Happy Volcano wins Most Innovative Game award in London

Jeroen Janssen from Happy Volcano was thrilled with the award: "Of course we're super happy. Despite the game still being in its development stages, this does go to show the potential value of our story." The start-up was granted 29.000 dollars in prize money.

The Almost Gone is a narrative game of exploration and mystery, where a little girl must understand her own death, allowing herself and others to pass through to the other side. Gameplay exists of classic point-and-click adventure to tell a rather dark story. The game is set to release in late 2018. Back in June 2015, the Dutch Literary Fund held an open call for literary games. Happy Volcano teamed up with Joost Vandecasteele, a Flemish author who was looking for a challenge just like that, and entered the call. One month later, the project was selected out of 50 projects as one of the two finalists to receive the production budget. Happy Volcano was also awarded the award for Best Mobile Game at the Belgian Game Awards in 2016 and won the Big PC Indie Pitch in 2017.

They are also featured on our list of local start-ups to watch in 2018, with reason, so it seems.