Bird Island/PortaPlay: Creating meaningful games
Bird Island / PortaPlay believes games can treat serious topics and make a difference. They develop games grounded in reality and with parallels to present-day themes and events, e.g., their historically based and recently launched Gerda: a Flame in Winter about a civilian caught in a violent conflict trying to fight for what is right.
Creating meaningful games
Gerda: a Flame in Winter is a historical and biographical-inspired PC and console game. You play a countryside nurse with a German father and a Danish mother trying to save her husband from the Gestapo. A tale told not on the front line but in the intimate setting of the small Danish village where she has lived her whole life. Armed only with her wits and knowledge of her people, Gerda must try to save her loved ones while staying true to herself.
The game was an experiment about the possibility of making a non-violent and historically accurate entertainment game, about a small village in Denmark, for an international audience. The experiment paid off, and Gerda was picked up by the award-winning publisher DontNod (Life is Strange, Twin Mirror, etc.) and launched in 2022 to critical acclaim, with an 82% Metacritic score, five awards and 99% positive Steam user reviews.
About Bird Island/PortaPlay
Bird Island/PortaPlay develops meaningful story- and character-driven PC, console, and mobile games. Games for both female and male players, often grounded in reality and depicting serious topics like war fatigue amongst soldiers, conditions of civilians caught in conflicts, sustainability, and climate change.
Their games combine ominous atmospheres, heartwarming moments, and sad or ambiguous endings to morally challenge and emotionally engage their players.
The company is 100% independent and has two departments – Bird Island, which develops its own games, and PortaPlay, which develops edutainment games with institutions, NGOs, publishers, and broadcasters, e.g., Scandinavia's most played math-learning game Pengeby.dk.