Zoink AB was a Swedish video game developer based in Gothenburg. The company was founded by Klaus Lyngeled in 2001 and formed the

Thunderful Thunderful Group AB is a Swedish video game holding company based in Gothenburg. It was founded in December 2019 through a merger between Thunderful AB ( Bergsala Holding's video game holding) and Bergsala Holding's distribution business, consi ...

group with

Image & Form Image & Form International AB was a Swedish video game developer based in Gothenburg. The company was founded by Brjánn Sigurgeirsson in 1997 and formed the Thunderful group with Zoink in 2017. In 2020, Image & Form was integrated into Thund ...

in 2017. In 2020, Zoink was integrated into

Thunderful Development Thunderful Group AB is a Swedish video game holding company based in Gothenburg. It was founded in December 2019 through a merger between Thunderful AB ( Bergsala Holding's video game holding) and Bergsala Holding's distribution business, consi ...

History

Zoink was founded in 2001 by Klaus Lyngeled, who acted as its

chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especial ...

. Lyngeled had initially started developing games when he and some friends produced a

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game for the Amiga. They later got together with a similar team based in Norrköping and, together, founded Unique Development Studios. When Lyngeled got tired of working for Unique Development Studios, he moved to the United States to work for

Shiny Entertainment Shiny Entertainment, Inc. was an American video game developer based in Laguna Beach, California. Founded in October 1993 by David Perry, Shiny was the creator of video games such as ''Earthworm Jim'', '' MDK'' and ''Enter the Matrix''. Perry ...

. He worked on ''

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'' and '' Sacrifice'' but when he began working on ''

Enter the Matrix ''Enter the Matrix'' is a 2003 action-adventure video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or ...

'', he faced, among other things, issues with his

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, wherefore he returned to Sweden, where he founded Zoink. By 2003, Zoink was working on animated films, later advertisement films, and finally advertisement games; clients for the latter included

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professiona ...

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, Cartoon Network, and

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. Zoink's first full game was ''

The Kore Gang ''The Kore Gang: Outvasion from Inner Earth'' is an action-adventure game for the Wii. The game is notable for its very prolonged development cycle over the course of ten years, during which many different companies became involved and the game m ...

'', revived after its original

Xbox Xbox is a video gaming brand created and owned by Microsoft. The brand consists of five video game consoles, as well as applications (games), streaming services, an online service by the name of Xbox network, and the development arm by the ...

version had been cancelled for six years. Zoink's break-out title was ''Stick It to the Man!'', later spawning a spiritual successor, ''Flipping Death''. Bergsala Holding acquired half of Zoink in 2014, after

's Brjánn Sigurgeirsson introduced Lyngeled to the company. Lyngeled, Sigurgeirsson, and Bergsala Holding decided to merge the two studios and created

as their parent company in December 2017. In May 2018, Zoink had 25 employees. That year, Zoink released a new game, '' Fe''. Its next title, '' Lost in Random'', was released in 2021. In 2020, Thunderful (now called Thunderful Group) merged Zoink with Image & Form and Guru Games to create

Games developed

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://www.zoinkgames.com/ 2001 establishments in Sweden Companies based in Gothenburg Privately held companies of Sweden Video game companies established in 2001 Video game companies of Sweden Video game development companies