What is it like to start your own company right after graduation?
Interview with Transmedia/Game Director Dominik Schön
Dominik Schön recently graduated in Interactive Media, but his diploma project already caused a sensation. Together with his team, he developed the adventure story game A Juggler's Tale during his studies. In the sidescroller, players become part of a puppet theater world and accompany the puppet girl Abby, who wants to free herself from her strings and thus from her fate.
In 2019, the project won the most important prize for video games in Germany: the German Computer Game Award in the category "Young Talent Award Prototype". After graduation, Dominik founded the company Kaleidoscube with his comrades-in-arms and developed the finished game A Juggler's Tale, which was released for PC and consoles and won Kaleidoscube several times the German Developer Award 2021 (Best Story, Best Graphics, Best Game Design).
The Transmedia/Games Director told us what else he plans to do with his company.
Dear Dominik, how did your team decide to found their own company?
It was actually a bit longer ago. We got to know each other through our work on the film Benu. In the process, we realized that the collaboration worked great. When I took my mobility year in 2017, the idea for A Juggler's Tale came up. We then tackled the project together. At the latest when we received the prototype funding from the Medien- und Filmförderung (MFG) in 2018, we knew that we wanted to follow through and bring the game to market. To that end, we officially founded Kaleidoscube last January.
A look behind the scenes: Making of A Juggler's Tale
In addition to the game, you will also market other interactive projects that were created during your studies at Animationsinstitut. For example, the game installation Wonderful World, a kind of digital AR sandbox that reacts to the hand shadows of the players. What is the future direction of your company, will you also launch other installations?
Our focus will be more on atmospheric story games, less on installations. Besides A Juggler's Tale, we have two projects in the pipeline for which we are currently trying to get funding. We'll see how that goes.
You've been developing games since you were a teenager. During your studies you not only created games, but also programmed some tools. Now you have your diploma in Interactive Media in your pocket and there must have been many paths open to you that you could have taken. Why didn't you want to go to the big game companies, but do your own thing?
Sure, there would have been some possibilities. But we thought: If, then now! At Animationsinstitut we had the freedom to realize our own ideas and learned how to organize such projects professionally. We wanted to take this freedom with us and develop it further.
The Kaleidoscube Team: Steffen Oberle, Enzio Probst, Dominik Schön and Elias Kremer
