Ubisoft publishes GALAXY RACERS for Nintendo DS, developed by Berlin-based games developer kunst-stoff

On 24th June, the Nintendo DS game GALAXY RACERS, a clever strategy game with learning elements for children from 6 years on, will be released by Ubisoft in Europe (UK, Spain, Italy, France) and on July 24th in the U.S. The innovative gameplay has already won several prizes and awards.

Galaxy Racers for Nintendo DS: In the role of cheeky alien kids, the players fly with a spaceship through the galaxy. The galaxy racers must help the inhabitants of adventurous planets, because something is wrong in the galaxy: an evil power creates chaos in the universe, but nobody knows who he is....

In order to master the gameplay of GALAXY RACERS, the player must be clever, quick and adept. By the way, the kids even learn about geography, history, the rules of traffic and maths. Will the galaxy racers unmask the evil power in the end and frustrate his plans of destruction?

The Nintendo DS game ist he debut project of the Berlin-based games developer. „Until we had built up the wonderful co-operation with the renowned games publisher Ubisoft in Paris, it was a long way to go,“ resumes Patrick Rau, founder, creative and managing director of kunst-stoff, as well as author of the game. „The idea for the gameplay I had in 2005!“

An award-winning gameplay

The ignition for the success story of kunst-stoff was the first Hamburg games award for the traffic learning game concept „Bahn frei!“, whose troublerace gameplay also is the core gameplay of GALAXY RACERS. In 2007, the medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, the regional media development fund, supported the development of a game’s prototype. “In February 2008, the prototype for PC and the game’s concept convinced the decision makers at Ubisoft that it would be profitable to invest into the development of the whole game,” says Patrick Rau. In 2007, co-author Maike Coelle was selected for participation in the German Academy for childrens’ media with the project. In the end, the concept of Galaxy Racers won the award of the central German media funding body MDM as Best German childrens’ media project 2008 (awardee: co-author Maike Coelle).

The award through the Akademie for childrens’ media for us was further evidence for the great potential of the game,” says Maike Coelle. kunst-stoff is about to further use the gameplay’s potential: Currently, kunst-stoff develops a satiric game for adults which is based on the GALAXY RACERS gameplay.