About
Company Name: Catnip Games
Company Motto: Addictive Gaming
Located: Enschede, The Netherlands
History:
Founded 2007 in Enschede
Martijn Plass (lead programmer) and Govert Combée (lead artist) started Catnip Games in 2007 with the idea that only by staying truly independent could we make the games we dreamed to make.
This involves keeping a part-time job to pay the bills, programming content management systems or translating and making adds in four languages for sawing machinery, giving us time to reflect on our designs and making our games what we feel they should be.
During 2008 our first to-be game “Moobas” was an Xbox live arcade game bringing a board game from a local designer to the console. This development was stopped after we had some setbacks and figured out we had bitten off more than we could chew both design- and asset-wise.
During this time we also started our partnership with Projectorgames, becoming the official branch in Holland both for providing entertainment setups for events and for participating in the development of new games. Projectorgames has released several games on Xbox Live Indie Games (XBLIG): Falldown, Chocariffic, Bitstream and the much acclaimed Rate My Avatar. The Projectorgames platform brings large-scale multiplayer games to social gatherings, where 50 or more players can play on the same big screen.
In the end of 2009 we created a short-term spin-off project based on a game engine for Projectorgames, which was released as Bullet Crave. It received a warm welcome on the shmup development scene. We got a bit sidetracked into making our next game engine and setting up our game pipeline (getting our game onto the Xbox and making sure all the parts fit).
Then Microsoft dropped support for XNA, so we switched over to Unity 3D. Helped on the sequel for FortressCraft: Fortresscraft Evolved. Did a few stints for companies developing games for Samsung GearVR and an AR game.
Then we started working on a project to bring Projectorgames to cinema’s. Sadly this fell through. And then we started working on Beetle Friends Forever and SpaceSymOne.