Hamburg-based indie studio Mooneye Studios wowed indie fans and the games industry with their exploration adventure game "Lost Ember". After successfully releasing the game and receiving numerous awards and recognition, they are now launching their publishing label "Mooneye Indies". 
The label aims at narrative-focused indie games. The first game Haven Park is already scheduled for this coming August. 

Mooneye Studios CEO Tobias Graff tells us more about their new label and their plans: 

You have gained a lot of positive attention for your adventure game Lost Ember and have received awards and recognition nationally and internationally. How did you decide to start as a publisher as well? 

That idea grew kind of naturally and started quite early after our Kickstarter. Back then we were contacted by a lot of indie developers and student groups and asked for advice on marketing or just development in general. We were always happy to help, but of course we were still way too busy with Lost Ember to actually spend much time on that. But the idea was born. In the last couple of months, after we successfully released Lost Ember and were finally able to think about something other than wolves and wombats, we started to talk about that again and reached out to developers to see if anyone would even be interested. And luckily they were, so here we are!

What do you want to focus on as a publisher, and why?

We want to focus on narrative and wholesome smaller games. We think those kinds of games fit quite nicely to our current community, so we can build upon our existing reputation. Also, we just absolutely love working with this community. I know there’s probably a lot of developers out there who claim this, but we absolutely have the best community we could have wished for and received so much support and kind words from them, that we just couldn’t bear the thought of not having anything new for them for years to come.
We think that these wholesome or just emotional little games often get overlooked despite being absolutely wonderful and the developers putting so much love into them, so we think it’s more than worth it to support those games with everything we can.

What do you think makes a good indie game these days?

I don’t think there’s one formula for a good game, indie or otherwise. But in our experience, it always went a long way just including the community in the process. That of course takes a lot of time and effort, so it’s not always possible, but we received a lot of positive reactions for things like a development blog or short update videos. For the game itself, I would say it’s always best to try and find the essence of your game and concentrate on that. Don’t try and do everything, instead just try and do your thing great.

What tips would you like to give to aspiring developers who want to get their game published (with you)?

I can’t speak for other publishers, but we always like to see that developers have actually thought about their audience or just about why they have added certain features. A clear understanding of what your game is supposed to be (and what it isn’t) is always a great indication or whether the final game will have a coherent tone. So if you were preparing a pitch, it’s obviously important to showcase your game and its features, but we would also be asking ourselves: do we think these people can turn that into a full game? So any info on why you made certain decisions or just about yourself that might convince us that you know what you’re doing would be really appreciated!

Find out more about the upcoming indie game Haven Park: