Rocket Adrift wins Ubisoft Indie Series Grand Prize
On Thursday, queer game development studio Rocket Adrift (Order a Pizza, Raptor Boyfriend) won the Ubisoft Indie Series Grand Prize. The Ubisoft Indie Series is a yearly competition put on by the publisher/developer to “help local studios and their games reach new heights.”
“Thanks so much!! This means the world to us 🤗,” Rocket Adrift tweeted in response to the news of their big win.
This competition is a Canadian initiative and is part of the Ubisoft Entrepreneur’s program, which “supports the growth of local entrepreneurs in the technology and entertainment industries with mentorship, expertise, grants and funding.” The Ubisoft Indie Series invites 10 local studios to pitch their games to a jury of Ubisoft and National Bank experts. Eligible games are starting their production phase and are “original, show great creative vision, possess great potential for success, and are created by studios that value diversity in their game and/or teams.” Grand Prize winners receive $50,000 towards the development of their pitched project.
Rocket Adrift is a Toronto-based studio comprised of three members: Sloane Smith, Lindsay Rollins and Titus McNally. Their mission as a studio is “to tell personal narratives that highlight the perspectives of LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC experiences while also showcasing an outsider lens to Canadian culture.”
“We aim to emotionally enrich underrepresented players through gameplay and storytelling, and endear others to the struggles of our diverse characters with humor and unflinching honesty. By 2025 the studio will be contributing to the conversation of diversifying perspectives in the industry through it’s projects as well as provide fulfilling positions for BIPOC & LGBTQIA+ at our studio.”
So far, Rocket Adrift have put out two video games, visual novels Order a Pizza and Raptor Boyfriend: A High School Romance, and have announced their next project, Psychroma — a narrative side-scroller where you play as a digital medium. They also host a cyberpunk actual play podcast called Dark Future Dice.
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