Vlambeer is a Dutch independent video game developer located in Utrecht. The company was founded in 2010 by Rami Ismail and Jan Willem Nijman. The studio is known for creating games such as Super Crate Box (2010), Serious Sam: The Random Encounter (2011), Ridiculous Fishing (2013), Luftrausers (2014), and Nuclear Throne (2015). It is also recognized for its efforts to oppose the practice of copying video game ideas without permission.

History

Vlambeer was founded in 2010 by Rami Ismail and Jan Willem Nijman. Both had dropped out of a game design course at the Utrecht School of the Arts. Ismail said they were making a game outside the school. When the school found out, it asked for the rights to the game. They refused, which led to their decision to leave the course. Ismail and Nijman worked together to develop a prototype called "Crates from Hell." They released it as Super Crate Box on May 11, 2010. The game earned Vlambeer recognition as an Independent Games Festival finalist in the Excellence in Design category. While developing Super Crate Box, Vlambeer also created Radical Fishing, which was released in November 2010. Radical Fishing was the first of many games released under a "Not Vlambeer" label. This label includes games made for money or as experiments.

Vlambeer was approached by publisher Devolver Digital to develop a game in the Serious Sam franchise. The studio and Devolver Digital agreed to create a turn-based role-playing game. The result, Serious Sam: The Random Encounter, was released on October 24, 2011. During its development, Vlambeer released many small games, including Luftrauser. They also started working on an iOS version of Radical Fishing called Ridiculous Fishing. Development was paused after a San Francisco-based studio released a clone of Radical Fishing on iOS. This led to discussions about cloning video games and made Vlambeer a symbol of the issue. The term "Vlambeer'd" was used by media outlets to describe the situation. In November 2013, Vlambeer launched a browser game called Vlambeer Clone Tycoon to humorously comment on the cloning issue.

In February 2012, Vlambeer released Gun Godz, a first-person shooter inspired by hip-hop, in collaboration with Venus Patrol. Ridiculous Fishing was nominated for the 2012 Independent Games Festival "Best Mobile" award. At the conference where the award was given, Vlambeer released Yeti Hunter.

On December 2, 2012, Vlambeer announced a sequel to Luftrauser called Luftrausers. On December 19, 2012, they released the iOS version of Super Crate Box. Its success helped the studio avoid financial problems caused by the cloning incident. On March 14, 2013, Vlambeer released Ridiculous Fishing on iOS after resuming development.

In 2015, Vlambeer experimented with live streaming their development process. At one point, they had over 12,000 paid subscriptions to their Twitch channel.

On December 5, 2015, Vlambeer released Nuclear Throne, a top-down shooter roguelike. The game had been in Steam's early access program since 2013. It was released for Windows, OS X, Linux, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation Vita. Users gave it positive reviews.

On August 8, 2016, Vlambeer announced 120 Years Of Vlambeer And Friends, an art and history book about the company. The book was written by Arjan Terpstra and published by Cook & Becker.

In March 2018, Ismail received the Ambassador Award at the Game Developers Choice Awards for supporting independent game development through Vlambeer and other activities.

On September 1, 2020, Vlambeer announced the studio would close. Ismail and Nijman had decided this after realizing they were moving in different directions in the video game industry since 2016. They planned to release a final game called Ultrabugs, which had not been released as of July 2024. Ismail intended to continue advocating for diversity in the video game industry, while Nijman planned to help develop smaller games like Minit with other teams.

In April 2024, Ismail sold his shares of the company to Nijman, giving him full ownership. Nijman reopened the studio to improve existing games and complete Ultrabugs after finishing an unannounced project outside the Vlambeer label.

Games

List of Video Games and Their Release Years
• Super Crate Box (2010)
• Karate (2011)
• Serious Sam: The Random Encounter (2011)
• Gun Godz (2012)
• Yeti Hunter (2012)
• Ridiculous Fishing (2013)
• Luftrausers (2014)
• Nuclear Throne (2015)
• Ultrabugs (TBA)
• Ridiculous Fishing EX (2023)