Tiny Roar

Aonic studio Tiny Roar has officially launched Into the Emberlands, a cozy roguelike adventure full of magic and wonder 🏞️ After flourishing through player feedback in a fruitful Early Access phase, the full release has earned a Very Positive user rating from its passionate Steam community ⭐ A big shout out to the development team!

Today is a big day for us: 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗘𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗱𝘀 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝗼𝗳𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗹𝗮𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝟭.𝟬, 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗘𝗮𝗿𝗹𝘆 𝗔𝗰𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀! 🎉✨ This project began its journey under the name 𝘞𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘶𝘭, a cozy roguelike inspired by ideas of storytelling and player-driven exploration. After releasing the first demo and reflecting on player feedback, we changed our game design concept so much that it deserved a new name—and thus, 𝘐𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘌𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘴 was born. Launch Trailer: https://lnkd.in/eugjxvXm Steam Page: https://lnkd.in/eJeXpwqr Early Access played a huge role in shaping the game that is out today. Thanks to player feedback, we refined gameplay, balanced systems, and squashed a lot of bugs. Updates along the way introduced a new biome, new characters and pets, and getting the game to Steam Deck verified. Most additions came from our close collaboration with the community, whose support made all the difference. One of the most rewarding parts of this journey has been working with such a passionate team (shoutout to Tom Erenstein, Timur Lüdemann, Maurice Alain Hagelstein, Julian Alexander Colbus, Alejandro Clavijo, Ines Neumann, Gidon Wolff, Konrad Mampe). From the initial pitches by our artist Jonas Pfeiffer to prototyping and beyond, everyone poured a lot of heart and effort into creating a world filled with whimsy, humor, and adventure, and having Daedalic Entertainment GmbH as our publishing partner as well as support and funding by Gamecity Hamburg was super important in turning our ideas into a reality. In addition to the major improvements to gameplay and features, we are proud to have earned a 𝗩𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗣𝗼𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝗻 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺, thanks to the encouraging reviews from our community! It’s incredibly humbling to see our work so well-received, and we are glad that it arrived at the right audience! Reflecting on this project reminds us of the power of collaboration, constant iteration, and, most importantly, the support of players who care about the games we create. ✨ 𝗪𝗲’𝗿𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝘆𝗼𝗻𝗱 𝗲𝘅𝗰𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝗲𝗲 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗘𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗱𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗻𝘂𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗼𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝘄𝗵𝗼 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗮𝗹𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝘆 𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝗱 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗮𝗱𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝘄𝗵𝗼 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘆𝗲𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗶𝘁. ✨ Thanks to everyone who was part of the journey, and to our whole Tiny Team (special thanks to Dennis Witte, Sebastian Sacher, Alexander Govoruchin, Brian Walter, Niklas Loose, and Vera Frisch for development support!)

Wishing you all a wonderful start into the new year!🎆 As we say goodbye to 2024 and welcome 2025, it’s time to reflect on a year filled with growth, challenges, and incredible memories for our studio. ❤✨ In 2024, we had the privilege of growing our team with many talented new colleagues, something we’re especially thankful for during a time when many in the industry faced difficulties. We're eager to see what we can all achieve together! June was a very special month to us as we showcased Into the Emberlands during Wholesome Direct, connecting with cozy gamers worldwide. Just weeks later, we launched the game into Early Access on June 19th—a huge milestone! Watching players dive into the Emberlands and sharing that joy with our publisher, Daedalic Entertainment GmbH, was unforgettable (and we celebrated in our office with a huge round of Mario Kart!😊). But 2024 wasn’t without its hurdles. Our office flooded—twice. 💧 First from below, then from above. And while this forced us into home office mode, our team’s spirit never wavered. Around the same time, we welcomed even more talented colleagues from the former THREAKS team. We marked the occasion with a Summer Get Together, where we bonded over cooking and had a great time–a reminder of the incredible people we've assembled. In August, we shared the first demo of Lou’s Lagoon with creators at Gamescom (thanks, rokaplay!) and at PAX and the MIX Event in Seattle (thank you, Megabit Publishing!) Seeing the first reactions to the game and how it resonated with players made all the hard work worthwhile.❤ October brought another highlight as we showcased Into the Emberlands at Polaris, joining the Gamecity Hamburg booth alongside other fantastic studios. It’s always rewarding to connect directly with players, learn what they love, and take their feedback to heart. December ended the year on a high note, with Lou’s Lagoon taking a spotlight during Wholesome Snack. Watching the chat light up with excitement as people discovered new places and features in the game was a heartwarming moment for the team.🙏❤ And while we’re still out of the office, we brought everyone together for a Winter Event to paint ceramics, visit the Christmas market, and share in the holiday cheer! A huge thank you to everyone who supported us throughout 2024—players, partners, and colleagues alike. Special mentions to rokaplay, Megabit Publishing, Gamecity Hamburg, Indie Treff Hamburg, and so many others who helped us make the year unforgettable.🥰 We’re heading into 2025 with excitement, determination, and a lot to show you. Here’s to making this year even better, together. 🌟 Wishing you all a wonderful start to the new year—let’s make it an amazing one! 🎉✨

Hey folks, Gamecity Hamburg has something new for you: Please mark your calendars for the first-ever Portside Game Assembly on June 27, 2025, in extraordinary locations of Hamburg, around the harbor - and on the water. Our new conference will connect leaders and visionaries from the indie game scene to meet in an unconventional setting on a ship to exchange strategies, get inspiration, and make contacts that really matter. Portside will be complemented by a networking brunch and two evening events inviting conference participants to meet the vibrant and diverse Hamburg games scene. We are delighted to have the first game studios on board already and look forward to welcoming more passengers to navigate the challenges of the indie games industry together. More about Portside Game Assembly on our shiny new website https://lnkd.in/e8cN8z_r

🎉 The Tiny Roar team has grown… AGAIN! 🎉 As you know from our last post, we love to do things twice. Back in April we celebrated new additions to our team. Now, a few months later, we are humbled and proud to do so again! Let us welcome our six new members with expertises in Code, VFX, Tech Art, and Prototyping. We're especially delighted to offer new positions to some of the folks who previously worked at THREAKS, a well known German studio with a focus on high fidelity Unity projects. We're dear friends with many former Threaks team members and were devastated to hear about their studio closing. We consider ourselves very privileged to be in a position where we could react to that development and welcome as many as we could to our team. For us that means that we’re not only gaining skilled new colleagues but also reuniting with old friends who we always wanted to develop games with anyway. With that, we’re now 27 people strong at Tiny Roar, many of us working on our upcoming project, Lou’s Lagoon. Partnering with our publishers, Megabit Publishing and rokaplay, we’re confident Lou’s Lagoon will be a hit, packed with exciting features and loads of fun! Next stop? Gamescom and PAX, where we will show Lou’s Lagoon to selected contacts to gather feedback and spark excitement! Our new team members: Alejandro (Developer), Lukas (VFX Artist), Pascal (Developer), Bernhard (Developer), Jade-Kain (Technical Artist), Kevin (Developer) Maurice & Robert: "It’s always a tragedy seeing established teams having to call it quits, and then for you personally some kind of survivor’s guilt kicks in immediately. The game industry is such a wholesome, collaborative space and everyone tries to look out for each other, so it was a no-brainer to reach out to the Threaks and create new positions for as many people as possible. Apart from this, welcoming Pascal and Lucas, who are not only friends in real life, but are basically THE dynamic prototyping duo, we can start working on new features for Lou’s Lagoon and game pitches with a lot of game juice." Kevin: "In the beginning of the year, we had to shut down THREAKS and lay off the entire team. It was a tremendous help to see support from your fellow industry friends, such as Tiny Roar, who were among the first to reach out and offer their support. I'm delighted to have joined their talented and energetic team in July among four other former colleagues. We couldn't be happier to be part of Tiny Roar now, the team has been most welcoming, and the colleagues are nothing short of amazing." Jade-Kain: "I am happy to announce that I have recently Joined Tiny Roar as a Senior Technical Artist. It's been nothing but great so far and I am looking forward to working with everyone on the team. The Tinys have been nothing but welcoming and kind, they are very passionate people and it's been tons of fun talking to everyone and tackling the first tasks!"

Our office got flooded…. AGAIN 🌊😥 First of all, we’re not asking for pity (okay, maybe a little), but this is a story that needs to be shared: In a very ironic twist of fate, our Tiny Roar office rooms got flooded twice in the past 6 weeks, from below AND above. The first incident followed heavy rains (not uncommon here in Hamburg) and resulted in water seeping up through the floor drains, soaking the carpet. We had to use drying devices for weeks to dry everything out and eliminate the unpleasant smell. We were super lucky though, because our PCs, which mostly stood on the floor (!) remained intact. Our whole company had to transition to working from home but hey – it was okay because we knew we’d get back to the office eventually! Last Friday, our office management got everything ready for our return, laying down the cables again and, just to be safe, putting all the PCs on top of the tables – you know, just in case of another flood from below. ➡️ Well, this Monday we were excited to return, but upon opening the door, we could hear dripping water. And sadly, it wasn’t just a leaking faucet.  Going down the stairs, we could see that the floor was completely wet in some places, and this time the water didn’t come from below, but from above, dripping down on us. You really can’t make this up: We had placed the PCs on top of the tables so they wouldn’t get wet, now water was dripping down on them. THE IRONY! And just on the day we were returning! So this time we took stronger measures, removing all our PCs, screens, keyboards, cables etc. from the office and storing them somewhere in a safer location - fingers crossed that they won’t become victims to other unforeseen incidents. 🤞✨ It was hard to see our office so empty and everything removed, but it also reminded us that Tiny Roar is not about the equipment, but about the people who work tirelessly to create awesome games. Everyone quickly rallied together, and we cleared out the office in no time. Despite the less than ideal situation, spending that day together was actually uplifting – we even had some cookies and cake (thanks to Franziska, Tom, and Kemal who baked them… for the return to the office 🎂😅). While the timing is not the best, as we’re finalizing builds for Gamescom and PAX to showcase to selected press and content creators, we’re confident that we will still get everything done in time. And rest assured, the source of the ceiling leak has been identified, and we’re working on the next steps to make sure we won’t stay in home office forever. 🙏😅

🎮 Just now, Into the Emberlands has released in Early Access on Steam! 🥳 It feels amazing to have our game out in the wild, and we can’t wait to hear what players think, what they like about the game, and what they would love to see added later on during Early Access. https://lnkd.in/eJeXpwqr Of course, this wouldn’t have been possible without the many awesome people who worked on the game in one way or another. The prototype funding from Gamecity Hamburg is what allowed us to start this in the first place! Daedalic Entertainment GmbH, our publisher for Into the Emberlands, contacted us about doing a cooperative game and gave us free rein to experiment and explore different directions for the game, which ultimately allowed us to do a full 180 from last year’s “Wanderful” to the Into the Emberlands you can now see and play! We re-announced Into the Emberlands with its new gameplay (a mix of cozy exploration and roguelike aspects) quite late, but we were luckily able to gain some momentum and rack up our wishlist count through various Steam showcases. We’re very honored to have been part of the Wholesome Direct (thank you for your support Matthew Taylor!), the Cozy & Family Friendly Games Celebration by rokaplay, and last but not least, Steam Next Fest, and we want to wholeheartedly thank the organizers of each of these for including us and allowing us to gain visibility! Of course, this is not the end. Into the Emberlands has merely entered Early Access, so we will keep working on it, adding new content, polishing and fixing bugs, and listening closely to our players’ feedback! 🙏

🎮 It feels great whenever a project actually releases to the public 😊 On Saturday (June 8th) our game "Into the Emberlands" was part of this year's Wholesome Direct showcase (https://lnkd.in/etxhNJCQ) - a huge thing for us! 😊 We took the opportunity and released our demo into the wild AND announce a release date, so: 🎮 the demo for Into the Emberlands is OUT NOW! 📅 the game will release into Early Access on June 19th! So it's a good time to head over to Steam and give the demo a shot! 🥰 https://lnkd.in/eJeXpwqr We're really happy to have reached this point and to be looking forward to a very close release day!

☀️ Passend zum Summer Game Fest möchte Dana mit euch ihre Highlights anspielen! ⛏️ Wir beginnen mit der Demo von "Into the Emberlands" von Tiny Roar und Daedalic Entertainment GmbH. 📺 Montag, 11:30 Uhr auf Twitch: https://lnkd.in/d6NeEZ8 🎮 PS: Falls dann noch Zeit ist, schauen wir in "While Waiting" von Optillusion und "World's Worst Handyman" von Baby Lumberjack rein!

🎉 Celebrating New Additions to Our Team! 🎉 We at Tiny Roar are thrilled to announce the latest additions to our growing family! Over the past several months, we've had the privilege of welcoming nine exceptionally talented individuals to our team. Their expertise spans across various disciplines, including 2D and 3D art, UI/UX design, coding, marketing, project and studio management. Please welcome our new talents with us! Among them are fresh faces just embarking on their journey into the games industry, while others bring a lot of experience after working at other awesome games studios that we admire. We’re eager to see how they will shape Lou’s Lagoon, Wanderful, and more future projects with us. Say hello to: Aylin Krajewski, Camilo A., Christian Bittkau, Franziska S., Jennifer Heinz, Ines Neumann, Natalie Schattmann, Timur Lüdemann and Tom Erenstein 🌟 Thanks to Our Supporters and Partners! 🌟 Bringing aboard these exceptional individuals to our studio is possible for us by being part of the Aonic group, whose support continues to propel us forward. We extend our appreciation to our publishing partners — Daedalic Entertainment GmbH, Megabit Publishing, and rokaplay — for their collaboration and shared commitment to bringing our projects to fruition. We're excited to share with you more insights of our new games in future postings!