Rocket Flair Studios is best known for the ancient Egyptian city-building game Dynasty of the Sands, which is available on PC.
Start-up based in Belfast that develops video games 14 new positions will be created at Rocket Flair Studios, covering full-stack and front-end development, lighting and animation engineering, and quality assurance.
Invest Northern Ireland has provided the company £98,000 in funding to help create the positions, eight of which are already in place.
Following the completion of a multimillion-pound contract with an unnamed worldwide games developer, the company announced its employment plans. In order to fulfill its contract with the games producer, the start-up will invest £700,000 in its operations in addition to hiring additional employees.
In 2017, Rocket Flair Studios opened its doors in Belfast. It focuses on creating specialty city-builder games for PC using immersive technologies such as AR and VR. Dynasty of the Sands, a legendary ancient Egypt city-building game, was created by it.
“We are delighted that our innovative products have led us to secure a multimillion-pound contract with a prominent global games developer,” said the start-up’s managing director, James Bradley.
“This is a huge step forward for us, especially as 94pc of the sales from the project will be in markets outside Northern Ireland. This will bolster our reputation globally.”
Bradley noted that the company approached Invest Northern Ireland in 2020 when it was still a six-person team. Rocket Flair Studios was able to increase its staff thanks to the agency's help, he said, giving it "the capacity and specialist skills to secure and deliver this contract."
“We now hope to make our plans to create a centre of expertise for strategy-based PC games in Northern Ireland a reality,” he added.
Susan O’Kane, Invest NI’s eastern regional manager, said that the gaming start-up “really understands the global gaming industry and has created a niche with Dynasty of the Sands, which it has received worldwide recognition for”, and that securing a multimillion-pound contract at such an early stage in its business is a “significant achievement”.
She added that the Invest NI team is continuing to work closely with Bradley and Rocket Flair Studios to “help deliver a strategic plan for the company to progress at pace and scale”.
