Factsheet

Developer:
Grid Sage Games
Based in New Taipei, Taiwan

Founding date:
September 22, 2013

Website:
gridsagegames.com

Press / Business contact:
gridsagegames@gmail.com

Social:
Mastodon @Kyzrati
@GridSageGames
Discord (#cogmind)

Releases:
Cogmind

Address:
New Taipei City
Taiwan (Republic of China)

Phone:
None

Description

Grid Sage Games is a one-man independent game studio based in Taiwan and operated by Josh "Kyzrati" Ge, specializing in traditional roguelikes and tactical games. While Josh has no formal background in Computer Science, he's spent the past 30 years tinkering with computers, games, and programming as a hobby.

History

Prehistory

Before forming Grid Sage Games, Josh was making innovative roguelikes aimed at evolving the genre without abandoning its roots. As part of this effort he created a popular fan remake of X-COM: UFO Defense. In the middle of "X@COM" development, much of the same technology and techniques were applied to a short-term project for the 2012 7-Day Roguelike (7DRL) competition: Cogmind. Judges ranked the game as one of the best that year, and though subsequent development ceased after two months, it later went on to become the highest player-rated 7DRL of 2012. X@COM development continued for another year, during which Josh also began releasing REXPaint, now one of the most popular ASCII editing tools among artists and game developers.

First Commercial Game

In 2013 Grid Sage Games was formed to create "modern traditional roguelikes" full time. Taking the Cogmind 7DRL as a successful prototype for a unique game, work began that summer to turn it into a much bigger and more polished production. The entire process has been documented via the ongoing dev blog, sharing progress and design philosophy with players and other developers alike (the blog itself ranked among Feedspot's Top 50 gamedev blogs in the world). Even before its official release, Cogmind was recognized in IndieDB voting as one of the top 100 games of 2014, and by Rock, Paper, Shotgun as one of the Best Upcoming PC Games of 2015/2016. Two years after beginning development, Grid Sage Games released the first alpha version on May 19, 2015. Every December from 2015 through 2023 it was again voted into the Top 100 games of each year on IndieDB. Cogmind has been in full-time development for over ten years.

Innovation

With Cogmind, Grid Sage Games continues to push the genre forward in many ways never seen before in a traditional roguelike. See a summary of firsts in action at www.gridsagegames.com/cogmind/innovation.html

Projects

Videos

Cogmind - Early Access Launch Trailer YouTube, .mp4

Images

download all screenshots & photos as .zip (1MB)
cogmind_tshirts.png

There are far more images available for Grid Sage Games, but these are the ones we felt would be most useful to you. If you have specific requests, please do contact us!

download logo files as .zip (48KB)
logo

Awards & Recognition

  • "IndieDB Indie of the Year (Top 100)" - Cogmind, December 2023
  • "IndieDB Indie of the Year (Top 100)" - Cogmind, December 2022
  • "IndieDB Indie of the Year (Top 100)" - Cogmind, December 2021
  • "IndieDB Indie of the Year (Top 100)" - Cogmind, December 2020
  • "IndieDB Indie of the Year (Top 100)" - Cogmind, December 2019
  • "IndieDB Indie of the Year (Top 100)" - Cogmind, December 2018
  • "Strategy Gamer Best Early Access Strategy Games" - Cogmind, December 2018
  • "The Indie Game Website 100 Greatest Indie Games of All Time" - Cogmind, May 2018
  • "IndieDB Indie of the Year (Top 100, top 2 among roguelikes)" - Cogmind, December 2017
  • "IndieDB Indie of the Year (Top 100, top 4 among roguelikes)" - Cogmind, December 2016
  • "Destructoid Top 33 Indie Games to Look for in 2016" - Cogmind, January 2016
  • "Rock, Paper, Shotgun Best Upcoming PC Games of 2016 (Roguelike Category)" - Cogmind, January 2016
  • "IndieDB Indie of the Year (Top 100, top 4 among roguelikes)" - Cogmind, December 2015
  • "Rock, Paper, Shotgun Best Upcoming PC Games of 2015 (Roguelike Category)" - Cogmind, January 2015
  • "IndieDB Indie of the Year (Top 100)" - Cogmind, December 2014

Selected Articles

  • "Cogmind is an impressive merging of old and new school game design."
    - RPS, Rock, Paper, Shotgun
  • "Cogmind is a wonderful thing, carefully and intelligently constructed, and with a gorgeous ASCII aesthetic."
    - Adam Smith, Rock, Paper, Shotgun
  • "Cogmind swaps the traditional fantasy setting of most turn-based adventurers in favour of science-fiction, and finds plenty of interesting features in the mix."
    - Graham Smith, Rock, Paper, Shotgun
  • "[Cogmind is] backed up by surprisingly great audio. Guns crack, energy weapons sizzle, and enemies spark and fizz as they collapse. Considering the nearly pure-ASCII graphics, there’s more atmosphere here than you'd expect."
    - Dominic Tarason, PC Gamer
  • "Developer Grid Sage Games has not only produced a brilliant roguelike that easily sets itself above other offerings of the genre, but also a passionate community, with regular updates based upon player feedback."
    - Staff, The Indie Game Website

Grid Sage Games Development Blog
Development progress recorded in detail, with plenty of images, at gridsagegames.com.

Team & Repeating Collaborator

Josh Ge
Grid Sage Games

Kacper Woźniak
Pixel Artist, Freelancer

Alex Yoder
Music, Freelancer

Contact

Inquiries
gridsagegames@gmail.com

Mastodon
mastodon.gamedev.place/@Kyzrati

Web
gridsagegames.com

Dev Blog
gridsagegames.com/blog

Reddit
reddit.com/r/Cogmind