Small Giant Games is a new Finnish game startup, and today it is releasing its first game, Empires & Puzzles: RPG Quest.
The title from the Helsinki company is an online role-playing game that is designed to be accessible to a wide audience. It comes from a startup formed by the creators of Habbo Hotel.
The social-mobile game is launching on both iOS and Android mobile devices. Empires & Puzzles is designed from the ground up to offer the most rewarding puzzle RPG experience yet seen on mobile devices, the company said.
Players new to the genre can start by battling their way through an epic story, one puzzle at a time. More experienced players can engage in fast-paced online battles and cooperative Titan battles.
All battles and quests provide the player with resources that can be used to build and upgrade a mighty mountaintop fortress. The game features gorgeous art and hundreds of heroes to collect and upgrade.
Timo Soininen, the CEO at Small Giant Games, said in a statement, “We started with a clear vision that we want to create something that’s super easy to pick up and play, but that also surprises the players with unforeseen depth and a fresh take on familiar elements. We’re already seeing strong indications that we succeeded in this goal and are extremely excited to continue the journey with our community. The game turned out even better than we hoped for – we’ve already seen how the game really thrills many kinds of players.”
Empires & Puzzles is a combination of match-3 battling with a tactical twist, base-building, and hero-collecting. Players can match the shields on the battlefield to send forth their troops. Each hero has their own powerful special attacks that play a key role in winning the battles. Players can also participate in player-versus-player battles or create alliances with other players in a co-op gameplay mode.
Small Giant Games has 13 employees, including those who previously worked at Habbo’s maker, Sulake, and Remedy Entertainment, two of Finland’s oldest game companies.
Soininen previously built Sulake and Habbo Hotel from a tiny startup to a large-scale international company with 300 employees and 350 million downloads.
He is joined by chief product officer Otto Nieminen, formerly of Sulake; Markus Halttunen, the chief technology officer and a seasoned online multiplayer game veteran; Ilkka-Kristian Juopperi and Tommi Vallisto, two seasoned graphic designers; and senior game designer Tim Lönnqvist.