 The original Digital Eel logo, 2001, by Bill Sears | |
| Industry | Video game industry |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2001 |
| Headquarters | |
| Products | Infinite Space series |
| Website | www |
Digital Eel is a self-funded independent video game development team located in the Seattle, Washington area. Digital Eel is best known for its Infinite Space series of space roguelikes.
The group was formed in 2001 by Rich Carlson (level design at Ion Storm and Looking Glass Studios), Iikka Keränen (level design at Looking Glass Studios and Valve) and Bill "Phosphorus" Sears (digital artist at KnowWonder and GameHouse). [1]
In April 2013, Digital Eel announced plans for the third installment of the Infinite Space series, Infinite Space III: Sea of Stars, and turned to Kickstarter.com to crowdfund the project. [2] Funding was successful. [3]
On June 21, 2024, a retrospective soundtrack compilation album, The Weird Musical World of Digital Eel, was officially released on Bandcamp. Each track is a suite or medley of music from a different Digital Eel game.
Digital Eel is best known for its Infinite Space series of space roguelikes, Strange Adventures in Infinite Space (2002), Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space (2005) and Infinite Space III: Sea of Stars (2015). Strange Adventures and Weird Worlds pioneered the roguelite subgenre, inspiring later efforts like FTL: Faster Than Light . [4]
Roguelike is a style of role-playing game traditionally characterized by a dungeon crawl through procedurally generated levels, turn-based gameplay, grid-based movement, and permanent death of the player character. Most roguelikes are based on a high fantasy narrative, reflecting the influence of tabletop role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons.
The Independent Games Festival (IGF) is an annual festival at the Game Developers Conference (GDC), the largest annual gathering of the independent video game industry. Originally founded in 1998 to promote independent video game developers, and innovation in video game development by CMP Media, later known as UBM Technology Group, IGF is now owned by Informa after UBM's acquisition.
Cheapass Games is a game company founded and run by game designer James Ernest, based in Seattle, Washington. Cheapass Games operates on the philosophy that most game owners have plenty of dice, counters, play money, and other common board game accessories, so there is no need to bundle all of these components with every game that requires them. Cheapass games thus come packaged in white envelopes, small boxes, or plastic resealable bags containing only those components unique to the game - typically a rules sheet, a playing board printed on card stock, and game cards banded by magazine-cutout "sleeves". This allows the company to produce games for prices well below the market average. Later, Cheapass started offering some higher-quality, full color games under the "James Ernest Games" brand.
Strange Adventures In Infinite Space is a roguelike video game created by the indie developer Digital Eel and released for Windows and Mac on March 15, 2002, by boardgame developer-publisher, Cheapass Games. Releases for Pocket PC and Palm by British developer-publisher Astraware followed. In 2020, the game was updated to run on current computer operating systems of the day. It remains free to download and share.
Brainpipe: A Plunge to Unhumanity is an action video game developed by Digital Eel for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS and handhelds and was released on December 24, 2008. The game received "Excellence in Audio" award at Independent Games Festival 2009.
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FTL: Faster Than Light is a roguelike game created by indie developer Subset Games, which was released for Windows, MacOS, and Linux in September 2012. In the game, the player controls the crew of a single spacecraft, holding critical information to be delivered to an allied fleet, while being pursued by a large rebel fleet. The player must guide the spacecraft through eight sectors, each with planetary systems and events procedurally generated in a roguelike fashion, while facing rebel and other hostile forces, recruiting new crew, and outfitting and upgrading their ship. Combat takes place in pausable real time, and if the ship is destroyed or all of its crew lost, the game ends, forcing the player to restart with a new ship.
Thirty Flights of Loving is a first-person adventure video game developed by Brendon Chung under the name Blendo Games. It was published in August 2012 for Microsoft Windows, in November 2012 for OS X, and in December 2021 for Linux. The game is an indirect sequel to Gravity Bone (2008), with the same unnamed spy as the main character. It follows three people as they prepare for an alcohol heist and the aftermath of the operation.
Playdek is an independent video game development company founded in 2011, based in Carlsbad, California. Playdek specializes in developing board games and card games for Android, iOS, Windows, and Mac.
Armello is a 2015 digital role-playing strategy board game developed by League of Geeks. Announced as an iPad title in September 2012, the game has been in development since mid-2011, with music by composers Lisa Gerrard and Michael Allen. Between April and May 2014, a successful Kickstarter campaign was started to help fund a port to Microsoft Windows as well as stretch goals to bring the game to Android and Windows tablets. The game was chosen to receive additional support from governmental funding agencies Screen Australia and Film Victoria.
Thimbleweed Park is a point-and-click adventure game developed by Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick for Linux, macOS, Windows, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, iOS, Nintendo Switch, Android, and Amazon Luna. The game was revealed on November 18, 2014, along with a Kickstarter crowd-funding campaign with a goal of US$375,000, and was released on March 30, 2017.
Night in the Woods is a 2017 single-player adventure video game developed by Infinite Fall and published by Finji. Set in a world of zoomorphic humans, the story follows a young feline person named Mae, who drops out of college and returns to her hometown to find unexpected changes, alongside Bea, a gothic crocodile woman and her childhood best friend. The game was funded via Kickstarter, where it earned over four times its initial US$50,000 funding goal.
Into the Breach is a turn-based strategy video game developed and published by indie studio Subset Games, consisting of Justin Ma and Matthew Davis. Into the Breach is their second game, following FTL: Faster Than Light. It features writing by Chris Avellone and music composed by Ben Prunty. It was released for Microsoft Windows in February 2018, for macOS and Nintendo Switch in August 2018, and for Linux in April 2020. A version for iOS and Android mobile devices was published by Netflix in July 2022.
The Long Journey Home is a 2017 space exploration video game by Daedalic Entertainment for Windows, macOS, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.
Hypnospace Outlaw is a 2019 simulation video game developed by Tendershoot and published by No More Robots. Set in an alternate history 1999, the game takes place inside a parody of the early Internet and its culture that users visit in their sleep called Hypnospace. The player assumes the role of an "Enforcer" for the fictional company Merchantsoft—creator of Hypnospace—and seeks to police illegal content, copyright violations, viruses, and cyberbullying by users on the service. In the process, the player engages in detective work and puzzle-solving. It was released for Windows, macOS, and Linux in March 2019 and for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One in August 2020.
A roguelike deck-building game is a hybrid genre of video games that combines the nature of deck-building card games with procedural-generated randomness from roguelike games.
Astrologaster is a comedy narrative adventure video game developed and published by Nyamyam. It was released for iOS on 2 May 2019, for Microsoft Windows and macOS on 9 May 2019, and for Nintendo Switch on 18 February 2021. The game centres around the historical 16th-century physician and astrologer Simon Forman and the characters he encounters, who demand diagnoses, treatments, and sometimes to be read fortunes written in the stars.
Crying Suns is a 2019 roguelike strategy video game developed by Montpellier-based developer Alt Shift and published by Humble Bundle. The protagonist, space admiral Ellys Idaho, awakes in a cloning facility decades after the interstellar empire he fought for has collapsed, and travels the empire's galaxy in a battleship in search of answers why. The game is split into six chapters, with three sectors each; Idaho and his crew travel through each sector and its star systems to reach the sector exits while staying ahead of a pursuing threat. During the course of their travels, players battle other battleships in pausable real-time.
LA Game Space was a nonprofit organization focused on experimental game design, research and education. The crowdfunded project planned to open an exhibition space in Los Angeles, along with a research wing, a space for workshops and support for artists in residence. The organization exceeded its crowdfunding target in 2012, but closed down in 2018 having failed to open a physical venue.