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CoolGames partners with Snap to bring Hasbro’s Battleship to Snapchat

AMSTERDAM, 30 June, 2021 – CoolGames has released Hasbro’s Battleship Game for Snap Games, Snapchat’s HTML5 gaming platform. Snapchat’s 500 million monthly users can now challenge each other and instantly engage in the naval combat fun of the original Battleship on any mobile device.

Battleship has reached close to four million players since it soft launched on Snap Games two weeks ago. Its retention rate is one of the highest on the platform.

Snap is teaming up with CoolGames as its first partner to integrate their new asynchronous social features like Custom Chat Updates to help games become more social, shareable and retentive experiences. Coming soon, Battleship players will be able to search for and fire at their enemy’s fleet whenever they want, this is true even when their challenger is not online. They will be notified when their opponent fires back.

“We are thrilled to introduce this iconic board game to Snapchatters,” says John Imah, Head of Games and Brand Partnerships at Snap Inc. “As an expert in developing cloud-based HTML5 games, CoolGames perfectly captured what players have cherished for years about Battleship while ensuring it works seamlessly inside the Snapchat platform.”

“Snap Games is growing at an impressive speed, becoming one of the world’s leading game platforms outside the traditional app-stores,” says Laurens Rutten, founder and co-CEO of CoolGames. “Snapchatters have really embraced the idea of seamlessly playing and sharing mobile game experiences with their friends from within their favourite messenger app. We’re delighted to be Snap’s partner of choice and to bring Battleship to their millions of users for the first time.”

The Post App Store Era
People increasingly favour platforms where they can instantly join the games that their friends are playing, without the hassle of downloading it first from a classic app-store.

“Cloud based HTML5 is the technology of choice in gaming for a growing number of next generation platforms from ‘big tech’ players such as Snap,” continues Rutten. “HTML5 has come of age and these companies are reaching massive audiences with it.”

About the Game:
Battleship for Snap Games has been designed with gameplay and animations in mind to specifically appeal to Snap’s Gen Z and Millennial audiences. It is a real-time, turn-based multiplayer game where users can engage in sea battles against their Snapchat friends. Through CoolGames’ matchmaking system, people can challenge random Snapchatters and their friends for battles. Special power-ups such as the Air Raid can be unlocked to help defeat the opponent’s fleet.

Battleship is the second title for Snap Games developed by CoolGames’ in-house studio and is based on cloud-based HTML5 technology. The company launched Storm Skaters for Snapchat in September 2020.

“CoolGames continues to successfully adapt Battleship to work seamlessly in messenger and social platforms, while maintaining the core ‘You sunk my battleship fun’ that people have enjoyed for years”, said Richard Cleveland, Vice President of Digital Gaming at Hasbro. “We are thrilled to be able to bring this classic family favourite game to exciting and fast growing new platforms, like Snap Games.”

➔ Battleship can be launched from within the Snapchat app
➔ A gallery of game images and the trailer can be found here

Amsterdam, October 29, 2020 – People who joined Google’s developer event on 8 October learned about all of Google Assistant’s new platform features. We are delighted Google highlighted our voice assistant game, Guess the Drawing as a successful use case during the event.

People love voice assistants because they make everyday activities like gaming more fun. Google is committed to creating memorable experiences with voice assistants that engage people and they can trust on Google Assistant.

At Google’s event, Niranjan Kumar of Google invited our co-CEO Laurens to talk about the impact of voice on gaming.

In their video interview Laurens predicts voice control will be a common feature in many more game platforms to come. He also explains how the CoolGames team created Guess the Drawing. Check out the full interview below.

We were thrilled when Google chose us to develop voice control games for Google Assistant. Guess the Drawing has been live since July. Horizontal Crosswords launched earlier this month.

People seem to really love the games we made for Google. Google are also enthusiastic. Niranjan says about our partnership, “We love collaborating together and I think that was our goal as well.”

AMSTERDAM, October 8th, 2020 – Google has chosen CoolGames to develop the first voice-controlled crossword game for Google Assistant.

Horizontal Crosswords, a uniquely designed crossword game for Smart Display devices, such as the Google Nest Hub is available today. Games for Smart Display devices take full advantage of the screen in combination with voice and touch controls for instant, easy fun.

With Horizontal Crosswords, puzzle fans can solve fresh crosswords with various difficultly levels, every day. The game lets players say the correct answers or navigate through the words by giving voice commands. When all the horizontal crosswords are correctly resolved, a vertical solution word is revealed.

John Hsu, Product Manager Google Assistant at Google, says, “We are thrilled to bring such a popular puzzle genre into the living rooms, kitchens and bedrooms of the Google Assistant user community.”

CoolGames developed the game in close partnership with Google and Keesing, the largest puzzle and braintainment company in Europe.

Laurens Rutten, founder and co-CEO of CoolGames, comments, “Word games and crosswords have been among the most popular puzzle-genres for more than a century. Played by millions of people every day, via puzzle books, newspapers or mobile apps. It’s a logical step to now also be able to solve a word game by natural spoken language.”

Horizontal Crosswords is now available in English. Other languages will follow soon.

Philip Alberdingk Thijm, CEO of Keesing, reacts, “Keesing aims at following consumers and allowing them to consume our content in the way they want, when they want it. Through this exciting new partnership with CoolGames and Google we take a next step in our digital strategy and offer our fun puzzle content through the new Google Assistant games platform.”

Just this August, CoolGames launched its first voice operated game Guess the Drawing for Google. The game lets players guess what’s being drawn on the screen, as quickly as they can. More voice operated games are planned for the near future.

AMSTERDAM, September 15, 2020 – Today CoolGames globally released Storm Skaters, a real-time 3D multiplayer skater game, available exclusively on the Snap Games platform.

Storm Skaters is a fast-paced action game, letting players skate against each other on a flying hoverboard. The goal is to stay ahead of the approaching storm, while avoiding obstacles and traps left behind by other players. The first player reaching the finish line wins the match.

The game ties into Snapchat’s social ecosystem and enables seamless play with friends, or random players when no friends are available. Storm Skaters can be launched instantly from a conversation within Snapchat, without the need for downloading the game first and get connected through account-linking, as is needed with mobile games from the traditional app-stores. Snapchat found that friends playing together spend more than double the time as when playing with unknown random players.

“Although we have released multi-player games on other platforms before, we’re thrilled that Storm Skaters is our first real-time multi-player game in full 3D and uniquely aimed at Gen-Z, Snapchat’s core audience”, said Laurens Rutten, Founder of CoolGames. “It shows how HTML5 has matured as a cloud technology for games over the last years. We’re already looking at developing more titles for this platform and the Snapchat community.”

Snap’s Head of Games and Entertainment Partnerships John Imah said: “Our focus has always been collaborating with developers to create fun social game experiences our community can play with friends. CoolGames has demonstrated an excellent example of this by developing our newest Snap Game, Storm Skaters. We’re really looking forward to continuing to grow our partnership together.”

Storm Skaters is now available for Snapchat users worldwide and can be started from the game launcher within Snapchat.

AMSTERDAM, August 20, 2020 – It has been ten years since Steve Jobs wrote his now infamous letter to Adobe, announcing that he Flash would never be allowed on the iPhone. Instead, Jobs embraced HTML5 as the open technology of the future.

In his keynote for the White Nights conference, Laurens Rutten, Founder and co-CEO of CoolGames, takes you on a journey of ten years of HTML5 games. Laurens will discuss the main HTML5 distribution channels in the market today, explains what differentiates them and will take a short peek into some of the newest HTML5 game platforms.

AMSTERDAM, July 31st, 2020 – Today CoolGames and Google launched Guess the Drawing, a new voice operated game uniquely designed for Smart Display devices, such as the Google Nest Hub.

Games for Smart Display devices take full advantage of the screen in combination with voice and touch controls for instant, easy fun. Guess the Drawing lets players guess what’s being drawn on the screen, as quickly as they can. They just need to say the correct answer or navigate through the game by giving voice commands.

The game features new drawings every day, in various difficulty levels. With Party mode, multiple players, for example different family members, can compete with each other simultaneously. Laurens Rutten, CEO of CoolGames says: “It has been a great experience working closely together with Google on our first voice operated game! As more and more people will have smart assistants in their living room, kitchen or bedroom, we believe voice operated games will become a natural additional to playing games via other platforms.”

View the official launch-trailer of Guess the Drawing here.

For more examples of games for Smart Display devices, check here.

AMSTERDAM/LONDON, April 29th, 2020 – Amsterdam-based gaming company CoolGames today announces a partnership with Aardman, the UK based multi-award-winning animation studio, to bring various HTML5 games of Shaun the Sheep to casual cloud-based gaming. Production of the first game has already begun and will be available within the foreseeable future.

Robbert Hoogstraten, Head of Business, of CoolGames: “We are proud to bring Shaun the Sheep to our family orientated audience across the world”

Adam Vincent-Garland, Senior Product Development, of Aardman: ” Our global audience is always looking for new and exciting ways to interact with the world’s most famous sheep. We are excited to work with CoolGames to welcome Shaun the Sheep into this fast-growing interactive world.’

AMSTERDAM/MOSCOW, November 22nd, 2019 – Amsterdam-based gaming company CoolGames is launch partner on the OK.ru social platform and brings the game Cookie Connect extra to all members of the platform.

Cookie Connect Extra is connected with the virtual currencies (IAP) of the platform called “OK” These coins can be spent to buy power-ups in the game to help the user to complete a variety of 180 challenging levels. The game is directly playable within the browser, using HTML5 technology. Robbert Hoogstraten, Head of Business of CoolGames: “We are delighted to bring our classic IP “Cookie Connect extra” to the Russian platform OK.ru”

AMSTERDAM/TOKYO, October 22nd, 2019 – Amsterdam-based gaming company CoolGames today announces a partnership with the Japanese company Sanrio to publish various branded games in the coming period.

To celebrate the 45th birthday of the Hello Kitty brand CoolGames launches ‘Hello Kitty Mahjong’ on its global network. The first game release is a 24-level Mahjong game which is directly playable within the browser. The launch marks Sanrio’s first step into cloud-based gaming, using HTML5 technology. Robbert Hoogstraten, Head of Business of CoolGames: “We are honored to work together with such an iconic global brand and proud we can bring this to so many gamers globally”

Samsung US and CoolGames signed a partnership to provide high-quality games across + 100 MLN households in the US via their stock browser. (Samsung) With this cooperation, Samsung joins the growing roster of partners that entrust CoolGames to bring their gaming brands to a mobile audience. The first games releases are; 10×10, Jewel Academy, Daily Sudoku and Classic Solitaire. More games will follow.