This is the headline in Norway’s largest business paper today. The article notes that Festival of Magic was the big winner in the latest round of the Norwegian Film Institute’s grant program. This is the second round of funding Snow Castle has received for the Festival of Magic project from the Institute and brings the game a big step closer to release.

A great week at Snow Castle as we received word of the grant yesterday! With the new round of funding secured, we are moving firmly into production.

”We believe Snow Castle again will make a great game that both gamers and reviewers will enjoy,” says Kaja Hench Dyrlie, head of the Film Institute’s game section. Of course we couldn’t agree more. Now we are looking forward to GDC and the opportunity to show Festival of Magic there. Do drop by us at stand number 1432 so we can show you what it looks like.

We will also be at the Nordic Game Conference in May, so if you want to meet up with us there, give us a holler!

In other news, we also released a new and extended version of Hogworld as a free-to-play app this week. Initially it includes English, Spanish and German. We hope to add more languages soon. It looks gorgeous, especially on the iPad, so if you have one you need to download it right away!

The updated Project FoM poster picturing the original main characters and the two opposing worlds. Although a lot of things will change and evolve as we get into production, this illustration was the starting point for our little universe.

Hogworld: Gnart’s Adventure takes on the big guns in this year’s Nordic Game Awards.

Exciting times! Gnart’s Adventure is nominated for Best Nordic Children’s Game and Best Artistic Achievement, up against incredible titles such as Minecraft and Battlefield 3.