The
Dream
The origins of our trailblazing game studio
Driven by a burning itch to develop video games, Jeroen Janssen, David Prinsmel and Peter Maasen founded Happy Volcano in December 2013. Back then it wasn’t a real studio yet, just three video game players and their dreams. Huddled together on weekends, they managed to develop their first game after a year, the mobile game Lava Fever. A promising test project that proved Happy Volcano was ready to become a real studio.
The
Launch
From an award-winning narrative game to augmented reality
For our first serious game, we set out to create an immersive story-driven experience. Because the writing needed to be excellent, we joined forces with established Belgian writer Joost Vandecasteele. As a writer of prose and plays, he provided the project with a fresh outlook. Our exciting collaboration became The Almost Gone and was awarded the Dutch Literary fund for literary games as well as the VAF Game pre- and production grant.
Hungry for another interdisciplinary project, we then developed an augmented reality game for the 2018 And& Festival in Leuven, called Pixel Picasso. It became an instant hit at other events, libraries and cultural houses the next year.
The
Recognition
A well-funded and explosive multiplayer game
Wanting to challenge ourselves, we decided to shake things up again. With You Suck at Parking, we’d created a fun and colourful single-player experience, until Hiro Capital and Sir Ian Livingstone saw the full potential of our game. Thanks to their investment and support – and with an additional year of developing – it could become a thrilling multiplayer experience with a games as a service approach. Set to release in September 2022, Happy Volcano is ready to captivate and connect players all around the globe.
The
Future
Putting a spin on beloved game genres
We can’t reveal what we have in store yet, but you can be sure that our brilliant team is pulling out all the stops for the next Happy Volcano project.
Want to help us develop our next awesome game?