The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia's general notability guideline .(January 2024) |
Company type | Private |
---|---|
Industry | Video games |
Founded | 2007 |
Headquarters | , |
Key people | Chris Jones Aaron Conners |
Products | List of Big Finish Games |
Website | Official website |
Big Finish Games is an American independent game developer formed by members of Access Software/Indie Built following the company's closure in 2007. The company was founded with the goal of developing story-driven, interactive games. The company's debut production, Three Cards to Midnight , was released on May 7, 2009.
The company reunites the creative team of Chris Jones and Aaron Conners, perhaps best known for their work on the Tex Murphy series of adventure games for Access Software, as well as many other veterans of the Tex Murphy series, including Brian Johnson, Douglas Vandegrift, and Matt Heider. [1]
Most of Big Finish Games' team were members of Access Software, a company known for its diverse lineup of games, including the popular Tex Murphy series of adventure games. When the company was purchased by Microsoft (and later 2K Games), their focus was narrowed to sports games and the company was renamed to Indie Built. After Indie Built was closed, they decided that "the time was right to take the plunge back into the adventure game genre". [2]
The company has hoped to target the enduring fan base of the Tex Murphy series, [3] while also welcoming a more casual audience that is usually intimidated by adventure games. Conners has stated that in the longer term, Big Finish aimed to develop story-based games in a number of genres. [4] The company acquired the rights to the Tex Murphy series, and expressed an intent to revive the character. [3] In 2012, Big Finish Games launched Kickstarter campaign for Tex Murphy - Project Fedora , [5] which was successfully funded on June 16. [6] The game would ultimately change its name and was finally released as Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure on May 7, 2014. [7]
The Fantasy Trip (TFT) is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game designed by Steve Jackson and published in segments by Metagaming Concepts starting in 1977 and culminating in 1980. In 2019, Steve Jackson Games republished it as The Fantasy Trip Legacy Edition.
Cyan, Inc., also known as Cyan Worlds, Inc., is an American video game developer and publisher based in Mead, Washington. Founded as Cyan Productions by brothers Rand and Robyn Miller in 1987, the company created the Myst series.
Under a Killing Moon is a 1994 point-and-click adventure interactive movie video game. It is the third installment in the Tex Murphy series of adventure games produced by Access Software. In it, the detective Tex Murphy finds himself unwittingly involved in the affairs of a dangerous cult.
Big Finish may refer to:
An interactive film is a video game or other interactive media that has characteristics of a cinematic film. In the video game industry, the term refers to a movie game, a video game that presents its gameplay in a cinematic, scripted manner, often through the use of full-motion video of either animated or live-action footage.
Mark Crowe is an American video game designer, artist, and writer who developed several adventure games, mostly for Sierra On-Line and its subsidiary Dynamix. He later worked at Pipeworks Software as Studio Design Director. Crowe is best known for creating the Space Quest series, mostly with his fellow "Guy from Andromeda", Scott Murphy.
Tex Murphy is a series of adventure games designed by Chris Jones. The eponymous main character is portrayed in live-action by Chris Jones himself. He is characterized as a down-on-his-luck private investigator in a post-nuclear future San Francisco, borrowing tropes from both the film noir and cyberpunk genres.
Access Software, Inc. was an American video game developer based in Salt Lake City, Utah. Founded in November 1982 by Bruce Carver and Chris Jones, the company created the Beach Head, Links and Tex Murphy series, as well as Raid over Moscow. Access Software was acquired by Microsoft in April 1999, transitioning in name twice before being acquired by Take-Two Interactive in October 2004, receiving the name Indie Built. In January 2005, Access Software became part of Take-Two's 2K label. Following a poor financial performance at Take-Two, Indie Built was closed down in May 2006.
The Pandora Directive is the fourth installment in the Tex Murphy series of graphic adventure games produced by Access Software. After its creators reacquired the rights to the series, it was re-released on Good Old Games in July 2009.
Tex Murphy: Overseer is the fifth installment in the Tex Murphy series of graphic adventure games produced by Access Software. In it, the player controls Private Investigator Tex Murphy as he recounts the story of his first case to his girlfriend, Chelsee Bando. Like the previous two Tex Murphy games, Under a Killing Moon and The Pandora Directive, Overseer combined the use of full motion video (FMV) with 3D environments.
Christopher Jones is a video game designer and producer, CEO, finance professional, and actor. He is best known for a series of interactive movies in which he stars as Tex Murphy, a private investigator who lives in San Francisco in the middle of the 21st century.
Del Valle is an airport-defined edge city of Austin and part of the Greater Austin area. It is founded upon the 19th-century Santiago Del Valle leagues, the largest granted land parcel in Travis County.
Martian Memorandum is a dystopian cyberpunk/noir graphic adventure game that was originally released in 1991 for MS-DOS. It was developed and published by Access Software. The game is the second in the series of Tex Murphy mysteries; its immediate sequel is Under a Killing Moon. The game is set in 2039, several years after Mean Streets.
Three Cards to Midnight is a story-driven puzzle video game with elements of hidden object games and adventure games. It was written and designed by Aaron Conners and Chris Jones and is the debut release from independent developer Big Finish Games.
An adventure game is a video game genre in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an interactive story, driven by exploration and/or puzzle-solving. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based media, such as literature and film, encompassing a wide variety of genres. Most adventure games are designed for a single player, since the emphasis on story and character makes multiplayer design difficult. Colossal Cave Adventure is identified by Rick Adams as the first such adventure game, first released in 1976, while other notable adventure game series include Zork, King's Quest, Monkey Island, Syberia, and Myst.
Broken Age is a point-and-click adventure video game developed and published by Double Fine. Broken Age was game director Tim Schafer's first return to the genre since 1998's Grim Fandango, and was released for Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, and Xbox One platforms. The game was developed in two acts; the first was released on January 28, 2014, and the second was released on April 28, 2015. A retail version of the complete game for Windows, macOS, and Linux, published by Nordic Games, was released on April 28, 2015. A Nintendo Switch version was released on September 13, 2018.
Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure is the sixth game in the Tex Murphy series of detective adventure games, developed by Big Finish Games and published by Atlus. Like the previous three games, it tells much of its story through live-action full-motion video sequences, and features freely explorable 3D environments during gameplay.
Video game development has typically been funded by large publishing companies or are alternatively paid for mostly by the developers themselves as independent titles. Other funding may come from government incentives or from private funding.
Hand of Fate is an action role-playing roguelike deck-building game developed and published by Australian studio Defiant Development for Linux, macOS, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, released via early access on 7 July 2014, and then in the full release on 17 February 2015. A PlayStation Vita version was announced but ultimately cancelled due to development issues.
The Lost Legends of Redwall is a series of six episodic indie adventure games for Microsoft Windows, macOS, and Xbox One developed and published by studio Soma Games. They are the first officially licensed video games to be based on the Redwall book series since its introduction in 1986, and began production following a successful Kickstarter campaign for the Minecraft map "AbbeyCraft" in 2013.