences with Scratch Blocks, we've designed two related block grammars that can be used in a variety of contexts. One grammar uses icon-based blocks that connect horizontally, while the other uses text-based blocks that connect vertically.

We started by developing the horizontal grammar, which is well-suited for beginners of all ages due to its simplicity and limited number of blocks; additionally, this grammar is easier to manipulate on small screens. You can see an example of the horizontal icon-based grammar in Code a Snowflake (an activity in this year's Google Santa Tracker) built by the Google Kids Coding Team. More recently, we've added the vertical grammar, which supports a wider range of complex concepts. The horizontal grammar can also be translated into vertical blocks, making it possible to transition between the grammars. We imagine this will be useful in a number of situations, including designing for multiple screen sizes, or as an element of the app's learning experience.

3. Designing for all devices

We're building Scratch Blocks for a world that is increasingly mobile, where people of all ages will tinker with code in a variety of environments. We've improved the mobile experience in many key areas, both in Scratch Blocks as well as the underlying Blockly project:

  • Redesigned blocks for improved touchability
  • Fast loading of large projects on low-powered devices
  • Optimization of block manipulation and code editing on touch screens
  • Redesigned multi-touch support for a better experience on touch devices

How to get involved

These first six months of Scratch Blocks have been a lot of work - and a ton of fun. To stay up to date on the project, check out our Github project, and learn more on our Developer Page.

[1] Learn more about Computational Thinking

Welcoming the third class of Launchpad Accelerator with expansion into new countries!

Roy Glasberg, Global Lead, Launchpad Program & Accelerator

After two successful classes, we're excited to announce the next group of promising startups for the third class of Launchpad Accelerator. The startups from Brazil, India, Indonesia, and Mexico will be joined by developers from five additional countries: Argentina, Colombia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

The program includes intensive mentoring from Google engineers, product managers and other expert mentors from top technology companies and VCs in Silicon Valley. Participants receive equity-free support, credits for Google products, PR support and work closely with Google for six months in their home country.

Class 3 kicks off early next year (January 30) at Launchpad Space, our physical space in San Francisco where developers and startups can get free technical training, one-on-one mentoring and more education geared towards helping them successfully build their apps & startups.

Here's the full list of participating startups (by country):




If you're interested in applying for future Launchpad Accelerator cohorts, we encourage you to follow us on the Launchpad Accelerator site to receive updates. We also expect to add more countries to the program in the future. Stay tuned!

Calling European game developers, enter the Indie Games Contest by December 31

Posted by Matteo Vallone, Google Play Partner Development Manager

To build awareness of the awesome innovation and art that indie game developers are bringing to users on Google Play, we have invested heavily over the past year in programs like Indie Corner, as well as events like the Google Play Indie Games Festivals in North America and Korea.

As part of that sustained effort, we also want to celebrate the passion and innovation of indie game developers with the introduction of the first-ever Google Play Indie Games Contest in Europe. The contest will recognize the best indie talent in several countries and offer prizes that will help you get your game noticed by industry experts and gamers worldwide.

Prizes for the finalists and winners:

  • An open showcase held at the Saatchi Gallery in London
  • YouTube influencer campaigns worth up to 100,000 EUR
  • Premium placements on Google Play
  • Tickets to Google I/O 2017 and other top industry events
  • Promotions on our channels
  • Special prizes for the best Unity game
  • And more!

Entering the contest:

If you're based in Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France (coming soon), Germany, Iceland, Israel, Netherlands, Norway, Poland (coming soon), Romania, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, or UK (excl. Northern Ireland), have 15 or less full time employees, and published a new game on Google Play after 1 January 2016, you may now be eligible to enter the contest. If you're planning on publishing a new game soon, you can also enter by submitting a private beta. Check out all the details in the terms and conditions. Submissions close on 31 December 2016.

The process:

Up to 20 finalists will get to showcase their games at an open event at the Saatchi Gallery in London on the 16th February 2017. At the event, the top 10 will be selected by the event attendees and the Google Play team. The top 10 will then get the opportunity to pitch to a jury of industry experts, from which the final winner and runners up will be selected.

Even if someone is NOT entering the contest:

Even if you're not eligible to enter the contest, you can still register to attend the final showcase event in London on 16 February 2017, check out some great indie games, and have fun with various industry experts and indie developers. We will also be hosting a workshop for all indie games developers from across EMEA in the new Google office in Kings Cross the next day, so this will be a packed week.

Get started:

Enter the Indie Games Contest now and visit the contest site to find out more about the contest, the event, and the workshop.

Dart Developer Summit 2016 Videos: Soundness, AngularDart 2.0, and the Fastest Growing Language at Google

Posted by Filip Hracek, Program Manager, Dart
Videos from last month’s Dart Developer Summit are up on YouTube and we thought we’d cherry-pick the highlights for you. The summit keynote is a summary of all the major news and of the direction the team is taking now. It’s where we announced that Dart is the fastest growing language at Google. Teams switching to Dart report up to twice the productivity and development speed of what they had previously.

Next, AngularDart 2.0 was launched in a presentation by Ferhat Buyukkokten and Matan Lurey. They showed how they made the framework’s output 40% smaller and 15% faster in the 4 months since AngularDart got its own dedicated team. They also showed our 60 fps table using setState(), and the new testing framework called NgTestBed.
Later in the day, Ted Sander launched AngularDart Components — the material design widgets Google is using in customer-facing apps like AdWords and AdSense. Hundreds of Google engineers work with these components every day. Watch the video to learn how they make our teams more productive, and our web apps more performant.
If you’re interested  in language design, watch Sound Dart, a talk by Leaf Petersen in which he explains Dart’s strong mode. With strong mode, Dart’s type system becomes sound, so that when you write types they are guaranteed to be correct (while still allowing you to write dynamically typed code where you want the flexibility). This differentiates strong-mode Dart from many popular compile-to-JavaScript languages, and improves both performance and developer productivity.

Another presentation that made waves was the Flutter keynote from Day 2 of the summit. Eric Seidel impressed the audience by showing just how fast mobile development can be with Flutter.

After Eric’s talk, John McCutchan and Todd Turnidge went into details about Flutter hot reloading. They also showed, for the first time, code rewind in Dart.

These are just 6 out of the 18 talks that are available on YouTube. For example, Will Ekiel’s talk titled Learnings from building a CRM app at Google gives a perspective on managing a product built with Dart and deploying it across both web and mobile. Another interesting practical presentation on using Dart in production is the one given by Faisal Abid and Kevin Birch about their large-scale JS-to-AngularDart rewrite. And the list goes on. We’re very happy how the event went, and we’re already looking forward for next year’s summit. In the meantime, follow our blog, our Twitter account, our G+ page, or join the conversation in any other way. We want to hear from you. Thanks for building in Dart.

Chrome Dev Summit 2016: The Mobile Web Moves Forward

Originally posted on Chromium Blog
Posted by Darin Fisher, VP Engineering, Chrome
Last week at the 4th annual Chrome Dev Summit, we were excited to share a glimpse of what’s possible with over 1,000 developers in person, and thousands more on the livestream. Each year this is a time to hear what developers have been building, share our vision for the future of the web platform, and celebrate what we love about the web...


Reach of the web
As we've talked about before, one of the superpowers of the web is its incredible reach. There are now more than two billion active Chrome browsers worldwide, with many more web users across other browsers. The majority of these users are now on mobile devices, bringing new opportunities for us to explore as an industry.

Mobile browsers also lead the way for the internet’s newest users. Exclusively accessing the internet from mobile devices, users in emerging markets struggle with limited computing power, unreliable networks, and expensive data. For these users, native apps can be a poor match due to their large data and storage requirements. And, it’s these constraints that have resulted in the developing markets leading the charge when it comes to innovating on the web.

Progressive

Instead, the web can fill these needs for all users through an experience we've been calling Progressive Web Apps (PWAs). These web apps provide the performance users have come to expect from their device, while also offering critical capabilities such as offlining, add-to-homescreen, and push notifications. We've been encouraged by the strong adoption of these capabilities, with push notifications recently exceeding 18 billion notifications per day across 50,000 domains.


Last year when we spoke about PWAs, things were just getting started. Now we're seeing the movement in full swing, with many large sites across the globe launching great new apps and feeling the success that PWAs can bring.

DAY 1 - THAO LOGOS.png

Alibaba.com, built a PWA and saw a 76% increase in conversion rates across browsers. The investment in the mobile web increased monthly active user rates on iOS by 14 percent. On Android devices where re-engagement capabilities like push notifications and Add to Homescreen were enabled, active user rates increased by 30 percent.


Another great example is The Weather Channel. Since launching a PWA they achieved an 80% reduction in load time and within three months, saw almost 1 million users opt in to receive web push notifications.


During the Summit, we also heard from Lyft, who shared their experience of building a PWA in less than a month, and using less than a quarter of the engineering support needed to build their native app. Learn more about our how partners are using PWA technologies to enhance their mobile web experience.


What can you do?
We also have a variety of tools, libraries, and APIs available to help you bring the benefits of PWAs to your site. For example, Chrome's DevTools provides assistance along every step of the development flow. DevTools has a ton of new features to help you build great mobile apps, such as network simulation, CPU throttling, and a PWA audit tool powered by Lighthouse.


For developers just beginning their web app or looking to rework an existing one, the Polymer App Toolbox provides a set of components and tools for easily building a Progressive Web App using web components. And Polymer 2.0 is right around the corner, making it easy to take advantage of the new Web Components v1 APIs shipping cross-browser and build mobile web apps with minimal overhead.


Finally, checkout can be a complicated process to complete and in the retail sector alone there are 66% fewer conversions on mobile than on desktop. With PaymentRequest, you can now bring a seamless checkout experience to your website with support for both credit cards and Android Pay, increasing odds for conversion.


Catch up
Finally, if you didn’t catch our live stream in real time, you can always check back on our YouTube channel for all the recordings or see the highlights from the event in 57 seconds.


Thanks for coming, thanks for watching, and most of all, thank you for developing for the web!

Chrome Dev Summit. Now Live Streaming

Posted by Paul Kinlan, Chrome Developer Relations

Good morning! Only one minute to go until Darin Fisher, VP of Chrome kick's off this year's keynote at Chrome Dev Summit 2016. Join us as we take a look at the latest web advancements with over 20 sessions presented by Chrome engineers. We're live streaming all sessions and posting videos throughout the next two days.

Get Ready for the Chrome Dev Summit 2016

Posted by Paul Kinlan, Chrome Developer Relations

Chrome Dev Summit is almost here! We'll kick off live from San Francisco at the SFJAZZ Center, at 10:00 AM PT this coming Thursday, Nov 10th. This year's summit will focus on key themes that matter to you: Progressive, to build high quality web apps; Performance, to increase user engagement; and What's Next, a look at how the Chrome team is thinking about the future of the web.

While we're putting the finishing touches on the keynote, sessions, and code labs, we wanted to provide you with some tips to get ready to experience Chrome Dev Summit, either in-person or via the livestream.

Navigate the summit with notifications

To get the most out of Chrome Dev Summit, make sure to check out the schedule and set up notificationsfor the sessions you don't want to miss. These will help you plan your schedule whether you're in person or tuning in via the livestream.

Can't join us in person?

Don't worry, we've got you covered! Here are some ways you can connect with Chrome Dev Summit in real-time:

  • Tune in to the livestream at any time throughout the 2 day summit on developer.chrome.com/devsummit. We will stream the keynote and all sessions over the course of the event. If you want us to send you a reminder to tune into the livestream, sign up here.
  • Subscribeto the Chrome Developers YouTube Channel to stay up to date as we'll be publishing all of the talks from the event.
  • Join the conversation and send us your web questions on Twitter that include the #ChromeDevSummit hashtag or join our Slack by signing up here and a team of onsite Googlers will do their best to track down an answer in real time for you.

We're looking forward to having you with us you for 2 days of web fun, soon!

Don't forget to join the social conversation at #ChromeDevSummit.