On Tuesday evening, 3 December 2024, the best computer games of the year from Germany, Austria and Switzerland were honoured with the German Developer Award (dt.: Deutscher Entwicklerpreis) in Cologne. Harold Halibut by Cologne-based indie studio Slow Bros. won the prestigious award for “Best Graphics”. The team from Harold Halibut, Harold Halibut’s team, including former CGL student Onat Hekimoglu and and long-time companion and lecturer Ilja Burzev, accepted the award together and celebrated in style!

Harold Halibut is a handmade narrative game about friendship, and life on a city-sized spaceship submerged in an alien ocean. The player joins protagonist Harold as he explores a vibrant retro-future world in his quest to find the true meaning of ‘home’. The game is characterized by its unique stop-motion aesthetics. Every element in Harold Halibut is a tactile and meticulously hand-crafted using traditional sculpting and model-making techniques. The expansive character ensemble, the beautifully recorded voice acting and a riveting cinematic storyline immerse the player deep into the vibrant retro-future world of young lab assistant Harold.

The idea for Harold Halibut was born, while the co-founder of Slow Bros, Onat Hekimoglu, was still studying at Cologne Game Lab. After more members joined the team and the first dollhouse-sized the first dollhouse-sized sets and puppets were made in their own bedrooms at home, they soon secured support from our Cologne Game Incubator and the team was able to move into their first office space.

You can find Harold Halibut on Steam here and everything else you want to know about the game and its production can be found here.