Bounden studio Game Oven plans to shut down in April

Dutch game studio Game Oven will be disbanded in April as its members seek other development ventures, according to a post published today by studio cofounder Adriaan de Jongh.

This is notable because the studio has earned a reputation for developing intriguing, award-winning games during its roughly three and a half years of operation, including the two-player cooperative game Fingle (nominated for a 2012 IGF Nuovo Award) and the dance game Bounden, which is nominated for a Nuovo Award in the upcoming 2015 IGF as well as an Innovation Award at the 2015 Game Developers Choice Awards. 

According to de Jongh's announcement, Game Oven is closing because the studio (comprised of producer Eline Muijres, programmer Bojan Endrovski and de Jongh himself) is "at a point where we are in need of another vision for a beautiful game, but where we don’t have one, and don’t have the financial resources to find one and make one."

Game Oven plans to release its mobile game Jelly Reef in March, then disband the company in April. It will stop selling its Friendstrap game on February 1st, but otherwise plans to continue selling and supporting its catalog of titles for the foreseeable future.