Thomas Waterzooi

Factsheet

Developer:
Thomas Waterzooi
Based in Gent/Brussels, Belgium

Founding date:
December 26, 2017

Website:
studiowaterzooi.com

Press / Business contact:
info@studiowaterzooi.com

Social:
twitter.com/thomaswaterzooi
instagram.com/ThomasWaterzooi

Releases:
Please Touch The Artwork
Please Touch The Artwork Installations
Please Touch The Artwork 2

Address:
Games Brussels
Rue D'Alost 7/11, 9000 Brussels

Phone:
+32 496 60 54 79

Description

Studio Waterzooi is the one man company behind Thomas Waterzooi. Thomas previously worked on Divinity Original Sin (Larian Studios) and Hitman (IO-Interactive ) as gameplay and AI developer before becoming a solo-indie-developer in 2018. He focuses on making accessible interactive stories and playful things inspired by art, culture, society and human interest. His games are not about skills or high-scores. They are about relaxing, reflecting, playful tinkering, and being sucked into the story and aesthetics (nowadays also often referred to as "wholesome"). In the past Thomas did collaborations in the field of serious gaming, AR and VR but "Please, Touch The Artwork" is Thomas's first big solo project. It has received, though still in development, several awards and international nominations.

History

Inspiration

Inspired by Pietro Righi Riva’s manifesto Rejecta, Thomas Waterzooi founded Studio Waterzooi. The manifest aims to provide guidelines to develop games for a new audience. He (and we) want to advance the medium in a certain direction that makes it interesting to people that are not normally interested in video games but have other interests such as art, culture, humanity..etc (or are interested but don’t find games about specific topics that interest them). We have to cater to these people and learn how to make games for them so games can eventually become the art-form it deserves to be.

Stories

Conflict is a part of every good story, but it doesn’t have to be the only part. Entertainment is about being immersed and triggering emotions, not only about having fun. We focus on creating shorter experiences that are still impactful (because of the typical time-shortages tied to adult life). The success of pc-games like ‘Firewatch’, ‘Life Is Strange’, ‘What Remains of Edith Finch’ or mobile titles like ‘Monument Valley’ and ‘Florence’ tells us that there is a market for these slice of life experiences. ‘Please, Touch The Artwork’ is Studio Waterzooi’s first title.

Projects

• Please Touch The Artwork
• Please Touch The Artwork Installations
• Please Touch The Artwork 2

Team

Thomas Waterzooi
Design & Development

Contact

Inquiries
info@studiowaterzooi.com

Twitter
twitter.com/thomaswaterzooi

Instagram
instagram.com/thomaswaterzooi

Web
studiowaterzooi.com