The next wave of recipients for the Unreal Dev Grants have been announced – 15 developers have received a collective $204,000 in grants for their work with the Unreal engine. The $5 million scheme has been running for a couple of years now, and this is the latest of many rounds of funding.
We’ve got a series where we talk to developers doing great things in VR. It’s sponsored, and called Making it in Unreal, and you can check them out here.
Without further ado, what follows are the full list of recipients:
Tiny Metal
- A cute turn-based strategy game, Tiny Metal is coming to PC later this year, made by Area 35. See some screenshots, and listen to the soundtrack, on their website.
Pyotes: Need To Survive
- Think of all the Kerbals you might have left out in the fringes of space to die – Pyotes: Need To Survive is about a bunch of somewhat gross creatures that aren’t too dissimilar from Kerbals trying to find a home in the galaxy. Watch the trailer here.
Maelstrom
- Made by Gunpowder Games, Maelstrom is all about human, orc, and dwarven ships battling it out on the open seas. Here’s the website.
Bright Memory
- Made by one developer, Zeng Xiancheng, Bright Memory is a futuristic fantasy shooter. Yes, that’s a slightly odd combo – it’s best to just look at the trailer.
Decoherence
- Referred to as a “Human Assisted Tactical Robot Arena,” Decoherence is all about making your own team of robots to kill the enemy’s team of robots. Made by Colombian developers Efecto Studios, you can watch the alpha trailer on YouTube.
5 Minutes Rage
- This one is a 2.5D sports game, where you’ve got to get your ball into the opponent’s goal, and also kill the enemy team with somewhat brutal weapons. It has a trailer, and link to its beta, on YouTube.
Project Wingman
- Not a dating simulator about helping your friends at the club, Project Wingman is a first-person flight action game which puts you right in the cockpit of some impressive planes. See some of it in action in the trailer.
Giraffe and Annika
- Unfortunately, much of the information about this game is in Japanese, but there’s a girl with cats ears seemingly exploring a very pretty fantasy world. If you can read Japanese, the website may be of more help to you.
Legion 1917: Rise of the Bolsheviks
- A hand-painted XCOM-like strategy game is up next, telling the story of the Russian war in the early 20th century. It looks gorgeous.
Project Echo: Knights of the Future
- The only VR game on the list, Project Echo is if mechs, the Wild West, and MMOs had a strange baby. Also, in VR. Alpha gameplay can be found on YouTube.
Sky Noon
- One of the most creative games on the list, Sky Noon is a first-person shooter that uses Smash Bros’ mechanic of ‘you lose once you fall off the platform’ rather than health. Armed with revolvers and grappling hooks, knock your enemies off floating islands to win. This one’s available to look at on Steam.
LG Tang
- Not a game, LG Tang are responsible for translating many Unreal Engine tutorials, and so have been recognised for their work. For Unreal Engine tutorials in Chinese, click here.
Dustin Lee
- Similar to LG Tang, Dustin Lee has been creating tutorials and resources for people to learn Unreal Engine, this time for a Korean audience. His YouTube channel has all of his content.
Fractal Mob
- This team are making a strange virtual foosball, using a physical table with a screen to do absurd things that you wouldn’t be able to do on a traditional foosball table. Examples of what they’ve done are on YouTube.
Absolute Elimination
- Finally, Absolute Elimination is a mod for Unreal Tournament, which developer Scoob has been working on for over a year with community feedback. See more here.