Ask Jakub Mikyska of Grip Games what it is that makes his company’s most recent shooter, Tower of Guns, special, and he’ll have no trouble telling you. “Rocket launcher with machine gun modification,” he says gleefully yet matter-of-factly, “combined with fifty double-jumps, secret rooms within secret rooms, hugbots and a weapon that shoots unicorn vomit.”
Everything you need to know about Grip Games is contained in that statement; this is a studio that unapologetically stands for pure, old-fashioned gaming fun – at its heart, just a small group of guys who never forgot the magic of their gaming childhood. Growing up loving games like Unreal Tournament and Counter Strike, they are on a mission to bring back something that, in their eyes, has been lost in gaming today: the pure, skill-testing play experience that comes from a well-crafted game.
Based out of Prague in the Czech Republic, Grip was formed by Jakub and his friend Jan Cabuk with the original goal of developing games for consoles. “[We] started the company in 2009,” explains Jakub, “after spending nearly ten years making games for mobile devices. We started with PlayStation Portable games and slowly worked our way to PS3, PS Vita, Xbox 360, Steam, mobile, PS4 and Xbox One.”
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“We realized that we were not that good at actually making games; the bad review scores where definitely a telltale sign. But we are very good at releasing these games for many different platforms.”
However, they quickly realized – with the help of player feedback – that their talents lay in publishing rather than developing. Jakub, with characteristic honesty, doesn’t try to sugarcoat the story. “Sometime during that process, we realized that we were not that good at actually making games; the bad review scores where definitely a telltale sign,” he admits. “But we are very good at releasing these games for many different platforms. So we started working with some incredibly talented studios and people out there, who had cool games, but little knowledge of how to bring them to consoles. And that is where we are now.”
And while they no longer develop games of their own, they do bring their talent for being able to spot unique, fresh games with a striking visual style. Visual flair, in particular, is something I noticed when I reviewed Grip’s two recent titles, Tower of Guns and Unmechanical. In Unmechanical, a haunting, subterranean setting brings a claustrophobic, foreboding atmosphere, accentuated by sparse lighting and muted color. Tower of Guns’ rough, polygon models and vast interior levels hearken back to Doom-style PC shooters. Given the fact that the visual element seems to be so prominent in Grip’s games, I ask Jakub if this was a conscious area of focus for the team.
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“The way a game looks always tells you something about it. Look at Tower of Guns and you immediately know that is it going to be a bit crazy and a lot of fun.”
“We are not the authors of either Unmechanical or Tower of Guns, so I don’t want to usurp those visual accomplishments,” he is quick to point out. “But if I look at it from the perspective of why these games got our attention enough to actually wanting to bring them to consoles, then yeah, visuals are among the top qualities. Perhaps even the most important quality. The way a game looks always tells you something about it. Look at Tower of Guns and you immediately know that is it going to be a bit crazy and a lot of fun. Unmechanical is going to be immersive, mysterious and dark. So, yeah, visuals are very important – though, graphics is not.”
The developer of Tower of Guns, Terrible Posture Games, is a good example of the success that Grip has had in using their ability to spot cool-looking new games and bring them to a wider audience. Behind the title, Terrible Posture Games is really just one person – Joe Mirabello, based in Boston. Seeing the potential of his PC game, Jakub and the Grip team used their talents and experience to help Joe get through the often-tough slog of getting a game translated from the PC platform to consoles. “Self-publishing Tower of Guns worked pretty well for me on PC, and I certainly investigated doing the console ports myself,” recalls Joe. “But … I’m an indie developer because I like to make games and create new things, not because I want to spend time trying to adjust a game to run on a new platform. Working with Grip allowed me to focus on the stuff I enjoy doing.”
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“[Hopefully players will say] ‘I want to send these guys all my money, then go to Twitter and praise them and then I will adopt a lonely puppy.’”
It is that kind of symbiotic relationship that drives Grip’s continued success. With a stable of independent developers, Jakub, Jan and the team look to be one of the gaming world’s most promising small publishers. They are set to release Q.U.B.E.: Director’s Cut, a first-person puzzler, later this summer on the PS3 and PS4. Developed by Toxic Games, Q.U.B.E. is another visually-stunning title, with gorgeous graphics provided by the Unreal Engine at 1080p. It has a very Portal-like vibe to it, and what I have seen of it so far looks very intriguing. As for 2016 and beyond, Jakub is excited but is careful not to tell me too much. He only hints that “we have a pretty nice portfolio of games lined up for 2016 that I cannot tell you absolutely nothing about right now.”
Whatever the future holds for Grip Games, I got the impression that these guys won’t ever lose sight of the simple motivations that brought them into game publishing in the first place. When they talk about their games, you hear the same appreciation for simple, fun gameplay that they felt all those years ago playing as kids. I end our conversation by asking Jakub what he wants players of Grip’s games to come away thinking, and he is as mercurial as ever. “[Hopefully players will say] ‘I want to send these guys all my money, then go to Twitter and praise them and then I will adopt a lonely puppy.’ And if not that, then at least ‘I had a really good time while playing their games. They put a lot of time, effort and mental health into this, so it was 15 dollars well spent!'”