Blue Wizard Digital

Last updated

Blue Wizard Digital
Founded2014
Founder Jason Kapalka
Headquarters Comox Valley, British Columbia
Website bluewizard.com

Blue Wizard Digital is a Canadian video game development studio and game publisher founded in 2014 by Jason Kapalka, one of the founders of PopCap Games and an early pioneer in the mobile casual gaming space. It is based in the Comox Valley, British Columbia, and is the only video game studio currently headquartered in Comox, [1] as The Long Dark studio Hinterland is now based in Vancouver.

Contents

The studio specializes in campy horror puzzle games, humorous first-person shooters and other innovative variations on existing models of gaming.

Shell Shockers

Blue Wizard's most popular game as of October 2020 is Shell Shockers, a browser-based first-person shooter in which players take the form of eggs and "splat" each other. Players can drop in and play anonymously in public lobbies or create persistent accounts and private maps to play with friends. The game features a variety of pop culture-influenced, punnishly-named weapons: the EggK-47(based on the AK-47), the Scrambler (based on a break action shotgun), the Free Ranger (based on the SVD), the Rpegg (based on the RPG-7), the Whipper (based on the FN P90), the Crackshot (based on the M24), and the Tri-Hard (based on the Steyr Aug). There are many player and item skins, most of which can be bought with Eggs, the in-game currency. [2]

As of mid-2019, the game had almost 40 million players worldwide, and is one of the most popular .io games available online. [3] [4]

Shell Shockers has been the target of some controversy, as it is commonly played by school students on Chromebooks provided by schools for educational purposes. [5] Some of the gaming platforms offering the browser-based game, such as CrazyGames, [6] have therefore been blocked by American schools. [7]

Slayaway Camp

"A puzzle game for people who hate puzzle games," [8] Slayaway Camp is set at a summer camp that's been set upon by a serial killer. Its blocky chibi-like style of character art makes it "adorably gruesome" and perhaps more palatable for those who would otherwise shy away from a horror game. Originally released in 2016 for PC, its success led to a console port of the game in 2017, with releases for Xbox One and PS4.

Kapalka has stated that one of his intentions in running Blue Wizard is to "find a way to make... puzzle games less boring, more viscerally exciting," [9] and both Slayaway Camp and Friday the 13th: Killer Puzzle, another popular Blue Wizard camp-horror game, serve this goal.

Friday the 13th: Killer Puzzle

Blue Wizard's only license-based game thus far, F13 is based on the popular Friday the 13th franchise and, similar to Slayaway Camp, has been called "adorable and violent"; [10] its gameplay is also based largely on the sliding-block puzzle genre of game that founder Jason Kapalka helped to invent with Bejeweled .

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<i>Friday the 13th: Killer Puzzle</i> 2018 video game

Friday the 13th: Killer Puzzle is a 2018 horror puzzle video game for iOS, Android, Steam, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One developed by Blue Wizard Digital. The game was released on January 20, 2018, in the US and April 13 worldwide. It is the fourth official video game based on the Friday the 13th franchise.

Jason Kapalka is a Canadian game developer and entrepreneur based in the Comox Valley and Vancouver, British Columbia. He is best known as one of the founders, along with John Vechey and Brian Fiete, of the video game studio PopCap Games, which was founded in 2000 and sold to Electronic Arts in 2011; PopCap was originally titled “Sexy Action Cool,” but the name was changed when it was found to be misleading to many players. Kapalka is listed at #82 on IGN's list of the top 100 game creators of all time.

<i>Space Tyrant</i> 2018 video game

Space Tyrant is a strategy video game developed by Blue Wizard Digital. It uses a streamlined version of 4X gameplay in which players conquer the galaxy as an evil tyrant.

References

  1. "Creating Fun & Games: Jason Kapalka". CVC. October 20, 2017. Retrieved October 22, 2019.
  2. "Ever Wanted to Blast an Egg to Smithereens? Here's Your Chance!". Daily Game. March 31, 2018. Retrieved October 22, 2019.
  3. "My Odyssey from Indie to Billion Dollar Games and Back Again". Escapist Magazine. November 27, 2018. Retrieved October 22, 2019.
  4. "The death of flash and birth of IO games". www.gamasutra.com. Retrieved October 22, 2019.
  5. Chung, Miranda (June 13, 2018). "Shell Shockers video game cracks into classrooms". The Observer. Retrieved October 22, 2019.
  6. Miller, George (August 20, 2021). "Shell Shockers passes 35 million game plays on CrazyGames' web portals". European Gaming Industry News. Retrieved August 26, 2022.
  7. "The 2018 Benchmark Report: An Analysis of Emerging Trends In Student Chromebook Usage" (PDF). GoGuardian. 2018. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 15, 2018. Retrieved August 26, 2022.
  8. "Slayaway Camp: Butcher's Cut Is A Puzzle Game Made For People Who Hate Puzzle Games". PlayStation.Blog. September 29, 2017. Retrieved October 22, 2019.
  9. Crowley, D.D. "Interview: Blue Wizard Digital's Jason Kapalka, Creator of 'F13: Killer Puzzle'". Pop Horror. Archived from the original on May 5, 2019. Retrieved October 22, 2019.
  10. Bolt, Neil (October 25, 2018). "[Review] 'Friday the 13th Killer Puzzle' is a Fine Sequel to 'Slayaway Camp'". Bloody Disgusting!. Retrieved October 22, 2019.