Last week the mimimi game “Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew” won the German Developer Awards Best Game of the Year 2023. It also won Best Audio Design and Best Graphics. It is actually the ultimate going out with a bang moment for the mimimi team as they chose to disband, relax and take stock before any new ventures rise phoenix like from the fire.
We’ve had a long history working with the mimimi team, providing English script wrangling, VO casting, directing, recording and post for their Shadow Tactics games and their Desperados III. For Shadow Gambit, we took care of both the English and the German recordings. So one one level we are over the moon that the game took these crowns as it’s nice being a cog in the creative wheel, but the flip side is we have loved our role. Mimimi’s quality was embedded in their culture. They were a happy and uncompromising developer that were doing what they loved with passionate dedication and care and they were an utter joy to work with so seeing them disband is truly a heart rending.
But one thing is always true in the games industry is that good people don’t stay down for long. This week we heard the news that another of our favourite teams closed their doors: Free Radical Design. Steve Ellis, Karl Hilton, Graeme Norgate, and David Doak took us on back in 2,000 for Timesplitters 2 and for the follow up Timesplitters: Future Perfect – Both the gameplay and Future Perfect cutscenes, are testament to the creative awesomeness of the team. Just compare what the guys did then, with the tech they had, with the stuff done today and you’ll see how the power of great writing, performance and animation wins over fidelity. It may be RIP for both FRD and mimimi but one thing is for sure. Good things will follow.