Google on Wednesday announced plans to host the second Google Play Indie Games Festival in South Korea, pledging efforts to support the growth of small-sized local game developers.

Google Play, the official app store for Android-based smartphones, has opened up registration for Korea-based game developers looking to partake in its second indie games festival here. Registrations will end on April 2.

The Google Play Indie Games Festival is an event designed to help promising local indie game developers improve their services by providing opportunities to interact with industry experts and the public, according to the company.

“We’ve designed this event to offer local indie game developers not only networking opportunities and financial awards, but also programs designed to help the firms expand their businesses and go global,” said Chang Hyun-se, head of Google Play’s business development at Google Korea.

Google is looking to discover creative games embodying innovative concepts and intricate design, rather than games that prioritize marketability and profit, according to Chang.

This year, a total of 20 game developers will be selected to take part in the event, to be held in Seoul from April 22-23. Each company can submit up to two games to be showcased at the event.

All of the selected firms will have their games showcased at the top of Google Play’s newly made indie games collection category as well as receive mentorship from Google Campus Seoul, a support entity for startups operated by Google, from May 1 to July 31.

Among the 20, the top three companies will receive additional awards such as Android smartphones, opportunities to collaborate with popular YouTube creators and more chances to market their games via Google Play.

By Sohn Ji-young (jys@heraldcorp.com)