By qualifying for this funding program, which is unique in Germany, the teams benefit from one year of support including a workshop and mentoring program with international industry experts and 15,000 euros in financial funding, as well as workplaces in a Hamburg office for collaboration and exchange with the other participating teams. More than 30 experts in game design, product development, pitching, business development, press relations and marketing from the Games Lift Network share their experience with the teams to give the games projects a professional start into the industry.

A total of 24 teams and solo developers from Hamburg applied for the fourth Games Lift Incubator. The award committee chose the five participating teams after the exciting pitch presentations of all participating teams and their projects.

The five projects and teams in the Games Lift Incubator 2023:

• Chaos Royale by Monodot  

• Dottobeau by Dottobeau   

• Journey Beyond the Edge of the World by Markus Koepke  

• Map Map – A Game about Maps by Kopfkino Games  

• We the Valarii by Bagpack Games 
   

Chaos Royale by Monodot will be a free-to-play Battle Royale game with shooting mechanics and obscure characters. Different weapon combinations and an improvement of one's own shooting power turn the matches for 16 to 32 players into fast-paced firefights. 

The team behind Dottobeau came together at HAW Hamburg to develop a classic point-and-click adventure game in which players solve tricky puzzles by changing the overall atmosphere. The more puzzles’ players solve, the more items they can collect to influence the plot and move on to the next chapter of the insightful story. 

Journey Beyond the Edge of the World by Markus Koepke is a musical first-person adventure game whose story is told through five atmospheric pieces of music. The plot, which spans three time levels, centers around a mysterious abandoned fishing boat whose history needs to be investigated. The game world in the nostalgic low-poly look holds a lot of tricky puzzles. 

Map Map - A Game about Maps by Kopfkino Games is a cozy exploration game with puzzle elements, where the atmosphere of a relaxed hike meets typical landscape puzzles á la GeoGuessing. The unique mapping mechanics allow players to interact with the atmospheric game world and its many elements in a completely new way. 

We the Valarii from Bagpack Games is an entertaining couch co-op racer with a literal spin, as the unique motion physics are created via rotation of mouse or stick. The focus is not on competition, but on overcoming obstacles and completing boss battles together. 

For more information on this year's games projects, visit the Games Lift Incubator website. To never miss any updates from Gamecity, subscribe to the official newsletter.  

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