Developer Profile: Kenzan Studios

Kenzan Studios, based in Geneva, Switzerland, was founded in 2006 by Pascal Conicella. Having begun as a company the developed showcase materials for retail environments, the studio has since grown to encompass a number of different technologies. The latest of which is virtual reality (VR), including the recently revealed Kenzan Arena franchise.

The Fantastic Journeys of Teo & Leonie logo

Backed by the success of the hugely popular Teo and Leonie franchise, Kenzan Studios’ prototypes for augmented reality (AR) and VR technologies and experiences lead to two investment rounds in 2016, totalling $9.87m USD. The company now employees more than 40 professionals across its two locations, ranging from creative directors and developers to visual artists and animators.

Kenzan Studios was awarded a grant from Epic Games for “outstanding work”, and featured at SIGGRAPH 2015, the Hollywood Summit 2016 and Silicon Valley Virtual Reality (SVVR) Conference & Expo 2017. The company’s latest project, Kenzan Arena, will feature as part of Coop’s 2017 Virtual Reality Roadshow.

The aforementioned Teo and Leonie franchise has already benefited from AR experiences, with more content on the horizon. The recently announced Kenzan Arena franchise will bring large-scale multiplayer VR to consumers across the globe, which has already begun with installations in Coop venues across Switzerland.

Kenzan Studios currently has a number of VR projects in development, including Holiday Break VR, Starpirates VR, EnigmAttic VR and The Lost Pit. You can find out more about these projects and the company’s VR ambitions in the links below.

The Fantastic Voyages of Teo and Leonie and Alice VR Awarded Unreal Dev Grants

Today Epic Games has revealed the latest recipients of its Unreal Dev Grant scheme with two virtual reality (VR) titles included. These are Carbon Studio’s Alice VR and Kenzan Studios’ The Fantastic Voyages of Teo and Leonie.

Alice VR is a sci-fi adventure videogame that takes place in the farthest reaches of space, where a malfunction prompts the ship’s AI to wake players from cryosleep and forces an emergency landing on a foreign planet called Speculo. The colony on this planet mines a vital resource for interstellar travel and so players must head to the nearest city of Mirabilis in search of fuel, only to find that all of the inhabitants have mysteriously disappeared.

Inspired by Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, Alice VR will launch on 27th, October 2016, with support for Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and OSVR.

AliceVR_Screen (3)

While The Fantastic Voyages of Teo and Leonie is a TV series that’s been designed from the ground up to be a transmedia product, combining both traditional animation and real-time rendering with Unreal Engine 4. The series follows two young children from the early 20th century who suddenly find themselves in the middle of the Renaissance. Here they find Leonardo da Vinci who takes them under his wing and tries to get them home. Kenzan Studios plans on releasing the series across smartphones, TV, consoles and VR headsets.

The other titles included in this latest round of grants are: Conarium by Zoetrope Interactive, The Watchmaker by Micropsia Games, Lost Soul Aside from Yang Bing and The Dice is Cast by Studio NextStage.

The six recipients have been awarded a total of $160,000 USD from Epic Games’ $5 million initiative. VRFocus will continue its coverage of the Unreal Dev Grants, reporting back with any further VR winners.