Why we invested in RiffRaff Games
We’re excited to announce another addition to our gaming portfolio - Wellington-based RiffRaff Games! We’re happy to be co-investing alongside NZGCP & joining existing investors, Tencent!
Introduction
We first met Josh earlier this year when he told us more about RIffRaff & his plans to create a generational studio developing generational games. What stuck out to us is first him but also the incredible team and things RiffRaff has achieved thus far with their past and future games.
RiffRaff’s newest title, Codenamed “Smoke”, is a one-of-a-kind game that we are very excited to play. As the title is still under wraps (and, more importantly, under NDA), we cannot share much about it right now! For that reason, this article is suitably brief, but make sure you give RiffRaff a follow to keep updated on our future announcements.
The Team
RiffRaff is led by Joshua Boggs, a multi-award-winning game designer who was behind the innovative game series “Framed” & “Framed 2”, a noir puzzle game where you re-arrange panels of a comic book to change the outcome of the story. You can see the original trailer below:
Legendary Stealth-game designer Hideo Kojima also had lovely words to say about Framed back in 2014:
The RiffRaff Crew consists of some truly exceptional individuals who have worked on some of the most important games in the last decade and beyond, including:
Arkane Studios, creators of the The Dishonoured series (Rob's top ten game series of all time!)
Sony Santa Monica (creators of the God of War series - another one of Rob's top ten game anthologies!)
A44 Games (look out for Flintlock next year!).
Magic Leap
New Zealand games industry shining star - PikPok Games
...and many others!
The talent that Josh and the team have brought together is world-class, and we can't wait to showcase to you a little taste of their work at the end of this year.
Why we are believers
Making games is bloody hard. Making a game that people play is even harder. Making a game people play for hours on end, want to watch the TV series and make bucketloads of money to fund our next title is a hefty task.
While we can't say too much about Project Smoke just yet, all we can say is that it has a perfect storm of features and inputs that we think will drive gamers wild:
A unique art style that our audience will want to spend inordinate amounts of time capturing and creating in-game art.
Unique gameplay mechanics that bring together two of the most in-demand mechanics in gaming today.
A story and characters that will suck players into a highly engrossing and rich world that they will want to explore many times after their first play-through.
Josh & the RiffRaff team have proved that they have made games that people play and love. This experience and rigour is a trait we look for in any entrepreneur that we back, whether in video games, artificial intelligence or any other vertical.
Stay Tuned for More
Whilst RiffRaff’s first game is under wraps, we'll be sure to share updates with the community once they’re ready. Gaming has never looked more promising, and we can't wait to see what RiffRaff Games has in store for us.
Stay tuned for the latest in gaming and NZ tech right here: