Epic Games is opening up its Fortnite money vault to award 37 game development teams with a total of $1 million in Unreal Dev Grants, the publisher and engine maker announced this morning.
Established in 2015 as a $5 million fund, the Unreal Dev Grants program awards $5,000 to $50,000 to developers and studios making projects (games, VR, AI, educational, development tools and plug-ins, etc.) with the Unreal Engine toolset. Epic hands out these grants three-to-four times a year, a spokesperson said, and New Reality Co. is receiving one for the third time since the program debuted.
Here are the teams getting grants in this round:
Amid Evil (New Bloods Interactive): In this ’90s-inspired first-person shooter-adventure, players take on hordes of baddies with sacred magical weaponry and spells. In your trip to reclaim the world, you’re go through seven episodes.
Anima Plugin for UE4 (AXYZ Design): This is a crowd-simulation plugin for Unreal Engine that helps architects, designers, and visualization professionals to populate hundreds of 3D characters and bring them into Unreal Engine 4 scenes with just a few mouse clicks.
Atomic Heart (Mundfish): Atomic Heart is a first-person shooter that takes players inside an alternate universe during the height of the Soviet Union. Follow a Soviet special agent to unlock secrets and as you deal with Russians.
Brief Battles(Juicy Cupcake): A platform fighter with humor, Brief Battles turns underpants into weapons. Players can choose from a variety of superpowered knickers and different game modes as they compete to see who has the buffest buns.
Project “Caillou” [Working title] (Awaceb): This small indie team of two childhood friends hails from New Caledonia in the French territory of the Pacific. Project “Caillou” tells moving poetic stories in an open, physics-based and dynamic 3D world.
Desolate Sands (Blacksmith Studios): Desolate Sands is a VR puzzle game set in an ancient pyramid. The objective is to reach the bottom by using nearby movable objects and levers to solve a series of puzzles.
ELLI(Bandana Kid): In this puzzle-platformer, you play as ancient time guardian Elli on a journey to recover the stolen sands of time.
Feri Vincze: Feri Vincze is a freelance 3D artist and videographer, and he uses the Unreal Engine 4 to render animated films such as “The Chest.”
Ghost (Sky Machine Studios): Ghost is a sandbox stealth game with a Victorian setting. You try to discover the truth of Arthur Artorias’ past. Stay in the shadows and explore the darkness, for in Ghost, light is your enemy.
Guntastic(Ludicrous Games): Guntastic takes inspiration from arcades games, channeling shooting and mayhem. You can play with up to four local or online players. It’s a one-shot-kill game, with a fast pace and levels that continually change.
Headsnatchers(Iguanabee): Headsnatchers is a multiplayer party game. You try to keep your heads on your shoulders while trying to remove everyone else’s noggins. It has four different game modes in over 25 environments, each with different rules and attributes.
Hear No Evil (Rockodile Games): Hear No Evil is about humanity’s last remnants, who return to Earth to fight for their future. This top-down shooter takes its inspiration from Alienation and Helldivers.
Hellbound (Saibot Studios): Hellbound is a demon-themed first-person shooter game inspired by classic ’90s games like Doom and Quake. It’s from an independent team in Argentina.
Kara Education(Kara Technologies): Kara is an online education platform for children with hearing difficulties. It delivers educational material using an avatar, driven by Kara’s AI and machine learning algorithms and Unreal Engine.
Kine (Gwen Frey): Kine is a 3D puzzler about three whimsical machines that aspire to be musicians. You travel a theatrically rendered cityscape and solve increasingly difficult 3D puzzles to help the machines form a band and catch their big break.
Little Devil Inside (Neostream): Little Devil Inside is a 3D action-adventure RPG game that throws you into a surreal environment that challenges your survival instincts.
M.A.S.S Builder (Vermillion Digital Co., Ltd.): M.A.S.S. Builder pits humans against alien invaders in the fight for the Earth. You build, customize, and control a M.A.S.S. (Mechanical Assault Skeleton Suit) in an effort to save the world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvW-Ney6124
Midnight Ghost Hunt (Mellowsoft): Midnight Ghost Hunt is a multiplayer hide-and-seek game, with one team of Ghosts against a squad of Ghost Hunters. The “game” takes place at midnight.
NanoSpace (Synthetic Systems): Nanospace is a 3D platformer that blends in real-time strategy elements. You control three “nano-mites” in levels full of riddles, monsters, items, and more.
Neon Giant (unannounced project): Neon Giant is a group of game-development veterans with experience in some of the world’s biggest action game franchises. The studio is working on its first title set in a new cyberpunk world.
New Reality Co. (unannounced project): This stuido from Milica Zec and Winslow Porter synthesizes storytelling, art, and technology into groundbreaking, emotional projects. New Reality are the creators behind the award-winning Giant and Tree VR experiences, both of which use Unreal and got help from Unreal Dev Grants.
NotMyCar (NMC Studios): NotMyCar is a massive multiplayer vehicular combat battle royale game. You drop into the battleground and use a variety of abilities and weapons, along with customizing your car, in this last-player-standing game.
Oceanhorn 2 (Cornfox and Bros.): Showcased in the Unreal Engine booth at GDC 2018, Oceanhorn 2 is the upcoming sequel to the action-adventure mobile game featuring exploration in a colorful world with items, puzzles, and battles.
Origin Zero (Black Amber Digital): Origin Zero is an episodic sci-fi animation project from a small team using Unreal Engine 4.
Paradise Lost (PolyAmorous):Paradise Lost is a nonlinear narrative-focused adventure game with “meaningful, kinesthetic interactions dynamically changing both the environment and the story you are experiencing.”
The Path of Calydra(Finalboss):The Path of Calydra is an 3D adventure-platformer set in the “fantastic world of Calygore.” You play the suburban teen Matheus, who has been transported to Calygore and must rely on an unusual entity named Calydra to seek out four powerful crystals and return home.
Point Cloud Plugin (Phoboz): This is a free plugin for Unreal Engine 4, developed to help with importing, processing, and rendering of point clouds. It is in beta for Windows.
Raji: An Ancient Epic (Nodding Head Games): This action-adventure game set in ancient India. You play Raji, a young girl chosen by the gods to stand against the demonic invasion of the human realm, saving her younger brother in the process.
Rocket Jockey (Burn Ward Games): It’s a team-based game that plays like a cross between Rocket League and Super Smash Bros. You can fly on top of modern jet engines with classic car chassis at break-neck speeds.
Scene Fusion (KinematicSoup Technologies): Scene Fusion makes real-time editor collaboration possible. Developers can build all sorts of content together in real time, resulting in major time savings.
Second Order: The creator of Claybook is being recognied and awarded for contributing numerous rendering features and optimizations to Unreal Engine 4. This is its second Unreal Dev Grant.
Session by Crea-ture Studios: Taking inspiration from the golden era of skate culture in the late ’90s and early 2000s, Session is all about authenticity, creativity, and the freedom of expression that skateboarding provides.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XDftanOnJw
SMALLAND (EMBU Games): This tinier take on survival games helps you appreciate appreciate the little things … or flee in terror from them. The slight breeze can sweep your items or even your house away. The simplest rainfall can form puddles the size of lakes in a matter of minutes.
Solar Warden (Polar Zenith): Solar Warden is a six-degrees-of-freedom space shooter combined with an overarching campaign with real-time strategy elements. You fight foes in your fighter and can dispatch fleets for reinforcements.
Someday You’ll Return (CBE Software): This is a story-driven psychological horror game about a search for a missing daughter deep in the woods, a forest you swore you’d never return to.
Twenty Studios: Sweden’s Twenty Studios, together with SuperFly.tv and LeViteZer, is creating intuitive open-source software that brings Unreal Engine 4 to live mixed reality production and video compositing pipelines.
VStore (VitaeVR): Recently entering wide clinical trials, VStore is a fully functional virtual reality supermarket that offers a fast, accurate and portable method of screening for early indicators of dementia. Diagnosing dementia at the earliest possible stages is critical because that is when treatment is at its most effective.
