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Die Fish wins the Very Big Indie Pitch at PGC Helsinki

Wave 7 Games shoal us how it’s done

Die Fish wins the Very Big Indie Pitch at PGC Helsinki
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| Die Fish

There were an epic 37 entries in this week’s Very Big Indie Pitch event in Helsinki. The standard was very high, but floating to the top was Wave 7 Games and their side-scrolling fish herding game.

Imagine a Metroidvania-style 2D puzzle platformer, but set underwater, where the hero is in fact a school of little fish and you have to get as many of them as you can around the obstacles and villains to the level exit. That’s Die Fish in a nutshell. The judges enjoyed the intuitive "press to attract the whole shoal" mechanic and the sense of humour running beneath it all.

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We spoke to Juha Huhtakallio, CEO of Wave 7 Games, about the win and about how the game came to be:

What was the inspiration behind this game?
Juha Huhtakallio: I thought of making a flock control game long ago. I love innovative games and I never want to do anything that’s been done and tend to look for something new. This has been the approach for all games for Wave 7 Games from the start. I met Janne who had a very similar idea and then my old friend Pasi just said one day "Hey, lets make a game together!" That’s how it started.

What makes Die Fish unique?
Huhtakallio: We have several unique things! We have unique flock control gameplay which includes an element where you need to consider whether to sacrifice one of the flock or whether you will try to take a higher risk. We also have couple other unique elements relating to monetization and meta game which we’ll reveal later...

Did you get any good feedback from judges or gamers at the event?
Huhtakallio: I’ve done about 90 published games and for Die Fish the feedback from judges and gamers has been just fantastic all the time. They said it’s new, they loved it and they want it. One judge (Mike Hines from Amazon) said when you have trouble getting your tablet back [from showing it to judges], then you’re doing well - and that’s exactly what happened to us!

What did you enjoy most about the experience of pitching your game at the Very Big Indie Pitch?
Huhtakallio: That people seemed to love Die Fish. It’s such a good feeling for you and them. The Pocket Gamer event and crew were great, visitors were great, everything was just great!

The game will be out in the first quarter of 2017 and Wave 7 Games are actively looking for an investor or publisher. Their plan is to make it a free-to-play game. Find out more at their official Facebook page, Twitter feed and website.

As the Very Big Indie Pitch came to a close, second and third place went to Antidote (Psyon Games) and Skid Storm (Immobile Games) respectively. Wave 7 Games covered themselves in glory, but also pocketed an Amazon Fire TV stick and a Kindle Fire Tablet courtesy of our sponsors at Amazon Appstore. All the top three walked away with Amazon prizes. The other sponsors were Gameforge and EA Chillingo. You can find out more about them and their support for the event on our sister .biz site.

Dave Bradley
Dave Bradley
Dave is "management", but he's also been writing about games and films for over 25 years, so we suppose he's earned it. He claims to prefer big-budget RPGs with epic storylines but is commonly discovered tapping away at hypercasual indies. Currently obsessing over Marvel Snap.