SHADOW TACTICS: BLADES OF THE SHOGUN
Format PC, PS4, Xbox One
Developer Mimimi Games
Publisher Daedalic Entertainment
Origin Germany
Release 2016
When Shadow Tactics: Blades Of The Shogun released on December 6, 2016, it was the culmination not only of two years’ development, but also of a near-lifelong dream for one of its creators, and a project they’d begun joking about almost a decade earlier. It also happened to be the date of the German Game Developer Awards. The Mimimi team travelled from their native Munich to Cologne and that night, Shadow Tactics swept the board.
“We were nominated in lots of categories, and we won almost all of them – four or five trophies,” lead designer Moritz Wagner says. “All that, having this game launch, checking Steam and being number one in global topsellers, being able to drink for free… it was a perfect night.” At least, it was as long as they could ignore the fact that the studio might not make it into 2017. “People had in the back of their minds that basically everybody was terminated, except for a couple of us.”
Mimimi had blown through its financial reserves finishing this game and didn’t have another project lined up. So, while the rest of the team celebrated, studio founder and CEO Johannes Roth was working the room, trying desperately to find the next contract.
If it had all ended that night, it would have at least, an app they made at university – Munich’s Mediadesign Hochschule, a short walk from where the studio is now based – that won them the student prize at Apple’s 2012 Design Awards. “That was the first huge boost we got,” creative director says. “And for that we already had to found a small company.” After setting up that company to release the app, Abé and his team spent the next few years doing contract work and gradually hiring up everyone from their university days, until eventually the time came for Mimimi to make its first full game – , a mascot platformer that resolutely failed to set the world alight.
