Lionhead Studios Limited was a British video game developer founded in July 1997 by Peter Molyneux, Mark Webley, Tim Rance, and Steve Jackson. The company is best known for the Black & White and Fable series. Lionhead started as a breakaway from developer Bullfrog Productions, which was also founded by Molyneux. Lionhead's first game was Black & White, a god game with elements of artificial life and strategy games. Black & White was published by Electronic Arts in 2001. Lionhead Studios is named after Webley's hamster, which died not long after the naming of the studio, as a result of which the studio was very briefly renamed to Redeye Studios.
Peter Douglas Molyneux is an English video game designer and programmer. He created the god games Populous, Dungeon Keeper, and Black & White, as well as Theme Park, the Fable series, Curiosity: What's Inside the Cube?, and Godus. He currently works at 22cans.
Black & White is a god video game developed by Lionhead Studios and published by Electronic Arts for Microsoft Windows in 2001 and by Feral Interactive in 2002 for Mac OS. Black & White combines elements of artificial life and strategy. The player acts as a god whose goal is to defeat Nemesis, another god who wants to take over the world. A primary theme is the concept of good and evil, with the atmosphere being affected by the player's moral choices. The core gameplay mechanic of Black & White is the interaction between the player and an avatar creature, who carries out the players instructions and whose personality and behaviour change in reaction to how they are treated. Multiplayer is supported over a local network or online.
Bullfrog Productions Limited was a British video game developer based in Guildford, England. Founded in 1987 by Peter Molyneux and Les Edgar, the company gained recognition in 1989 for their third release, Populous, and is also well known for titles such as Theme Park, Magic Carpet, Syndicate and Dungeon Keeper. Bullfrog's name was derived from an ornament in the offices of Edgar's and Molyneux's other enterprise, Taurus Impact Systems, Bullfrog's precursor where Molyneux and Edgar were developing business software. Bullfrog Productions was founded as a separate entity after Commodore mistook Taurus for a similarly named company.
Kung Fu Hustle is a 2004 action-comedy film directed, produced, co-written by, and starring Stephen Chow. The film tells the story of a murderous neighbourhood gang, a poor village with unlikely heroes, and an aspiring gangster's fierce journey to find his true self. Eva Huang, Yuen Wah, Yuen Qiu, Danny Chan Kwok-kwan and Leung Siu-lung co-starred in prominent roles. The martial arts choreography is supervised by Yuen Woo-ping.
Mark Healey is a British video game developer from Ipswich, Suffolk. Healey started his career making games for the Commodore 64 home computer – his first published game was KGB Super Spy for Codemasters, which led to developing the educational Fun School series of games for Europress Software. Healey joined Bullfrog Productions to work with Peter Molyneux on titles such as Magic Carpet and Dungeon Keeper. When Molyneux left Bullfrog to form Lionhead Studios, Healey joined him, and worked as a senior artist on Black & White and Fable. Whilst still at Lionhead, he developed Rag Doll Kung Fu independently in his spare time, which was the first third party game to be distributed over Steam - Valve's online distribution system. He is a co-founder of Media Molecule and creative director of LittleBigPlanet and LittleBigPlanet 2.
Kung Fu Panda is a 2008 American computer-animated action comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by Paramount Pictures. It is the first installment in the Kung Fu Panda franchise. Directed by John Stevenson and Mark Osborne, the film stars the voices of Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, Ian McShane, Seth Rogen, Lucy Liu, David Cross, Randall Duk Kim, James Hong, Dan Fogler, Michael Clarke Duncan, and Jackie Chan. The film is set in a version of ancient China populated by anthropomorphic animals and revolves around a bumbling panda named Po, a kung-fu enthusiast. When a notorious snow-leopard named Tai Lung is foretold to escape from prison, Po is unwittingly named the "Dragon Warrior" – a prophesised hero worthy of reading a scroll said to grant its reader limitless power.
GameShadow was a gaming community website and an advertising-supported software utility that kept PC gamers up-to-date with patches, game demos, trailers, mods and other content for PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 games. GameShadow identifies the product version of supported games installed on a user's PC, then compares them to its database to locate updates for those games. The site also offers gaming industry news, an industry blog, and a Gaming Network. It is available for Microsoft Windows only. GameShadow is based in Over Norton, Oxfordshire, England.
Ninja Theory Limited is a first-party British video game development studio based in Cambridge, England. Notable games it has developed include Kung Fu Chaos, Heavenly Sword, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, DmC: Devil May Cry and Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice.
LittleBigPlanet is a 2008 platform game developed by Media Molecule and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation 3. The first game of the LittleBigPlanet franchise, the player character is Sackboy, a brown ragged doll with the ability to create. The level editor is the main focus of the game, allowing the player to create levels and publish them online. The premade levels in the story mode are built around Sackboy's basic control scheme. They are grouped into areas, each centring around a theme. The story mode revolves around Sackboy helping various Creator Curators around LittleBigPlanet before facing the Collector, who has been kidnapping and stealing creations.
Media Molecule Ltd. is a British video game developer based in Guildford, Surrey. Founded in 2006 by Mark Healey, Alex Evans, David Smith, and Kareem Ettouney, Sony Computer Entertainment acquired the firm in 2010. It became part of SCE Worldwide Studios. The company is best known for developing the LittleBigPlanet series, 2013's Tearaway, and 2020's Dreams for PlayStation consoles.
LittleBigPlanet 2 is a puzzle-platform game that features user-generated content. The game is developed by Media Molecule, published by Sony Computer Entertainment for PlayStation 3. It was released in January 2011. The game was released in North America on 18 January 2011, in mainland Europe on 19 January 2011, in Australia and New Zealand on 20 January 2011 and the UK and Ireland on 21 January 2011.
Kung Fu Panda 2 is a 2011 American computer-animated martial arts comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by Paramount Pictures. The film is the sequel to Kung Fu Panda (2008) and the second installment in the Kung Fu Panda franchise. Directed by Jennifer Yuh Nelson, the film stars Jack Black, Angelina Jolie, Dustin Hoffman, Seth Rogen, Lucy Liu, David Cross, James Hong, and Jackie Chan reprising their character roles from the first film, with Gary Oldman, Michelle Yeoh, Danny McBride, Dennis Haysbert, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and Victor Garber voicing new characters. In the film, Po and his allies travel to Gongmen City to stop the evil peacock Lord Shen from conquering China, while also rediscovering Po's forgotten past.
Sackboy is a fictional character and main protagonist of the LittleBigPlanet video game series published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Introduced in the 2008 video game LittleBigPlanet, Sackboy is a small, anthropomorphic, humanoid doll-like character made of burlap sack with a brown knit pattern by default, with a zip fastener and button eyes. Sackboy was originally designed to be a "blank canvas" for LittleBigPlanet players, and is fully customisable using costumes which are either in-game unlockable content, or purchased as downloadable content (DLC) from the PlayStation Store. Sackboy was jointly created by the founding members of British game studio Media Molecule. Scottish composer Kenneth Young provided the vocal effects for the character from 2008 to 2014.
Kung Fu Panda is an American media franchise that started in 2008 with the release of the animated feature film of the same name, produced by DreamWorks Animation. Following the adventures of the titular Po Ping, a giant panda who is improbably chosen as the prophesied Dragon Warrior and becomes a master of kung fu, the franchise is set in a fantasy wuxia genre version of ancient China populated by anthropomorphic animals. Although his status is initially doubted, Po proves himself worthy as he strives to fulfill his destiny and learn about his past with his new friends.
Kung Fury is a 2015 Swedish martial arts comedy featurette film written and directed by David Sandberg. It pays homage to 1980s martial arts and police action films. The film stars Sandberg in the title role, Jorma Taccone, Leopold Nilsson, and a cameo appearance by David Hasselhoff.
Dream Build Play is an annual $75,000 Microsoft video game contest used to promote Microsoft XNA Game Studio and eventually Xbox LIVE Indie Games. It was announced in 2006, started in 2007, and ran until 2012. It was restarted in 2017 as the Dream.Build.Play 2017 Challenge. Notable winners include Dust: An Elysian Tail and The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai.
Siobhan Reddy is the studio director of Media Molecule, a video game development studio based in Guildford in the United Kingdom, most famous for their debut title LittleBigPlanet.
Dreams is a video game creation system and service developed by Media Molecule and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for the PlayStation 4 in February 2020. Players can create user-generated content in the forms of games, audiovisual experiences and game assets, which can be shared or remixed to be experienced or used in other players' creations.
