One year of Krokanti Games: the summer it all clicked
One year, to the day
September 2025. A studio that had just been incorporated, a name nobody knew, and an idea that sounded like a joke when we said it out loud: make the padel video game that did not exist.
One year later we are writing this with the Padel Rivals Playtest about to open, a full summer of development behind us, and the strange feeling that the time went by very fast and very slowly at the same time.
We are not going to pretend it has been a comfortable road. It has been hard. But looking back, we would not have believed the list of things that happened in twelve months.
Four kids playing Padel Rivals at the Omega World Games stand in the summer of 2026
Twelve months, the short version
- December 2025: Padel Rivals lands on Steam and Krokanti takes off with Valencia Game City.
- January 2026: from spectators to participants at the Hexagon Cup and the World Padel Awards.
- February 2026: we join the Game Acceleration Program with EOI.
- April 2026: Mad Games Show and the ENISA Emerging Company certification.
- May 2026: one of the three winners of the EOI Coworking Demoday and the Padel World Summit in Barcelona.
- July 2026: OWN Valencia, queues at the stand and a live patch on the show floor.
- August 2026: two events with Omega World Games and the final sprint towards the Playtest.
Written like that it looks like a plan. It was not. It was saying yes to the right opportunities and working hard in between.
The summer was not a holiday
If one thing defines this summer it is that the game changed category. We did not add one big feature: we redid many at once.
- Animations: nearly the entire movement, serve, backhand, smash and celebration set was reviewed or replaced. On top of that came the drop shots and six trick shots, each with its own animation.
- Gameplay: a rewrite of the ugly physics cases. The second bounce after a wall rebound, the lob, smashes dying in the net, the timing bar. The kind of fixes nobody sees in a trailer but everybody feels in the first rally.
- Interfaces and menus: a full look and feel redesign. Main menu, Quick Match, Training and the pause menu unified, with the characters standing on a 3D platform and a far clearer read of what you are picking.
- Tutorial: rebuilt from scratch, with a coach talking to you on court instead of a wall of text.
- Multiplayer: local split screen and casual online, with a lobby, court side selection, filler bots and even rejoining mid match.
- Telemetry: so we actually know, with data, what people do when they play.
That is the game you will be able to touch starting tomorrow.
Omega World Games: Llosa de Ranes and Castelló
In the middle of all that, August pulled us out of the studio twice, hand in hand with Omega World Games.
On 19 August we were in Llosa de Ranes, in the sports hall, with the game running on a PC and a plastic chair on each side. On 22 August, in Castelló, under a set of gorgeous brick arches, with the PC zone packed with kids all afternoon.
Edgar Gómez explaining the Padel Rivals controls to two players at the Omega World Games event in Llosa de Ranes
Big events are great, but there is always a bit of shop window to them. This was something else: a local crowd, unfiltered, with no appointment. People walking past, seeing a padel court on a screen, and sitting down to try it.
And it worked exactly like it did in Valencia. Twelve year olds fighting over the controller. Parents who had not touched a gamepad in twenty years asking for a rematch. Padel players recognising the bandeja before we even explained it was in there.
Two players competing in the Padel Rivals local split screen multiplayer at Omega World Games in Castelló
What you learn watching someone play
Local split screen was the star of both days, and it was exactly what we wanted to check before opening the Playtest. Two people, two controllers, one screen, and a match that ends in either laughter or accusations. That is the game.
We also came home with homework: where people get stuck in the tutorial, which button they reach for on instinct, which shot they do not understand the first time. None of that comes out of a spreadsheet. It comes from standing behind a chair, quiet, watching.
The crowd at the Omega World Games PC zone in Castelló trying Padel Rivals
A studio that pays for itself
There is one milestone from this first year that never makes it into a press release, and for us it is probably the most important one: Krokanti Games sustains itself on its own work.
We are a self sufficient company. We do not live off a round or off a promise: we invoice, and that funds the development of Padel Rivals. For a one year old indie studio with a game this ambitious in the oven, that is not an administrative detail. It is what lets us keep making our own calls, and not be in a hurry for the wrong reason.
The Playtest starts tomorrow
On 1 September we open the Padel Rivals Playtest, open to anyone who requests access on Steam. We are approving in waves so everything holds up, so if you do not get in on day one, hang tight: your turn is coming.
Inside there is a tutorial, a quick match against the AI, local split screen multiplayer and casual, non competitive online. The idea is simple: let real people play, let them tell us what is broken, and update the game several times across September and October until it is sharp.
All the details are in the Playtest announcement on the Padel Rivals site.
And now, 2027
We turn one with the studio standing, the books balanced and the game about to be in the hands of real players. We will say the next goal without hedging: we want Padel Rivals to be one of the most talked about games of 2027.
There is a mountain of work left. But after this year, it no longer sounds like a joke.
Thanks to Omega World Games for two great afternoons, and thanks to everyone who sat down this year to try the game without knowing who we were. See you on court tomorrow.
The Krokanti Games team
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