The PC Indie Pitch, is a regular event run by the makers of PC Games Insider. It sees indie developers engage in a speed-dating-styled pitching competition for fame and those sweet, sweet promotional packages.

The event gives indies five minutes to pitch their games to a panel of press, publishers and industry pundits. The judges then pick three winners and everybody gets valuable feedback.

The indie view

The PC Indie Pitch is getting bigger and bigger as we bring it to events all across the world. To give you an idea of what the event is like, who attends the events and the games on show, we've sat down with a number of past PC Indie Pitch contestants to offer their views.

Today, we're speaking to Mooneye Studios' Pascal Müller, who submitted Lost Ember to the first ever PC Indie Pitch and walked away with the prize for third place.

PCGamesInsider: Tell us a little about yourself and your indie studio - who is on the team, and what are their inspirations?

Pascal Müller: On paper, the team consists of two programmers, an art director, a 3D artist and a producer. In reality, each of us is wearing several hats every day, switching between artist, game designer, programmer, project manager, community manager hat and so on and so forth. Which is a lot of fun and also a little exhausting sometimes. We’re all sharing a love for indie games and working in small, awesome teams. That’s why we’re here, working on our first major release together - Lost Ember.

Tell us about your latest project that you pitched at the competition.

Lost Ember is an exploration adventure. You play a wolf that has the ability to take over any animal he encounters on his journey, which means you can play as a wolf, a bird, a fish, a sloth, a buffalo… and much more, in just one game. Playing all of these animals, the player is trying to unveil the story of a sunken civilization. But we also want the player to simply spend time in our world and have fun playing as all these different animals.

How hard is it to survive as an Indie developer working in PC?

It’s not a piece of cake and sometimes, there’s no money for a piece of cake either :D You have probably talked to a lot of indies by now and know quite well that it’s kinda hard, but we’re also enjoying the creative freedom and the spirit that grows in an indie office. We think this is worth it and will keep going until proven otherwise ;).

How did you find your experience pitching as a part of the PC Indie Pitch?

It was a great overall experience and it was really good to get some feedback from industry veterans. It was also quite challenging to pitch the whole game in only three minutes. That forced us to break down the game to its absolute core and concentrate only on the most important features, an exercise which I would recommend every developer, before pitching their game.

What do you feel you have gained from the experience, and what do you still hope to gain?

The feedback was really helpful and showed us on which points we can improve our pitch. It is always good to talk to people who do not know the game and ask questions you do not expect. And of course, the prize money is something that helps us a lot. As a small indie studio, you can never compete with the big budgets of triple-A publishers so we are super happy for every cent we have.

What are your hopes for this game in the future, and do you have any plans for any future projects?

For now, we simply hope for Lost Ember to have sufficient success to keep us going because we’d really hate this to end. Seriously, please keep us going! Apart from that, we can’t wait for people to get their hands on Lost Ember and to hear their feedback. Very excited for that already. Sometimes we talk about potential future projects over lunch, but that’s it for the moment. To make any future projects happen we have to focus all our energy on Lost Ember right now.

Want to show off your exciting new game? We host PC Indie Pitch events throughout the year, so be sure to keep an eye out on our events page for an event near you.

Upcoming PC Indie Pitches include:

• The PC Indie Pitch at Pocket Gamer Connects London 2018 (22nd - 23rd January 2017)