New Zealand game studio, Runaway Play has launched a mobile game exclusively with streaming giant, Netflix.

Netflix Flutter Butterflies allows players to discover and raise a peaceful habitat of butterflies, and is only available on the Netflix mobile app.

“Netflix entering the games market is incredibly exciting – in particular because it creates the opportunity to offer games to a wide and diverse user base, not just to those who already self-identify as gamers,” says Zoe Hobson, CEO of Runaway Play.

“There is a huge audience who don’t self-identify as ‘gamers’ but who love to play games – and this is especially prevalent in casual mobile games and with women. This is the exact market who we make game for at Runaway, so we are really excited to be working with Netflix to reach this audience.”

For the gaming studio, Runaway Play focuses on creating and developing games that are accessible to as many people as possible through diversity, inclusivity and usability, their core mission.

Their core mission heavily influenced their game, which is why they decided to work with Netflix who are “well positioned” in offering games to a wide and diverse audience.

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“As soon as we heard about Netflix entering games, we were really excited about the opportunity this presented for the games industry overall,” says Hobson.

Hobson says they immediately reached out to the streaming giant and started talking about the type of games Runway Play creates and how they share values.

“This, coupled with the fact that Netflix is going mobile first, creates the opportunity to build a large gaming audience that steps outside of the traditional ‘gamer’ tropes’,” she says.

 The creation process of Netflix Flutter Butterflies has been “interesting” for the Dunedin-based studio.

“To make Netflix Flutter Butterflies we worked with the base of our flagship game (Flutter: Butterfly Sanctuary) to create a new game that provides a different play experience,” Hobson says.

“This meant that the overall development process was much shorter than usual – less than a year, rather than multiple years.”

Runway Play has been working on games since 2009 with award winning mobile games under their belt.

“We are really excited to have Netflix Flutter Butterflies go live and seeing the positive player reactions has been fantastic. It’s been a really exciting project for our team at Runaway to work on, and we are looking forward to seeing the growth of the game in future.”