(Screenshot via Mutant Forge beta)

Seattle-based game studio Reflection Games is raising investment to help support development of its debut project.

A new SEC filing reveals that the company has raised about $2 million in fresh cash.

A company representative declined to comment on the filing when contacted by GeekWire.

Founded in 2021, Reflection is a 16-person studio focused on mobile game development. Its first game, the free-to-play “strategy battler” Mutant Forge, is currently in play-testing on iOS and Android.

Reflection’s CEO, Paul Thelen, is the founder and former chairman at Seattle-based casual gaming giant Big Fish Games. Thelen left Big Fish in 2018, shortly after the compay was sold to Aristocrat Technologies in a nearly billion-dollar deal.

Other Big Fish veterans at Reflection include Patrick Wylie, chief operating officer; Christopher Warwick, senior backend engineer; and Michael Tapley, lead designer. They’re joined by a distributed team of experienced developers and newcomers from across the Pacific Northwest.

Reflection soft-launched Mutant Forge earlier this year. It’s a real-time strategy game with some elements taken from tower defense and “auto-battlers.”

In Mutant Forge, players are given an assortment of disposable monsters with which to attack enemies and dismantle fortifications. Each type of unit has particular strengths and weaknesses, but have a short recharge timer before they can be redeployed. You can’t simply flood the zone, but have to pick particular mutants based on the situation you’re in.

With each successful mission, you earn currency and items which you can use to improve your mutant monsters’ stats and abilities, or create entirely new units through weird science.

The final version of Mutant Forge will feature a single-player campaign mode, as well as player-vs.-player matches. It’s currently only available through a playtest build that can be downloaded on its official website, with more news reportedly coming soon.

Editor’s note: This story was updated to reflect that Thelen founded Big Fish Games. An earlier version of this article identified Thelen as having worked at PopCap.

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