We celebrate our seventh anniversary as a studio this month, and we've enjoyed a bit of fanfare around the milestone. Here's a roundup of Brunette Games in the news as we reflect on how far we've come.

Cover This

Our team landed on the cover of the Community News, a newspaper that itself has been in business more than a hundred years. As reporter Wendy Todd points out in her lede, while women make up 46 percent of video-game players, they represent only 16 percent of executives in the industry. So our founder's place in the industry was not without its hard-won aspects, though Lisa Brunette herself cites Brunette Games' status as a small business as her number one challenge: "Increasingly, the world is built to work against us, with rules and regulations often favoring large corporations at the expense of mom-and-pop shops like Brunette Games."

Fun Fact: Community News is Brunette Games team member Sara Hardin's former employer; she penned stories on beekeepers and veterans for this well-loved paper before joining us as a writer/designer.

In the Pocket

Our story was picked up by PocketGamer.biz, which highlighted Brunette Games' status as a niche storytelling studio, a key aspect of our success: 

For a diverse, female-led studio like Brunette Games, this anniversary will not only be an achievement in itself but also symbolic of how a specialist studio can maintain its place in the mobile gaming industry. While many may think that a studio has to be all things at once, being able to focus on providing critical narrative support has helped their games consistently chart across top 20s.

We couldn't agree more.

Stairs to the Top

CEO Lisa Brunette was a guest on the GameDevStairs Podcast, a free philanthropic community whose mission is to help people start their careers in game development. They outreach especially to those affected by the current war in Ukraine, connecting 2000+ subscribers in their Telegram channel from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and elsewhere. Here's the hourlong interview with Sergey Gres of GameDevStairs:

It was an honor for us to help out GameDevStairs, which offers such an important service to the game community.

The 7-Year Itch

It's said in US culture that a relationship can suffer from the "seven-year itch," as the couple might feel tempted to stray from their mission together when they cross that milestone. As  for us, we're fully committed to our focus on great game storytelling. We added voice acting to our suite of offerings back in 2019, and we're exploring some new services you might see on our menu in the year ahead. We're very proud of our accomplishments, which include:

• We have credits for the narrative in 36 games, many of them top-performing, genre-defining hits, including Merge Mansion, Lily's Garden, and Matchington Mansion. Our clients' games consistently rank in the top 20 in the app store charts and are played by billions.
• Our expertise spans casual mobile genres: hidden object, match-3, slots, merge, jigsaw, and others. We also have extensive experience on deep interactive novels with branching dialogue, including the first mystery novel published in the Choices app. We've recently expanded into subscription-based games as well, with Netflix and Apple projects currently underway, and we've worked on some mid-core projects, including one NFT/blockchain title.
• Our clients include large, well-established studios such as Jam City and Metacore, as well as talented up-and-comers like Trollgames and ZiMAD. We've worked on some of the best IPs in the world: M&M'S, Family Guy, Disney Frozen.

We've weathered incredible change over our seven years in business, and we've witnessed great creativity and innovation in our clients' projects as well. We look forward to what lies ahead. Here's to another seven years!

We're really excited to see the soft launch of a project we've been working on for the past year with Helsinki-based studio Kuuhubb, as it continues our march at the forefront of the visual novel genre. This will be our studio's fifth visual - or "interactive" - novel and the third mobile novel app project we've helped bring to market. 

Here's the official press release:

TORONTO, March 19, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Kuuhubb Inc. (“Kuuhubb” or the “Company”) (TSX- V: KUU), a mobile game development and publishing company targeting the female audience with bespoke mobile experiences, is pleased to announce the successful soft launch of its newest game, “Tiles & Tales”. The new mobile game app will be a unique combination of two very popular genres within the female gaming community; match-3 and visual novels.

Jouni Keränen, CEO of Kuuhubb commented, "Tiles and Tales is our flagship second-generation game and Kuuhubb’s key focus in calendar year 2020. I am extremely proud of our talented development team for all the dedication, hard work and love they have poured into the game. I am confident that this is the beginning of a new long-term franchise and a important growth driver for Kuuhubb in the future”.

A photo accompanying this announcement is available athttps://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/2740ee3d-946b-4384-828b-b0ab168a7475

Match-3, or tile-matching games are a multi-billion-dollar market and are the most popular genre with female gamers by a significant margin, with some titles generating USD 25-50M in monthly revenue. According to HubSpot, 69% of match-3 players are women. The growing match-3 market is estimated to generate over USD 5B annually and of 20 games that have lifetime revenues exceeding USD 1B, five are match-3’s (Disney Tsum Tsum, Candy Crush Saga, Puzzle & Dragons, Gardenscapes and Homescapes) (Source: Sensor Tower). Recent consolidation within the match-3 segment has seen Playtika and Zynga acquire the Helsinki-based Seriously Digital Entertainment Oy and Small Giant Games Oy for ~USD 275M and ~USD 650M, respectively.

Where puzzles and stories meet - a unique combination

Tiles & Tales is the first game in the market to merge match-3 games and interactive visual novels. While the audiences of these two genres have traditionally been considered separate, market research conducted for Kuuhubb  showed considerable overlap among players, making this game ideal for specifically catering to both groups in addition to holding significant cross-over appeal.  The unique match-3 and visual novels combination has the potential to enhance the respective audience sizes and enables fans of one type of gaming to broaden their horizons by introducing them to another popular genre.

Unique gameplay - wide audience appeal

In addition to the unique genre mash-up, Tiles & Tales introduces new game mechanics that set it apart from other match-3 games: throwing pieces to make matches, rather than simply tapping them, shakes up the traditional gameplay in a way that will get even the most experienced puzzle enthusiasts excited.

From solving a murder to enjoying a romantic vacation, a wide variety of genres and art styles ensures that there is something that will appeal to every player. The well-stocked library has plenty more stories and adventures to come. One of the stories available was written by award-winning author Lisa Brunette, who has contributed to other major story-based games such as Choices and Matchington Mansion, among many others. Brunette is also the founder of a leading narrative design studio, Brunette Games.

Tiles & Tales is the latest example of Finland’s game industry innovation and is the first game developed entirely in Kuuhubb’s Helsinki Game Studio using an in-house developed match-3 engine. The Company is focused on the expansion and diversification of its product portfolio through the creation of its second-generation games, and anticipates that the Kuuhubb game engine will significantly reduce the resources and time required to bring new titles to market.

Availability

Tiles & Tales is currently in soft launch and available for both iOS and Android devices in the following countries: Finland, Croatia, the Netherlands, Philippines and Australia. Global commercial launch is anticipated for H2 2020.

Download Tiles & Tales:  https://linktr.ee/tilesandtales
Tiles and Tales on Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/tilesntales/
Tiles and Tales on Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/tilesandtales/

About Kuuhubb
Kuuhubb is a publicly listed mobile game development and publishing company, targeting the female audience with bespoke mobile experiences. Our Mission is to become a top player in the female mobile game space. We believe in empowering women by creating games and apps that will have our female audience relax, express and entertain themselves every day. Through our games and partnerships with select developers, we explore new lifestyle trends that can be converted into games and apps which will bring value to our users, employees, and shareholders. Headquartered in Helsinki, Finland, Kuuhubb has a global presence with a strong focus on U.S. and Asian markets.

Cautionary Note Concerning Forward-Looking Information

This press release contains forward-looking information. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, that address activities, events or developments that the Company believes, expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future (including, without limitation, statements relating to future revenue and development, growth of the Company’s business and the closing of the Proposed Financing) are forward-looking information. This forward-looking information reflects the current expectations or beliefs of the Company based on information currently available to the Company. Forward-looking information is subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that may cause the actual results of the Company to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking information, and even if such actual results are realized or substantially realized, there can be no assurance that they will have the expected consequences to, or effects on the Company. Factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from current expectations include, among other things, risks related to the growth strategy of the Company, the possibility that results from the Company’s growth plans will not be consistent with the Company's expectations, failure to execute the definitive documentation in respect of, or complete, the Proposed Financing, the need to satisfy conditions precedent with respect to the Proposed Financing, the possibility that the completion of the Proposed Financing may be delayed or that the terms of the Proposed Financing may change, the early stage of the Company's development, competition from companies in a number of industries, the ability of the Company to manage expansion and integrate acquisitions into its business, future business development of the Company and the other risks disclosed under the heading "Risk Factors" in the Company's annual information form dated November 7, 2018 filed on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Forward-looking information speaks only as of the date on which it is provided and, except as may be required by applicable securities laws, the Company disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise. Although the Company believes that the assumptions inherent in the forward-looking information are reasonable, forward- looking information is not a guarantee of future performance and accordingly undue reliance should not be put on such information due to the inherent uncertainty therein.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

For further information, please contact:

Kuuhubb Inc.
Jouni Keränen - CEO
[email protected]
Office: +358 40 590 0919

Bill Mitoulas
Investor Relations
[email protected]
Office:  +1 (416) 479-9547