HPL Engine 1
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| Private | |
| Industry | Video game industry |
| Founded | 1 January 2007 |
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| Headquarters | Helsingborg, Sweden |
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Number of employees
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16 (2017) |
| Website | frictionalgames |
Frictional Games AB is an independent Swedish video game developer based in Helsingborg, Sweden, founded on 1 January 2007 by Thomas Grip and Jens Nilsson. The company specializes in the development of survival horror video games, and is best known for its titles Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Soma.
Prior to the foundation of Frictional Games, Thomas Grip and Jens Nilsson had been working as freelance artist and musician, respectively, and having never worked professionally in the video game industry, where both had only minor backgrounds in programming. In 1999, Grip started developing freeware games under the name GripDesign, creating Fiend (2001) and Energetic (2005). For the development of Energetic and an unreleased title named Unbirth, Grip worked together with Nilsson as the games' sound designer, and in 2006, the two agreed to join forces, officially founding Frictional Games on 1 January 2007. The team set out to create a new survival horror project, starting by developing their own game engine that would eventually become the first iteration of the HPL Engine. Built upon this engine they made Penumbra, a tech demo to display the engine's capabilities, which later evolved into their first game, Penumbra: Overture, which they released in partnership with Paradox Interactive on 30 March 2007, and was followed its sequel, Penumbra: Black Plague, as well as its expansion, Penumbra: Requiem, in 2008. The series was heavily inspired by the Silent Hill series, however, aimed to achieve an equal or higher level of fright, without employing puzzle or action techniques, that the series' games prominently used, and rather focusing solely on the horror aspect. The series in total was a financial success, but not the result Frictional Games had hoped to produce, with the game incorporating a lot of issues, Frictional Games holds the publisher, Paradox Interactive, responsible for.
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