iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Ben Lochmann @blochmann.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Welcome to the team, @lexusinator.bsky.social! Alex is suporting us as a fulltime BizDev for our influencer marketing SaaS! 🤘

120

Ben Lochmann @blochmann.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

Very personal documentary about our office colleagues @spaceflower.bsky.social by @budiboo.bsky.social, and Ian Budiman: www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PNd... Thanks a ton for sponsoring this, @byterockers.games 😍

091

Ben Lochmann @blochmann.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

It's Always Happy at Chubby's (our next game) Kickoff fast food restaurant visit! (The game takes place in a fast food restaurant). The prototype phase of the game has started now. I'm really looking forward to this one! 🍔

120

Ben Lochmann @blochmann.bsky.social · 26/02/2026

Welcome, Limpho Moeti! Limpho is our 1st employee outside of DE, working from South Africa 😍 She is supporting us with our influencer marketing tool as a BizDev. Limpho has deep knowledge about BizDev and gamedev. She's also Chair of the @igda.org! 🤯 I'm really looking forward to working with you!

181

Ben Lochmann @blochmann.bsky.social · 12/02/2026

ChromaGun 2: Dye Hard is OUT NOW - 10 years after the first ChromaGun! store.steampowered.com/app/2982340/... Every activity & coverage in the first 24 hours massively helps us get the word out - We appreciate your support! ♥️ This was quite a ride, timeline:

121

Ben Lochmann @blochmann.bsky.social · 28/01/2026

We have implemented 10 workdays of charity leave per employee, per year! 💃 I got the idea after we started building consoles and PCs for the children's home in Nuremberg.

120

Ben Lochmann @blochmann.bsky.social · 20/01/2026

Welcome to the office, @mimustudio.bsky.social! One year after starting their Nuremberg-based company, Mimu UG, Sumunthana (Ploi) and Watcharid (Alfie) have finally gotten their self-employment visa and moved from Bangkok to Nuremberg to start a new life here. Looking forward to working with you!

140

Ben Lochmann @blochmann.bsky.social · 19/01/2026

We now have a module in our accounting tool that displays CO2 emissions on a per-project basis! 😍 Unsurprising TL;DR is: Flights are really bad for our footprint. The months besides the peaks in our graph do have multiple travels, but as those were done via train, they look like the x-axis 🙈

020

Ben Lochmann @blochmann.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

27.11.2025: The €30,000 concept funding is approved by the FFF, which gives us the chance to work on a proper concept based on the trailer.

110

Ben Lochmann @blochmann.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

We got selected for €30,000 concept funding for our horror game 👀 Thanks so much for the support for our projects to the board and the employees of the Bayerisches Staatsministerium and FilmFernsehFonds Bayern! Business-wise, best start of a game we did so far imho, details see timeline ⬇️

120

Ben Lochmann @blochmann.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

27.11.2025: The €30,000 concept funding is approved by the FFF, which gives us the chance to work on a proper concept based on the trailer.

100

Ben Lochmann @blochmann.bsky.social · 19/08/2025

Seeing print articles of games is still special to me: Very happy that the biggest newspaper in Nuremberg did an article about Let them Trade @spaceflower.bsky.social I believe it's very important for the visibility and appreciation of games to also get coverage in general interest media.

040

Ben Lochmann @blochmann.bsky.social · 08/08/2025

Live! Playing Ritual of Raven by @spellgardengames.com 😍 twitch.tv/pixel_maniacs

020

Ben Lochmann @blochmann.bsky.social · 29/07/2025

Today, I hold a presentation about what building a game as a company looks like in front of students of the Nuremberg high school Johannes-Scharrer-Gymnasium. They are currently working on an "Academic writing and research seminar" ("W Seminar" in German), analyzing one game of their choice in depth

050

Ben Lochmann @blochmann.bsky.social · 17/07/2025

📢 Influencers 📢 Our partner company @spaceflowerde.bsky.social is launching Let them Trade (worked 6 years on it) next week! They'd be delighted if you want an early first look, please comment or DM me if you want a free press key 👀

085

Ben Lochmann @blochmann.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

Omw to Frankfurt, to the GermanDevDays, organized by @assembleteam.bsky.social 🤘

020

Ben Lochmann @blochmann.bsky.social · 21/05/2025

Look what I found in my fortune cookie today. I’m going to do what it says, and you should too, because fortune cookies never lie

050

Ben Lochmann @blochmann.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

The very first public Let Them Trade Demo is out now! Our partner company, @spaceflower.bsky.social has released the first demo of their cozy city builder on Steam. This is a huge milestone for our colleagues working on the game since 2020 (!) store.steampowered.com/app/3465460/...

083

Ben Lochmann @blochmann.bsky.social · 27/04/2025

Had a blast yesterday at the opening event at the Swiss Game Hub in Zurich! 🇨🇭 So many talented devs and a great network of indie devs in an awesome, huge (2,400 m2 🤯) location - I am sure this is going to lead to many cool indie games in the future!

040

Ben Lochmann @blochmann.bsky.social · 08/04/2025

Very proud of the team that our demo received "overwhelmingly positive" a few days ago on >100 recent reviews – it's gone again, but it was there! 😍

070

Ben Lochmann @blochmann.bsky.social · 03/04/2025

Did a short trip to Erlangen today and visited the office of @boxelware.bsky.social —the studio behind Avorion and Aquapark Tycoon! Had a really nice chat with the cool folks working there, and I’m still amazed by their own game engine and the continued success of Avorion on Steam (>12k reviews!)

171

Ben Lochmann @blochmann.bsky.social · 03/04/2025

ChromaGun 2 Wins Horizon Award! 🏆 We're proud to announce that ChromaGun 2 has won the Horizon Award for Technical Innovation at GG Bavaria 2025! Huge thanks to our team. This wouldn’t be possible without you!

060

Ben Lochmann @blochmann.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

Once upon the pines (WT) got selected to receive 200k prototype-funding from the FFF Bavaria 🎉 Thanks for your trust in us and the project to all members of the committee, many thanks to the people at the FFF, and the ministry for digital affairs for their ongoing support! 😍

010

Ben Lochmann @blochmann.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

Our only full-time remote colleague, Dennis (who lives more than 400km from the office), was in the office in Nuremberg last week! The remote-only setup is working well for me, but it's still cool to see each other in real life from time to time.

020

Ben Lochmann @blochmann.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

On my way to the GG Bavaria, a games event in Munich with a conference and many games to test. Looking forward to meeting many familiar and new faces - see you there! 🤘 We‘re also showing ChromaGun 2 there on Saturday and Sunday 😍

071

Ben Lochmann @blochmann.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

Thanks for visiting us in the office right after GDC, Nico Balletta! We're looking forward to devcom in August! 😍

040

Ben Lochmann @blochmann.bsky.social · 20/03/2025

Live! Playing a round of Pacific Drive, which has elements similar to our next game! www.twitch.tv/pixel_maniacs The game was developed by @ironwood.bsky.social and published by Kelpar Interactive.

020

Ben Lochmann @blochmann.bsky.social · 28/02/2025

A second Speedrun Challenge started! Collect all Golden Guns (there are achievements for those) within the Demo of ChromaGun 2 as fast as possible. Prizes: 🥇Rank 1 gets: €800 🥈Rank 2 gets: €500 🥉Rank 3 gets: €200 Additionally, one random: €250 Details: speedrun dot pixel-maniacs dot com

010

Ben Lochmann @blochmann.bsky.social · 28/02/2025

🎨 A Special Shoutout to One of Our Creativity Contest Participants! 🎨 One of our 5 winners went the extra mile and created this amazing GIF! 🏆✨ The creativity and effort put into this piece truly stood out. Check it out! 👇🔥

040

Ben Lochmann @blochmann.bsky.social · 27/02/2025

🎨 The Creativity Contest Has Ended! 🎨 The talent was incredible, and choosing winners was so tough that we picked 5 instead of 3! 🏆✨ Huge thanks to everyone who participated! Here are the winning artworks—congrats to the winners! 🎉

010

Ben Lochmann @blochmann.bsky.social · 27/02/2025

Very glad we implemented Chinese (traditional and simplified) – I wasn't expecting that many players from China 👀 These are our download ratios per country from yesterday and today for the demo of ChromaGun 2 during #steamnextfest

060

Ben Lochmann @blochmann.bsky.social · 26/02/2025

We've reached >100 reviews for our demo on Steam; thanks a lot to everybody who tested the demo! 🥳 #steamnextfest #nextfest

030

Ben Lochmann @blochmann.bsky.social · 26/02/2025

Here are some of the amazing #art works players summited for our Creativity Contest. You still have an hour to submit your masterpiece! (14:00 CET!) Submit on our discord (link below)

140

Ben Lochmann @blochmann.bsky.social · 25/02/2025

We've received our first speedrun submissions, and wow, you guys are good. This isn't even the best run from aimredinez on YouTube. Enter the challenge! First place wins €800! Submit in the link below! speedrun.pixel-maniacs.com

000

Ben Lochmann @blochmann.bsky.social · 25/02/2025

We made it into the official #SteamNextFest trailer! Of course, along with a tiny handful of other games...but still, we’re in! 🎉😂

140

Ben Lochmann @blochmann.bsky.social · 25/02/2025

Streaming ChromaGun 2 on #Twitch for the FIRST TIME! 🎨🔫🔥Jump in, say hi, and let’s have some fun! 🚀 www.twitch.tv/pixel_maniacs

020

Ben Lochmann @blochmann.bsky.social · 25/02/2025

Math quiz! There is a hidden room in our demo of ChromaGun 2. In our creativity contest, we're picking the top 3 images posted to our Discord by Wed 2 pm CEST. How many different images can you theoretically create on the displayed wall?

100

Ben Lochmann @blochmann.bsky.social · 25/02/2025

Another German kindergarten made an ad for the release of our ChromaGun 2 demo! Give it a try—I promise you’ll never forget the color combinations. (Though, I’m not entirely convinced by the violet in the picture of this kid.)

020

Ben Lochmann @blochmann.bsky.social · 24/02/2025

There's a special place in hell for SaaS offering 2FA for higher-paid plans

120

Ben Lochmann @blochmann.bsky.social · 21/02/2025

Even the kindergarten put up a subtle ad for our color-mixing game ChromaGun 2: Dye Hard on their door—how kind of them! Check out the demo of our game on Steam; it's really good, I promise!

020

Ben Lochmann @blochmann.bsky.social · 30/01/2025

We've just paid back additional €9,200 of funding to the FFF Bayern / LfA Bayern! We're slowly but steadily paying back the prototype funding we received for Can't Drive This in 2017, and hope that we'll start paying back our ChromaGun 2 prototype funding soon, too! 👀

040

Ben Lochmann @blochmann.bsky.social · 24/01/2025

Localisation of our English Demo to German - part 2! Now live on Twitch: www.twitch.tv/pixel_maniacs I am doing loca by myself to find out which problems the translators doing the 10 other localisations might be running into 🤘

041

Ben Lochmann @blochmann.bsky.social · 24/01/2025

An advanced project seminar at the Albert Schweitzer High School in Erlangen visited us yesterday in the office, learning how it looks like in an indie games company. They asked many questions, and didn't hold back with tough ones like "where do we see problems in the industry", which is awesome!

020

Ben Lochmann @blochmann.bsky.social · 22/01/2025

Watch me Live on Twitch doing the English => German translation of our upcoming demo of ChromaGun 2: Dye Hard via @crowdin! I'm doing it myself to see where translators from other countries might have problems understanding the context. Stop by here: www.twitch.tv/pixel_maniacs

030

Ben Lochmann @blochmann.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

Our friends from Berlin have released their awesome self-published Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders ⛷️ today! You should check it out, either on Steam or via Xbox Game Pass. @lonelymountains.bsky.social

020

Ben Lochmann @blochmann.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

LinkedIn Bots vs "Wishlist my Game"-Bots! 🤖 Let's see if the utm tracking reports wishlists from this 😅 (No, it's of course not worth the invested time)

010

Ben Lochmann @blochmann.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

(Dismissed) Marketing idea: Booking a drone show for "Wishlist ChromaGun 2 on Steam" during Silvester at a prominent place and posting this on social media. (1/3)

100

Ben Lochmann @blochmann.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

This marketing idea is going to ramp our wishlists to the moon!

030

Ben Lochmann @blochmann.bsky.social · 24/04/2024

Great seeing Christian Dickert yesterday, who mentored us 8 years ago when we were new to #gamedev. He has mentored and invested in many gaming projects and companies since. Everyone presented current work and got valuable feedback. Thanks for the visit! 🤘 With @lexusinator.bsky.social

020