 |
 | |
| 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 (Ion Storm, Looking Glass Studios), Iikka Keränen (Looking Glass Studios, Valve) and Bill "Phosphorus" Sears (KnowWonder, 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]
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 space roguelike subgenre, inspiring later efforts like FTL: Faster Than Light . [4]
Roguelike is a subgenre of role-playing computer games 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 their influence from 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.
Insaniquarium is a 2001 virtual pets simulator video game developed by Flying Bear Entertainment, and published by PopCap Games and MumboJumbo. Before PopCap Games's involvement, the game was a web-based Java game released in 2001. The game was made downloadable by PopCap Games in 2004 and was ported to mobile devices in 2006 and 2008 by Glu Mobile and Astraware respectively. Insaniquarium has the player maintain a tank full of fish while protecting it from alien attacks.
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.
Edmund Charles McMillen is an American video game designer and artist known for his Flash game visual style. His most notable works include 2010's side-scroller Super Meat Boy and 2011's roguelike game The Binding of Isaac and its 2014 remake.
Iikka Keränen, a native of Finland, lives in Seattle, Washington with his dog. He is a level designer at Valve. He also co-founded Digital Eel, an independent video game development group, in 2001. His range of professional skills include illustration, 2D game art, 3D modeling, programming and game design.
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.
Vlambeer was a Dutch independent video game developer based in Utrecht. Founded in 2010, the studio was composed of Rami Ismail and Jan Willem Nijman, and closed down on its tenth anniversary after the two recognized they were moving in different directions. The studio was known for the games Super Crate Box (2010), Serious Sam: The Random Encounter (2011), Ridiculous Fishing (2013), Luftrausers (2014), and Nuclear Throne (2015), as well as for their stand against video game cloning.
FTL: Faster Than Light is a real-time strategy roguelike game created by indie developer Subset Games, which was released for Microsoft 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.
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 the iOS platform.
Armello is a digital role-playing strategy board game developed by Australian independent game studio League of Geeks as their debut project. 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 Steam and GOG.com, 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.
Legend of Dungeon is an indie roguelike action role-playing video game by Robot Loves Kitty for Microsoft Windows, OS X and Linux. The goal of the game is for players to fight through 26 monster filled levels, grab the treasure, then make it back through all 26 levels without dying. Legend of Dungeon also features a unique artstyle and atmosphere by blending pixelated characters in a 3D world as well as having both a dynamic shadow and music system.
Dungeon of the Endless is a roguelike tower defense game developed by Amplitude Studios. It is the third game of their loosely connected Endless series, which includes Endless Space and Endless Legend. It was released in October 2014 for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X systems, August 2015 for iOS devices, and for Xbox One in March 2016. The PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch ports were released in May 2020. A revamped version for iOS and Android devices, called Dungeon of the Endless: Apogee, launched on March 16, 2021.
Night in the Woods is a 2017 single-player adventure video game developed by Infinite Fall, Secret Lab and published by Finji.
Metamorphabet is a 2015 interactive video game developed by Vectorpark.
Skyshine's Bedlam is a turn-based tactical roguelike and simulation game developed by Skyshine Games and published by Versus Evil. It was released on September 16, 2015, for Windows and Mac OS X.
Michael Brough is a New Zealand-born indie video game developer known for his eclectic roguelike games. His games are often tightly-focused explorations of a single mechanical aspect of the roguelike genre, set on unusually small grids. This style of game, perhaps best exemplified by 868-HACK, has become widely known as the "Broughlike".
A roguelike deck-building game is a hybrid genre of video games that combine the nature of deck-building card games with procedural-generated randomness from roguelike games.
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.