Studio Name
Clockwork Acorn
Founding Date
January, 2014
Location
Remote across South Africa.
Headquartered in Cape Town, South Africa.
Website
clockworkacorn.com
Press Contact
press@clockworkacorn.com
Clockwork Acorn is a South African indie game development studio that focuses on making timeless games with chunky design.
The studio is fully remote, based in South Africa, working with collaborators all around the world.
The studio also offers a range of services to their clients, including: rapid prototyping, co-development, full game dev and expert consulting.
Clockwork Acorn started as an idea in late 2013 when the three cofounders, Hilgard Bell, Francois van Niekerk and Leon van Niekerk (no relation), were completing their postgraduate studies at the MIH Media lab at the University of Stellenbosch. Each was doing research into some aspect of games, and starting to contemplate life after university. The timing felt fortuitous — indie games and small studios were on the uptick. They did some initial research and planning, while saving up funds for future runway.
Clockwork Acorn officially came into existence in early 2014, setting up in a small office at the InnovUS Launch Lab in Stellenbosch. The three cofounders used their savings to bootstrap the new studio. They spent the majority of the year prototyping games, building ties with the local game dev community, and getting to grips with all things games and business. This process culminated in a host of prototypes and the launch of the studio’s first commercial game, Monsters and Medicine, in October 2014.
The end of 2014 was also when Clockwork Acorn expanded into doing work for its first clients, relying on their experience to build specialised software solutions. This new source of revenue allowed them to continue beyond their (very limited) initial runway.
The start of 2015 saw Clockwork Acorn set up its first long-term clients and hire its first employees. Throughout the year the team grew and focused on its new commercial ventures with client projects, while juggling development on some of its own projects.
The end of the year also had the studio launch its second commercial game, Luminare, to the Google Play and iOS App stores.
In early 2016 the studio officially moved out of incubation and into new offices located in Woodstock, Cape Town. Throughout the year, the studio continued to focus on growing its client base, while trying to still find time to work on its own game development projects.
Later in 2016, the team greenlit Jetstream as a project, based on a Ludum Dare game jam with promising results. In order to once-again focus on its own commercial projects like this, the studio started to slowly wind down and de-emphasize a lot of its active client work.
The start of 2017 saw Clockwork Acorn focus on two main fronts: production on Jetstream, and the Serious About Games local competition. Together with a small consortium of partners, Clockwork Acorn was a finalist for the competition, but ultimately weren’t able to secure the funding win.
This year also saw the studio go fully remote. Clockwork Acorn had been operating in a hybrid model for some time, but in an effort to reduce costs the studio decided to take the plunge and go fully remote.
In September 2017 the studio released an updated version of Monsters and Medicine on Steam.
Unfortunately, as the main efforts of the studio ran out of momentum, and additional funding couldn’t be secured, the core team decided to part ways and pursue other endeavours. Work on Jetstream still continued in a part-time capacity.
In April 2019, Jetstream, the studio’s third commercial game, was released on Steam and other desktop platforms, with the support of Noodlecake as its publisher. Work on the mobile port continued, although it hit a number of roadblocks as time passed.
After a 5 year hiatus, 2022 saw the start of a slow but gradual revival of Clockwork Acorn. Francois, one of the original cofounders, took over the studio to pursue a new vision. Inspired by his time at Spry Fox, he set out to establish a sustainable studio with an aspirational work environment and a significant impact on the local game industry in South Africa and beyond.
The studio’s initial focus was building a team and developing a solid pitch or two for project funding. Like the studio’s original inception, this revival was also bootstrapped, primarily with part-time work. In late 2022, the first post-revival full-time team member, Wes Matthews, joined the team and worked to help establish the art direction of Enter the Titan.
Over the next two years, the team underwent the important but difficult process of establishing a solid foundation of core team members and advisors. Work on Enter the Titan continued and Clockwork Acorn started actively pitching the project for funding. The team also engaged in multiple game jams, creating many new playable prototypes.
As part of its core vision to have a positive impact, and give others an insight into how the studio operates, Clockwork Acorn released the studio’s team handbook to the public.
In mid 2023, Clockwork Acorn partnered with Free Lives to support their recently-released widely-acclaimed eco-restoration strategy game Terra Nil. With the mission to expand the game to meet its original aspirational vision, while also offering post-release support and maintenance, Clockwork Acorn moved into a more active phase, with a small full-time core team. Later in the year, Simeon Willemse joined the team and went on to establish himself as the studio’s art director.
To kick off 2024, the Clockworn Acorn team held a 2-week internal game jam, which resulted in Mech-anic, as well as the first prototype of Upupa Bird Ninja, which would go into full production under the name Feather’s Edge. Also early in 2024, Enter the Titan’s prototype was publicly released, and Leon, another of the original cofounders, rejoined the team.
After about a year of work on Terra Nil, the Vita Nova major update was released on Steam, Netflix Games, and Nintendo Switch. The update almost doubled the content in the game, and saw a nice uptick in positive Steam reviews. Moving on from Terra Nil, Clockwork Acorn continued to develop its internal projects and turned its attention to securing funding for development of its own projects.
Late in 2024 the team released the prototype for Upupa Bird Ninja publicly and presented it at various local and international showcases.
The start of 2025 saw two major milestones for the company. The first was a roll out of a full company rebrand, updating the logo and website from 2014. The second was securing funding from Outersloth for the then-still-unannounced Feather’s Edge.
Pre-production on Feather’s Edge started in April, with immediate focus going into building the core team needed for the game. By September, Clockwork Acorn had grown to seven full time team members spread across disciplines including programming, design, art, animation and production.
The year ended with the team showing an early alpha of Feather’s Edge at the annual Playtopia festival in Cape Town, where it was placed 3rd in the audience choice award.
In April 2026, Feather’s Edge was announced, with 25,000 people wishlisting it on Steam within 2 weeks of the game’s debut. Development continued at full steam, with the team working hard to deliver a great game…