Welevel raises $5.7M to revolutionize procedural game development

The Indie WELEVEL development studio has announced today that it raised $ 5.7 million of financing to transfer procedural games.

Bitkraft Ventures led the Munich headquarters tour. In an interview with Gamesbeat, Christian Heimel, CEO of Welvell, said that the investment allows the Development team from Welevel to expand innovative artificial intelligence tools that save the game development and create a dynamic and personal gameplay.

WELEVEL has also announced plans to expand its TWOFOLD development team in the upcoming Sandbox Survival game. The development project began in 2021 using WELEVEL’s internal obstetric models, and is appointed to enter early arrival next year.

Among the additional investors in the BMWK (DLR), Goodwateer and Angel Investors Chris Carvalho (a member of the Board of Directors in Roblox), Daniel Wenand (founder of Shopify), Heiko Hubertz (founder BigPoint), Kun Gao (Cofounder) Crunchyroll), Mario Götze, (ESL founder), and other executives in the game industry.

Heiml said that Welville builds games led by passion, not a liquefy. To compete with giant gaming companies, Welevel is enhancing artificial intelligence to simplify production, without making concessions on quality and creativity.

AI technology in the studio is created about the construction of the world, the behavior of NPC, and the generation of research, through advanced algorithms that make reactions designed for each player. This system allows adaptive stories as the options of the world are in unexpected ways, providing a truly dynamic experience.

“We are a fan of survival games and open sand boxes, but when we searched for a game in those types that match the size of the three huge experiences, we reached the empty-handed. Heiml said:“ triple development-needed a huge amount of resources and budget that both independent games studios do not have usually. ”After I used artificial intelligence in the previous companies, I realized the capabilities that that It has the enabled small emotional teams to produce games. “

He added: “In the past four years, our team has designed the tools and platform of Amnesty International that allows us not only to compete with the Triple -A, but it exceeds it in a living world, breathing. With Bitkraft, we found a partner who shares our passion and vision. Our development process is unique, and with it, we can create our dream game – and many players.”

Welevel’s first game offers a shift to the Sandbox survival type by presenting a living world that responds, develops and challenges players in ways that have not been done before. (Of course, we would like to know how it differs from something like a heaven not a man).

The company said that the game goes beyond traditional resource management systems by creating a dynamic relationship between the player and the environment. NPCs resembles life, remember the context of the procedures within the game, the formation of relationships, and the help of the player’s goals. Other traditional survival systems such as construction and trade are strengthened through obstetrics, giving players more freedom to build the worlds they want.

“Chris brings a unique mixture of serial exits, technical depth, and an exceptional audience,” Jasper Brand, a partner at Bitkraft Ventures, said in a statement. “Although it is a long thing for the emerging studio to deal with triple ambitions in a large type, especially in the early stages of adopting artificial intelligence in games, we believe that the lean teams that rethink the development and break the current restrictions in time and the scope will open the unprecedented and distribution club.”

He added: “Welvele, after creating great technological foundations over a period of 4 years with a handful of developers only, make creative decisions at a quick speed and marginal cost. Their initial model and already operating fun feature features large -scale game systems, high visual polishing, and an experience that can capture players for more than 100 hours.”

In addition to the initial project, the team has plans for the expanded content and aspirations that are created by users to expand other types and settings. The company will be in GDC 2025.

Bitkraft Ventures is the global investment platform for the early stage of games, web3 and overwhelming technology, as the total assets under management reached more than one billion dollars.

Long road and zigzag to Welfel

Heimerl started the company in 2021 in the center of Covid-19. Before this tour, he raised about one million dollars or so. The company has 12 people, and it hopes to grow to 30 this year. But it is rare to find gaming developers in Munich, which she noticed does not have many gaming companies.

“There is nothing crazy happening here,” Heimer said.

He pointed out that Grimllord exists. In response to a question about how he ended up to be a game developer, Hiemel said he was a militant player throughout his life. MMO Ultima played online as a child and said “My career is in school.” He remembers at the age of 13 or 14 that he played a game like “Madman”. But this was the time when I had to pay the computer time around the clock. His parents cost nearly 2000 euros. However, he managed to persuade relatives to give him money so that he could play a few minutes at one time.

“There is no other game for my touch like Ultima Online. This was only this glow. He said,” I can still hear music from the main menu. ”

He managed to avoid addiction to World of Warcraft. He was able to build and sell two of the artificial intelligence companies early. Quickly forward to Covid, Heimerl sold one of his companies. He was sitting at home, doing nothing.

“I was talking to friends and hanging with friends online. They told me that they entered into buying new computers to play the era of empires. So we bought new computers to play this superior game.”

He added: “If you have a new computer at home, you will not close it after playing for two hours with friends who play the era of empires. So I was thinking,” hey, what do I play now? “

He tried the archers on PlayStation, but it was really bad in the target. YouTube went a lot to learn how to shoot. He was distorting his attention from people publishing Minecraft videos. People began to play Minecraft, and found it was very entertaining. Then he started playing Minecraft and discovering how fun it was and looked at other survival games such as the sons of the forest, rust and survival. With the sons of the forest, he found that you played for a few days and then finished.

He tried to modify the game but it really did not work. Then discover the city Skylines, which is the city’s SIM game. Pour a few thousand hours in it and amended it. Join societies in Reddit and Facebook and talk a lot about survival games and RPG.

He said: “People were constantly cutting 2000 trees or 10,000 trees. And you know that you only enjoy cutting 20 or 30 trees. You are building these beautiful cities and buildings, but in the end it is a ghost city. I thought it would serve as a wonderful mixture of the presence of villagers who also live in the town of survival that you already build, with the collection of resources as well. Just live there and bring life to your city of ghosts. This was the general idea.”

A friend told him that it was the most stupid idea he heard at all. The friend told him that he would need a huge amount of money, as if he was building a triple game. Firend said to start with a mobile phone game instead.

“But my goal was not to perform business in the game industry,” he said. “My vision was like I wanted to do this game, and not just make a profit.”

The friend continued to say he needs a lot of money to do this. Artificial intelligence companies, including the travel recommendation engine, remember to consider artificial intelligence solutions.

Being in Munich, he had a terrible time before trying to find programmers who knew the game of the game that is not reality. So it turned into artificial intelligence. Amnesty International has seen better and better. When artificial intelligence took off, explore the techniques and decided that the big point had no best model for Amnesty International.

The main point is that you have a system that can work with a lot of tools. You have a very clear vision about how things do and how things are attached. “

People told him that his project had no meaning. He became convinced that these people will never change because they were stuck in ancient roads. They removed Amnesty International. Meanwhile, an universal engine began to teach. He found people interested in unrealistic and were young enough to consider new tools.

“This is the place where we started bringing talents to the company,” he said.

Soon after, the company discovered how to create new things automatically, including stories, villages, NPCS, the world context and more.

The game will be a multi -players title for players where you can play with other people and bring the city of another person and villagers to your game. Heiml said that the game was achieved by 70 %, and that the team produces more content and polishing it. They benefit from artificial intelligence to produce more, and they started testing the game with other players. A general test can come in the second half of the year.

Heiml said that the use of talents is now easier. With $ 5.7 million in the bank, it may become easier.

“Perhaps people can build cheap Amnesty International games, making dreams come true with a small game,” he said. “This is largely where we come.”