Blendo Games

Blendo Games
Private
Industry Interactive entertainment
Founded 1999 (1999)
Founder Brendon Chung
Headquarters Culver City, California, United States
Products Gravity Bone, Flotilla, Atom Zombie Smasher, Quadrilateral Cowboy
Website blendogames.com

Blendo Games is an American independent video game development company founded by Brendon Chung. Blendo Games has produced a number of mods for various games since the late 1990s. It gained more widespread exposure with the short form stand alone title Gravity Bone; his following games Flotilla and Atom Zombie Smasher were met with positive critical praise and named as top indie games for those years.

Background

Chung has been programming his own projects, and created the Blendo Games brand for these. In 2004, Chung was hired as a designer at Pandemic Studios but continued to work on his personal projects, releasing Gravity Bone during that time.[1][2] When Electronic Arts closed down the studio in November 2009, Chung immediately set to work to create Flotilla, a game based on a prior project he has earlier ceased worked on.[1] After Flotilla's release in 2010, Chung went on to create Atom Zombie Smasher, released in 2011. Atom Zombie Smasher received high critical praise, and was featured at the 2011 Penny Arcade Expo and part of the 3rd Humble Indie Bundle charity drive.[3][4][5][6] A sequel to Gravity Bone, Thirty Flights of Loving, was developed to support a Kickstarter project for the Idle Thumbs podcast, and released in 2012.[7][8][9]

Blendo Games remains a one-man studio, though Chung gains gameplay ideas, playtesting help, and music from his friends and family.[10]

Barista

Barista is a series of games for Microsoft Windows by Brendon Chung. The first, third, and fourth of the games are modifications of pre-existing games, while the second is its own application, based on the Quake II engine.[11]

The series features Chung's trademark style of surrealism and not telling the player the whole story. A recurring motif throughout the series is the player character waking up at the start of each game. In an interview, Chung claimed that he named the original game "Barista" due to the fact that the player character never drank coffee, letting himself go back to sleep just before the events of the first game.[12]

The first game is a modification for Doom II: Hell on Earth. It features a more advanced HUD than the original Doom II.

The second game runs on a modified id Tech 2 engine. It is the most surreal of the series, featuring a disjointed storyline with characters such as the nameless protagonist, a pilot, as well as a talking skull the player meets. A recurring character is an unknown girl. She is suspected to be Hannah, a woman mentioned by the skull, though Chung stated this is not the case.[13]

The third game is a modification for Doom 3 while the fourth is for Half-Life 2.[14]

The Barista series was among the first games published by Chung's studio Blendo Games.

Games

References

  1. 1 2 "The Making Of: Flotilla". Edge. 2011-12-02. Retrieved 2012-01-11.
  2. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2009-04-06. Retrieved 2010-02-12.
  3. ↑ Curtis, Tom (2011-12-19). "Gamasutra Best Of 2011: Top 5 PC Games". Gamasutra. Retrieved 2011-12-19.
  4. ↑ "2012 Independent Games Festival Announces Main Competition Finalists". Independent Games Festival. 2012-01-10. Retrieved 2012-01-10.
  5. ↑ Schrier, Jason (2011-07-13). "10 Clever Indie Games Ready to Shine at PAX". Wired. Retrieved 2011-08-05.
  6. ↑ de Matos, Xav (2011-08-05). "Humble Indie Bundle 3 adds 'Atom Zombie Smasher'". Shacknews. Retrieved 2011-08-05.
  7. ↑ Caoili, Eric (2012-02-28). "Kickstarter drive offers exclusive game from Atom Zombie Smasher dev". Gamasutra. Retrieved 2012-02-28.
  8. ↑ Blendo Games. Retrieved March 7, 2012.
  9. ↑ Meer, Alec (February 28, 2012). "Gravity Bone’s Sequel: Thirty Flights Of Loving". Rock Paper Shotgun. Retrieved March 7, 2012.
  10. ↑ Harris, Phil (2010-12-07). "Brendon Chung (Blendo Games) - Interview". Square-Go. Retrieved 2012-01-12.
  11. ↑ "BLENDO: Older Projects". Blendogames.com. Retrieved 2013-10-08.
  12. ↑ "Video interview with Brendan Chung of Blendo Games". Playwrite. 2010-02-18. Retrieved 2013-10-08.
  13. ↑ "Level With Me, Brendon Chung.". Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Retrieved 2013-10-08.
  14. ↑ "BLENDO: Older Projects". Blendogames.com. Retrieved 2013-10-08.

External links

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