Witness dev offering grants of up to $20k to indie puzzle designers

The team at Thekla Inc is looking to set designers from underrepresented groups up with grants to complete their own grid-based puzzle games.

The grants, which Thekla says will range from $3,000 to $20,000, are an excellent opportunity for puzzle-minded designers from underrepresented groups to net a bit of funding for their projects, provided those games meet the criteria outlined on the developer’s blog.

Originally, the team planned to dole out as much as $50,000 through the initiative, but a recent assist from RAD Game Tools' Jeff Roberts has since doubled that overall budget to $100,000.

Thekla artist and designer Orsi Spanyol notes that they’re specifically looking for grid-based puzzle games that use unique rules governing object behavior to create interesting gameplay, listing games like Snakebird, Aunt Flora’s Mansion, and a few others as examples of what they’re interested in.

She notes that the theme of the initiative was inspired by Thekla’s own in-development puzzle game, but that any games created using grant money will entirely remain the property of the original developers themselves.

Thekla opened up submissions a few weeks ago, but developers still have until April 23 to submit their application. More details on submission criteria, as well as a non-exhaustive list of what Thekla means by underrepresented developers, can be found on the company’s blog.