Games are often defined as a series of interesting choices and decisions. Running a game studio is not all that different. The past year has been one of many interesting decisions, but mostly of great results. The end of the year is a great time to look back at what has been done, and to look forward to what the next year could bring.

Over the years, LuGus Studios has built up a reputation as a simulator developer, and we certainly honored that reputation in 2021 once more. Nonetheless, we set out to show we’re not just a one trick pony, and expanded our repertoire of the “brrrr” and “whoosh” of virtual drones with a very satisfying “clickety clack”.

Surely, after six years of Liftoff development, the project must be nearing its end… and yet in 2021 we welcomed 100 000 new drone pilots to our virtual skies, a 25% increase over 2020, our previous best year. That’s not even counting the thousands of new pilots in our newly released Liftoff: Micro Drones, the next drone sim in what is becoming a successful (and now also trademarked) brand. It feels like our Liftoff adventure has far from reached its maximum altitude and we already have exciting things in the works for 2022.

While drones are flown with RC Transmitters, we’ve also done a lot of button mashing this year. We teamed up with former colleague and game design genius Sam Agten to bring you a story-driven command-line hacking RPG, a series of words that might just describe the polar opposite of everything our Liftoff franchise stands for. Midnight Protocol has been an absolute passion project for us to make, and we’re excited to see it's also been a passion project for many to play. The game allowed us to experiment with cool turn-based tactical gameplay, deep storytelling, RPG mechanics, and interesting input systems. Most of all: it made us feel like real bad-ass hackers. The Verge called it “one of the best iterations of the cyberpunk formula: mechanically elegant, narratively economical, and crafted with care”, that's one of the best compliments any dev could wish for. 

As you know, it’s not all about our own IPs at LuGus Studios. Working at LuGus Studios means we get to work with some of our favorite companies, organizations and researchers. We’ve had the honor to work on the game-changing VR experiences SnoezelVR, using game technology to aid in the care of people with intellectual disabilities. In addition we’ve been working on educational VR tools for and have remained involved with the international CHARMING research project. As always, a big “thank you” goes to Flemish Audiovisual Fund, the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation Horizon 2020, and most of all to our dedicated players that enable these crazy shenanigans called “game development”.

If we had to define LuGus Studios in 2021 in one sentence, we’d say “it was a series of interesting successes”, and we are grateful that your enthusiasm and support has made that possible. Thank you!

Enjoy the celebrations! We wish you all the best and can’t wait to show what we have in store for 2022!