The Year In Review 2023

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And just like that, another year has come and gone! 2023 has been a landmark year for Auroch Digital with new titles released and announced, work-for-hire projects, partnerships, Steam events, and more. We also raised money for charity, wrote blog posts, published podcasts and so much more. Come join us on a journey throughout the year and reflect on 2023 with us!

January

The year kicked off with Production Director, Peter Willington, writing a blog on ‘How to Create an Authentic Video Game’. Off the back of the release of Brewmaster: Beer Brewing Simulator, Peter discusses the research journey of the team and the impact it had on the development of Brewmaster, as well as research for our other titles.

Here you can see some of the team on their visit to our partners Moor Beer - who brewed the official Brewmaster beer!

February

The first of two busy months for Auroch kicks off with us being the main sponsor of the Bristol Games Hub’s Global Game Jam. It took place on February 3rd and there was a total of 17 games created that revolved around the theme of roots. Thank you to everyone who participated in this great event. There were such a wide variety of games created, and you can view and play each of them here.

Auroch Digital was voted the number one best company to work for in the South West of England for Q1 of 2023. We are extremely proud to be recognised for such an award and thank the Best Companies Accreditation for recognising our and Sumo Group’s efforts to make the company as good as it can be!  

The Auroch Digital Podcast returned in February with three episodes releasing during the month. It was great to hear Matt Walker and Jess Rutland returning and cover a variety of topics, including:

  •    💯   100 Game Dev Interviews - Having conducted over 100 interviews, Tom is on hand to answer burning questions such as ‘do I need a portfolio?’ and ‘what should I wear?’, as well as suggest what you in turn can ask your prospective employers.

  •     ⚔  The RPG Renaissance - RPG enthusiasts Peter Willington and Lucy Cook join hosts Matt, Jess and Tom for this episode. They contemplate the idea of an RPG renaissance, that RPGs and TTRPGs are stronger and more varied than ever, and that now is the perfect time to invest in the wealth of joy and fun that RPGs have to offer.

  •    🧠 The Psychology of Video Games - Today we step into the Psychology of creating a video game, in a whistle stop tour led by our resident neuroscientist, Jess. They describe the psychology behind art, music and colour within videogames, and why gaming can be so important for our mental health.

Give them a listen wherever you get your podcasts from!

March

March saw us announcing 🚀 Mars Horizon 2: The Search for Life, which is the sequel to 2020’s Mars Horizon. Lead your space agency in The Search for Life in this authentic strategy simulation game that will see you going to Mars and beyond, leading the way in the future of space exploration.

Developed by Auroch Digital and published by Secret Mode, we are partnering with ESA to make Mars Horizon 2 another great authentic game (but you can read about this in August’s section)
Wishlist on Steam now!

This month also saw the return of 🎲 Digital Tabletop Fest on Steam with Blood & Dice. This was the third Digital Tabletop Fest we have been involved with on Steam, after its debut in 2020 and the RPG Edition in 2021. This year’s event was the first we’ve ran on our own.

DTFest: Blood & Dice celebrated a variety of projects combining the love of physical tabletop games and digital gaming, and this year’s event had a focus on versus, fantasy, horror, and war games.

To coincide with the launch of Digital Tabletop Fest: Blood & Dice, we also started a Twitter account dedicated to promoting Steam events across the platform, @SteamFestivals. Give the account a follow to stay up to date on all things relating to Steam events and sales!

We also released three further episodes of the Auroch Digital Podcast, which looked at:

  •  💬 A Port and Publish Roundtable - We gather colleagues Hannah Corcoran, Freddie Jones, Toby Draper and Aaron Parsons together to share their experiences with one of our core pillars of work at Auroch Digital – game porting and publishing.

  •  🎧 Game Audio Collaboration - Resident Audio Designer and impeccable podcast host Matthew Walker leads this episode, revealing the secrets behind the game audio design pipeline and Brewmaster’s perfect pour.

  •   👺 Retro Warhammer - Matt and Tomas peek back into the past of Warhammer – the origins, the evolution, and its impact on tabletop gaming as we know it.

April

The first of two blogs released in April looks at ‘Remote Working in the Games Industry’ and how we operate at Auroch Digital as a remote-first studio. We employ people from all over the UK and further afield, too!

The second blog of April looks at ‘How Auroch Digital deals with Stress’, where we look at a variety of ways to unwind. There are a LOT of animals involved in this blog, so if you’re a fan of dogs, cats, or rabbits, then this is the blog for you!

April also featured Auroch’s first Tabletop Day at the office for 2023! We have a lot of boardgame fans, tabletop fans, and people who love painting minis at our studio - we are sure this love of these games comes across in what we do.

We host tabletop days at the office every so often for staff who are in or around Bristol to meet up and play a variety of tabletop games together, paint miniatures, or just chat in-person. It’s a lovely time and a great reminder of what we do what we do! 😊

May

May saw the release of the first-person boomer shooter Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun. It’s a title we first announced in June 2022 and we were delighted to see it released on Steam, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox!

What we were also delighted with was how much the Warhammer and gaming community enjoyed the title and how well-received the game was by critics. We can’t thank everyone enough who played the game and shared their thoughts on it as we recently passed 8,000 Steam reviews! 🥳 If you’ve played Boltgun please leave us a review, it helps us a lot!

In addition to celebrating our latest release, we were also celebrating two Aurochs on their nominations for Develop Star Awards. Social & Community Manager, Ladell Smith, and Associate Producer, Hannah Corcoran, were nominated for the Diversity Star and Tomorrow’s Star awards respectively. A great well done to both Ladell and Hannah! 👏🏻

June

June was a month for the Auroch team to either get on the road to Sheffield or tune into streams for Sumo Developer Conference, which is run by our parent company, Sumo Group. There were plenty of talks in various areas of game development, presentations on personal progression, and it provided a great opportunity to meet up with colleagues you don’t often get to see.

As it was also Sumo’s 20th anniversary, they also hosted an outdoor festival, SumoFest, which featured live music, food, and plenty of open spaces to unwind after the previous two days at SDC. It was a lot of fun and we loved spending time with our colleagues from near and far! 🤩

This month saw more Aurochs being finalists for awards, this time for Game Dev Heroes. Congratulations to Joseph Beacham (Art & Animation), Jemima Crow (Marketing), and Ladell Smith (Progression Advocate). You’re all amazing! 🙌🏻

Brewmaster: Beer Brewing Simulator was also a finalist in the Gee! Awards for Informal Learning. Thanks for the shortlist! 😊

July

July saw the launch of our second Steam festival of the year with Simfest! 🔨 This was the second year in a row we had been involved in Simfest, which celebrates simulation games, in all shapes and sizes. We had previously partnered with Steam for the festival, but this time we partnered with Stray Fawn. It was great to work with a variety of developers and publishers to showcase existing simulation games and look forward to the future of the genre.

The games industry has a higher percentage of people who are neurodiverse than the general UK population. Associate Producer, Hannah Corcoran, wrote a blog which provides tips on ‘How to Support Your Neurodiverse Team Within the Games Industry’, which you can read here.

August

During Gamescom, we announced that we would be, once again, partnering with the European Space Agency (ESA) for Mars Horizon 2: The Search for Life. This partnership follows on from our successful collaboration on the first Mars Horizon, where ESA staff provided valuable insight into the planning and operation of missions to Mars, and ESA itself was a playable agency within the game. We are delighted to be working with ESA again to create an authentic and amazing game.

To read more on this, check out this blog.

For the second year in a row, we participated in Tough Mudder, raising money for the Grand Appeal. We managed to smash our goal of £1,000 by reaching £1,284! 🥳 A huge thanks to everyone who donated and well done to all the Aurochs who participated.

August was also another month where Aurochs were recognised for their great work. This time it was for the Women in Tech Excellence Awards. Senior Programmer, Daniela Policarpo, was nominated in the Innovator, Engineer, and Role Model category, while Isobel McNeany was a finalist in the Rising Star category. Incredible stuff! 🙌🏻

September

Auroch Digital turned 13 in September! 🎂 To celebrate, we created a blog looking back at our previous 13 years and everything we’ve achieved and learned, which you can read here.

Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun received a physical release this month on Nintendo Switch. If you’re interested in having Malum Caedo’s adventure on your shelf, you can pick up a physical version here.

Auroch’s Operations Director, Nina Adams, was appointed to the Ukie board. Nina joins six other new members on the board of the UK’s games industry trade body. Congratulations, Nina! 👏🏻

October

This month, we announced we are sailing the seas with Rare and are creating some hearty cosmetics for Sea of Thieves that will be premiered in Season Ten. 

Working alongside Rare, a studio that has been making games for well over three decades, is such a fantastic opportunity not just for Auroch as a studio, but for all our developers who are now able to contribute to their legacy. Sea of Thieves is such a groundbreaking and delightful game, it is our honour to batten down the hatches alongside Rare to bring even more cosmetic goodies to the game. We can’t wait for you to see what we’ve created! You can read more on this collaboration here.

Also in October, we were delighted to be finalists in four TIGA Award categories! They were:

November

This month we did a few talks at events in the industry! 📣
The studio’s Operations Director, Nina Adams, presented a talk at the Bristol Games Hub’s Anti-Social event looking at the process, opportunities and pitfalls of signing a contract with a publisher. 📝

Two team members took part in talks at the Women in Games Expo. Jemima Crow, our Marketing & Comms Director, was part of the "Moving Sideways: How Transferrable Skills Can Kickstart Your Games Career" panel and Victoria Mackenzie, one of our producers, took part in a panel called "Permission To Play" discussing how different playstyles/games/genres are viewed and why.

November also saw the release of Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun onto the Epic Games Store. Users of the store will now be able to play as Malum Caedo and take down those heretics! 🔫

Boltgun was also the subject of an article on Time Extension, where the history and references for the game’s soundtrack were discussed. 🎵
Rounding off our Warhammer-related content for the month, our Lead Quality Assurance Manager, Dave Evans, discussed their passion for all-things Warhammer, including ways to get involved and what they enjoy most about it. Check it out on our blog! 👀

December

Even as we are heading towards the end of 2023, we are still hard at work on titles such as Mars Horizon 2: The Search for Life and others which are unannounced, as of yet… 👀

2023 has been a stellar year for Auroch Digital and it’s one we’re extremely proud of. Thank you for checking out what we’ve been involved with this year. 💜

2024 is already shaping up to be an incredible year and we can’t wait to let you all know what we’ve got coming up in the future!

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Auroch Digital

Marketing and Community Managment for Auroch Digital in Bristol, UK.