People’s Choice Award Winner Pao Pao Edges Closer to Steam Release

Each year at Nordic Game, the Developer Showcase exhibition buzzes with exciting indies and brand-new talent on the show floor, presenting great games. To celebrate, all conference participants can play the games during the week and then vote for their favorite to win the People’s Choice Award, presented during the Nordic Game Awards show on the final conference evening.

At last May’s show, it was Moldovan studio ArtDock who got the most votes and took the People’s Choice Award with the game Pao Pao. Nordic Game talked to ArtDock’s CEO Dimitr Gibinski about the win and the future of Pao Pao.

1) How was your experience participating and winning the award?

Nordic Game is one of our most exciting experiences from the whole year! For the ArtDock team it was a HUGE success and People’s Choice Award perfectly represents our initial intention to create a game people will love to play!

2) Since then, the actual release of Pao Pao has moved closer, with the date set for the 1st quarter of 2026. How are you doing at this point? Everything going according to plan?

Right now we are still doubting a bit regarding the release date. On one hand there are so many activities in current game version, however there are still too many ideas we would love to implement as well. Hopefully game will be fully ready before NG26!

3) Why do you think Pao Pao won the award? Please elaborate a bit on the game and its strengths?

We strongly believe that world around us could be a better place. Instead of searching for the enemies people should concentrate on making new friends and enjoying every single day together. Pao Pao perfectly represents our dream of a perfect world where different creatures are living together, working together and having so much fun!

A bit of daily routine at the kitchen (that could be so funny in co-op mode) widely opens doors to a huge world full of adventures, quests, hidden Easter Eggs and mysterious things.

4) At next year’s Nordic, NG26 on 26-29 May, we’re expecting even more indies on the show floor than last edition. Any advice for studios participating with their game on display? Do’s and don’ts?

For our team at NG 2025 – that was actually the second Nordic we took part in. In 2024 – with a team of only 2 guys we were presenting our very first game designed by ArtDock. In 2024 we clearly realised that spending our efforts on the project, giving 100% of your power – is the only way to achieve success in the future. No one can show you a perfect road map to success, you just need to feel that you are able to create something that people around will love to play.

5) Can we expect to see you again in Malmö for NG26? What do you like the most about the Nordic Game experience?

We are hard at work on a new project right now. We will do our best to present first demo before NG 2026. March 2026 we will decide if we are ready to participate in NG this year. Looking around the modern game industry and communicate with thousands of game dev enthusiasts – it’s a unique opportunity we don’t want to miss.

Thank you Dimitri, and best of luck with Pao Pao!

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