Israel-based studio Playful Shark & Untame Games and Finnish dev Frogmind take awards

Game Connection reveals Selected Projects winners

Game Connection Europe has revealed the winners of the unsigned projects that took part in the Selected Projects 2012 competition.

15 developers were nominated for the awards, with prizes going to Finland-based studio Frogmind and Israel developer Playful Shark & Untame Games.

Frogmind was named winner of the Best Project award for developing side-scrolling adventure game Badland, and won a dev kit and developer support from Microsoft, as well as three months of PR advice and support from publisher Reverb.

Badland also claimed the top Sony Computer Entertainment Europe prize, winning a Vita/PlayStation dev kit and technical support for the launch of its game on the PSN.

Runners up for the award included Muse Games’ Guns of Icarus Online and Shadow Diver’s Gamagora. All three teams were invited to attend a Sony platforms training day at the company’s European headquarters in London.

Playful Shark & Untame meanwhile won the prize for Best Mobile game with rapid-fire party title Disky. The team will received €5,000 in development credits to use for app creation and to integrate the title into Tapjoy services upon release.

As well as being awarded with €5,000, the team will received €10,000 in marketing credits to promote the title on Tapjoy’s marketplace.

“We are really, really pleased and proud that we, as a new two-man indie game studio, won not only one but two prizes with Badland,” said Frogmind co-founder Johannes Vuorinen.

“There were so many great projects in the competition with us and we hope that our success inspires developers all over the world to start new indie game studios to make awesome games."

Playful Shark & Untame Games’ studio manager Goldy added: “Winning the best mobile project award from Game Connection surprised and amazed me as Disky is our first game as an independent studio. It took only three months to develop with a team of two and a half dedicated developers and a tiny budget.

“As Israeli projects are not often acknowledged for creative achievements in our industry, and as the other competitors demonstrated truly great products, winning this award created a great leaping-point for my project, and gave me the best exposure I could ask for with potential business partners.”

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