AB Games

AB Games is an independent Ukrainian mobile-game developer and product studio focused on free-to-play casual adventure games, particularly the Hidden Object Puzzle Adventure (HOPA) genre. Founded by Ukrainian game-industry veteran Anton Bolshakov, the studio grew out of Happy Star Games and adopted the AB Games operating name in 2011.

Its flagship production is Hidden City: Mystery of Shadows, a free-to-play hidden-object adventure launched in 2014 and published globally with G5 Entertainment AB. AB Games retains ownership of the game’s intellectual property through its corporate entity, H.S. Happy Star Games Limited. The title has become the studio’s defining long-running game, supported by regular content expansion and event updates.

Development focus

The studio’s work combines full-cycle mobile-game development with long-term live operations. Its supported capabilities include:

• Free-to-play mobile design and engineering
• Narrative, level and puzzle design for hidden-object adventures
• 2D and 3D concept art, animation, UI/UX and character art
• LiveOps, content expansion and monthly in-game events
• Prototyping, research and development
• Generative-AI art pipelines and internal creative tools

AB Games develops for major mobile and tablet storefronts, including iOS, Google Play, Amazon Appstore and Windows Store, serving casual and puzzle-adventure audiences internationally.

History and operations

Bolshakov previously worked at GSC Game World, where he was involved with the development of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl and Cossacks. After leaving GSC in late 2009, he established Happy Star Games; H.S. Happy Star Games Limited was incorporated in Cyprus in 2010.

Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, AB Games reorganized its operations and consolidated its physical studio network around Kyiv, Rivne and Limassol. The company publicly condemned Russian aggression and agreed with its publisher to remove Hidden City from Russian and Belarusian app marketplaces.

In 2026, the company spun out ABrush, an internally developed AI image-generation and Photoshop-acceleration plugin, as a separate standalone venture.