Velan Studios, the new venture by Vicarious Visions (Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy) founders Karthik and Guha Bala, have just secured $7 million in funding towards their project of creating experimental new game prototypes.
In a statement to GamesIndustry.biz, Guha said:
It is really about securing the capital we need to build prototypes. And building a core team at the studio who will go around looking at new ideas, and look for the type of things that will create magical, engaging experiences that you can actually build future franchises on. It is really focused around that idea of discovery.
The experimental new game prototypes the studio is looking to create focus on “hardware and software integrated experiences,” something that the founders are all too familiar with as Vicarious Visions was involved in the development of both Guitar Hero and Skylanders.
Although, the company wants to take things a step further as it wants to experiment with more technologies such as robotics, AI, and AR (augmented reality).
When we reflect back on the past, those ideas sort of seem obvious, at least after the fact. But at the same time, I don’t think we would have predicted those sort of categories until we found them. There is a tonne going on in robotics and AI, and to an extent these are sort of buzzwords. However, when you really dig in, these are really enabling technologies that have huge implications, but nobody has really thread the needle to find something magical and engaging. So it is unlikely that it will be something like we have done in the past, that is not our goal. But it is a really rich area to explore.
It will be awhile before we see a full game release from Velan Studios but it’s good to know that there are studios out there that are still trying to push the envelope in creating new video game experiences.
[Source: GamesIndustry.biz]
