[March 12, 2018]

The Top 10 Finalists for The Label's Indie Showdown Contest Are Revealed

Today The Label announces the top 10 finalists for its annual GDC Indie Showdown contest, featuring the world's top indie game making talent. The winner will take home the grand prize of $12,500, with additional cash prizes, trophies and bragging rights up for grabs by the runner-ups. In addition, select finalists will have the opportunity to showcase their work at the San Francisco Game Developers Conference and discuss a future publishing deal. The three winners will be announced at The Label's GDC Party on March 19, 2018 in San Francisco.

The Indie Showdown has funded and brought to life multiple breakout hits including last year's winners: Mushroom 11 by Untame, Old Man's Journey by Broken Rules, and Bring You Home by Alike Studios.

Standing out from a large pool of submissions, the games that made the cut demonstrated quality craftsmanship including exceptional mobile design, technical, and audio visual elements as well as a high engagement factor. Experts on the judges' panel includes last year's winner, Itay Keren of Untame, Dave Brevik, Diablo co-creator, Eli Hodapp, Editor of Touch Arcade, Kelly Wallick, founder of Indie Megabooth, and Greg Essig with The Label.

"The top 10 indie game makers have presented original and entertaining content that we can't wait to highlight at the annual Game Developers Conference," said Greg Essig, Head of Artists and Repertoire (A&R) at The Label. "Based on this year's Indie Showdown contest submissions, it looks like 2018 is going to be an exceptional year for mobile game development."

The 2018 Indie Showdown finalists include:

1. Tiny Bubbles, iOS from Pine Street Codeworks, Seattle, Washington

Tiny Bubbles is a real-time, physics-based match game utilizing the properties of squishy, amorphous, and notoriously hard to create bubbles. Inspired by his grandfather's career as a physicist and research into the nature of soap bubbles, this game is the passion project of creator Stuart Denman's and his four-person studio, located in Mercer Island off the coast of Seattle.

2. Supertype, iOS from Kamibox, Frankfurt, Germany

Supertype is a unique crossover between a physics puzzler and a word game from Kamibox, a two-time Indie Showdown finalist. In Supertype, players type out a series of letters that are dropped into a maze, with the objective of anticipating how the letters will physically interact with the maze and each other as they collide.

Kamibox is a one person studio in Frankfurt founded by Philipp Stollenmayer, who has a portfolio of more than 20 self-developed titles.

3. Spitkiss, iOS from Triple Topping, Copenhagen

Spitkiss, the inaugural game from Tripple Topping, is a trippy story of boundless love, told throug precision platforming. You play as the couple Y27 and B4, sending messages of love and hope back and forth the only way you can: precisely navigating by spitting through platforming stages. Spitkiss is the inaugural game from Tripple Topping based in Copenhagen.

4. Quest Hunter, iOS from 2 Zombie Games, Cyprus

Quest Hunter is a story-driven, nonlinear action RPG from 2 Zombie Games. Available on Steam and the Mac/Windows stores, Quest Hunter has been recognized for its emphasis on co-op, character development, and quest design. 2 Zombie Games in Cyprus is best known for Dead Route with more than 6 million downloads.

5. G30, iOS from Ivan Kovalov, Ukraine

G30 tells the story of a man with dementia as his personality and understanding of reality are stripped. Told through a combination of telescopic text and graphical puzzles, the player navigates an ever-shifting narrative through disjointed fragments of memories. The award-winning G30 is Ivan Kovalov's first game.

6. Squares, iOS from Leap Game Studios, Lima, Peru

Squares is a minimalist puzzle reflex game originally conceived for the 2012 Global Game Jam; it launched in 2015 on PS Vita and is coming soon to iOS. The game mechanics are simple -- tap the blue squares as quickly as possible before time runs out. Leap Game Studios is a small studio based in Lima, Peru that was founded in 2012.

7. Photographs, iOS from EightyEight Games

Photographs is five puzzle games in one with a cohesive narrative. The five distinct stories are set in five different times and locations featuring with different gameplay mechanics in each section. The dioramas, the photographs, the sound, the voices, and the puzzles, come together to create a cohesive narrative experience that tells that specific story.

EightyEight Games consists of award-winning game designer, Luca Redwood (You Must Build a Boat, 10,000,000, Smarter than You), artist Pixelshuh (Thimbleweed Park), and composer Ben Prunty (FTL, Into the Breach, Gravity Ghost, Dead Secret)

8. Lydia, Android (News - Alert) Hockeyapp from Platonic Partnership, Ostrobothnia, Finland

The adventure game, Lydia, by Finnish adventure game studio Platonic Partnership tackles the difficult subject of alcohol abuse from the perspective of a small child. Presented through beautiful hand-drawn atmospheric art, Lydia is an emotional journey that will appeal to all. Lydia is Platonic Partnership's first game.

9. Collapsus, Android Hockeyapp from Wraith Games, Hamilton, OH

Collapsus is an award-winning puzzle game centered around gravity manipulation, spatial reasoning, and resource management. Described as a "reverse Tetris," Collapsus players must click on blocks to permanently destroy them in order to make columns or rows of 4 or more blocks. Wraith Games was founded in Ohio in 2005 by a close team of talented game developers with a common passion for excellence, love of gaming, and razor-sharp focus on accessibility options for the differently abled.

10. BalanCity, Android Hockeyapp from Giant Monkey Robot, Santiago, Chile and Woodside, California

BalanCity is a balance physics game with city building. It's a mixture between old school SimCity and Jenga. You must build the tallest towering city over a balancing platform while keeping your citizens happy. BalanCity was released on Steam in 2016 and is coming to Android for the first time. Giant Monkey Robot is a Chilean game developer with over 25 published titles across a variety of platforms.

The Label is partnering not only with the best indie developers such as Ed McMillen, creator of Super Meat Boy and Binding of Isaac, Mark Rubin, lead of Call of Duty, Asher Vollmer, creator of THREES! and Will Stallwood / Dain Saint, creator of Tailwind, but also with the best indie developers yet to be discovered, achieved through the Indie Showdown Contest.

About The Label

The Label was founded to curate and publish epic indie games and content. Working with top-tier developers to cultivate original, mobile-exclusive, premium content, The Label will establish an outlet that provides the best creators in the world with the freedom to explore their visions without worry of marketability by covering 110% of development costs and help players who care about quality and innovation find games to play on their phones. This may sound like an insane mission, but we believe by laying a foundation of unprecedented and uncompromising games on mobile, we will create the base to build a new, innovative distribution and business model.

To find additional information on The Label check out www.thelabel.game or follow @THELABELGAMES on Twitter (News - Alert).

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180312005397/en/

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