Dark Slope secures CAD $1.7M in funding to support development of VR Kaiju game

In Virtual Reality News

August 19, 2022 – Dark Slope, a Toronto-based virtual production and metaverse gaming company, has recently announced that it will be developing a new virtual reality (VR) game title following financial support through international video game commerce company Xsolla’s Funding Club. The CAD $1.7 million funding will support the development of a Kaiju fantasy fulfillment brawler entitled ‘Monster Bash Block Party,’ in addition to other unannounced titles. Through initial backing from Xsolla, Dark Slope has today announced additional funding secured from both Canada Media Fund (CMF) and Ontario Creates.

In Monster Bash Block Party, players find themselves as Kaiju rampaging across immersive cityscapes. As they move throughout the multiple landscapes within the game, players will engage with the city around them, picking up buildings, vehicles and infrastructure to fend off the swathes of humans trying to take them down. Each Kaiju is also outfitted with its own unique strengths and weaknesses, as well as special abilities such as energy beams, stuns and lightning to resist human defences. On top of this, monsters all around the globe can also battle each other, in Monster Bash Block Party’s one-on-one Monster Fight mode.

As an independent developer, Xsolla has committed to support Dark Slope in its production process from concept through to post-launch. The titles have received the support of Xsolla’s Funding Club following a thorough review of the game’s pitch, playtesting, and reviewing their commercial potential predicated on unique gameplay and opportunity within the VR market. The game was then presented to one of the games industry’s largest pool of investors and publishers through the Funding Club.

Following this success, Dark Slope went on to secure additional support from CMF, a partnership between the Department of Canadian Heritage and the Canadian cable industry, which supports the creation of original content from Canadian creatives including video games titles Dead by Daylight and Outward. Dark Slope was also awarded funds from Ontario Creates, an agency of the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport for the province, which helps to catalyze the production of content across a number of sectors, including digital media. Through financial support, programs, services and partnerships, Ontario Creates aims to build the region’s capacity to develop award-winning media.

Production of Monster Bash Block Party is the latest in a number of major developments for Dark Slope, including the recent launch of an immersive location-based entertainment (LBE) simulator experience with branching narratives based on the Transformers IP. This service project was produced for VRStudios for North American entertainment chain Dave & Buster’s. Dark Slope has developed a series of other exciting VR single player and multiplayer titles including The Ultimate Obstacle Course which will be presented at Xsolla’s booth at Gamescom later this month.

Dan Fill, President of Dark Slope, commented: “If you like Rampage, you will love this game!  Monster Bash is a fantastic, satisfying VR experience. Working with Xsolla the past few months has been amazing. They are a truly great partner with insight and excellent feedback. We are also extremely grateful for CMF and Ontario Creates for supporting this exciting title. We can’t wait to share it with publishers at Gamescom.”

Lawrence Mien, Director of Partner Experience at Xsolla commented: “Having looked through Dark Slope’s pitch and testing out gameplay potential, we’re excited to see how Monster Bash Block Party turns out! Canada is the world’s third most important hub in game development, and we’re proud to have been able to support independent studios alongside CMF and Ontario Creates in the funding and commercial scalability of their games.”

For more information on Dark Slope and its virtual production and gaming offerings, please visit the company’s website.

Image credit: Dark Slope

About the author

Sam Sprigg

Sam is the Founder and Managing Editor of Auganix. With a background in research and report writing, he has been covering XR industry news for the past seven years.