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Irrational Games was an American video game developer founded in 1997 by three former employees of Looking Glass Studios: Ken Levine, Jonathan Chey, and Robert Fermier. Take-Two Interactive acquired the studio in 2006. The studio was known for its games System Shock 2, Freedom Force, SWAT 4, and most notably, two of the games in the BioShock series. In 2014, following the release of BioShock Infinite, Levine opted to significantly restructure the studio from around 90 to 15 employees and focus more on narrative games. In February 2017, the studio announced that it had been rebranded as Ghost Story Games and considered a fresh start from the original Irrational name, though still operating at the same business subsidiary under Take-Two.
Kenneth M. Levine is an American game developer. He is the creative director and co-founder of Ghost Story Games. He led the creation of the BioShock series, and is also known for his work on Thief: The Dark Project and System Shock 2.
BioShock is a 2007 first-person shooter game developed by 2K Boston and 2K Australia, and published by 2K. The first game in the BioShock series, it was released for Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360 platforms in August 2007; a PlayStation 3 port by Irrational, 2K Marin, 2K Australia and Digital Extremes was released in October 2008. The game is set in 1960, and follows Jack, who discovers the underwater city of Rapture, built by business magnate Andrew Ryan to be an isolated utopia. The discovery of ADAM, a genetic material which grants superhuman powers, initiated the city's turbulent decline. Jack attempts to escape, fighting ADAM-obsessed enemies and Big Daddies, while engaging with the few sane humans that remain and learning of Rapture's past. The player, as Jack, can defeat foes in several ways by using weapons, utilizing plasmids that give unique powers, and by turning Rapture's defenses against them.
2K Australia Pty Ltd was an Australian video game developer based in Canberra. The company was founded as Irrational Games Australia, a subsidiary of Irrational Games, in April 2000. Irrational Games Australia and its parent were acquired by Take-Two Interactive in January 2006, with Irrational Games being placed under the 2K label. The two Irrational Games studio were split apart in August 2007, wherefore Irrational Games Australia became 2K Australia. Furthermore, 2K Australia under the name of sister studios 2K Marin between April 2010 and November 2011, and was finally shut down in April 2015.
Portal 2 is a 2011 puzzle-platform game developed by Valve for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360. The digital PC version is distributed online by Valve's Steam service, while all retail editions were distributed by Electronic Arts. A port for the Nintendo Switch was included as part of Portal: Companion Collection.
2K Marin, Inc. was an American video game developer based in Novato, California. Founded in December 2007 as a spin-off from their parent, 2K, the company developed BioShock 2 (2010) and The Bureau: XCOM Declassified (2013) before laying off or relocating all staff in October 2013 and silently being closed.
Andrew Ryan is a fictional character in the BioShock video game series developed by Irrational Games. He serves as the primary antagonist in the first half of BioShock and appears as a minor character in its sequel, BioShock 2, and its prequel, BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea. Ryan is portrayed as an idealistic business magnate in the 1940s and 1950s, aiming to create an underwater city called Rapture to avoid government oversight and scrutiny. As civil war erupts in Rapture, Ryan's utopian vision collapses into a dystopia, leading him to become reclusive and paranoid. After winning the war, he becomes increasingly ruthless in his control over the city's remaining inhabitants.
BioShock is a retrofuturistic video game series created by Ken Levine, published by 2K and developed by several studios, including Irrational Games and 2K Marin. The BioShock games combine first-person shooter and role-playing elements, giving the player freedom for how to approach combat and other situations, and are considered part of the immersive sim genre. Additionally, the series is notable for exploring philosophical and moral concepts with a strong in-game narrative influenced by concepts such as Objectivism, total utilitarianism, and American exceptionalism.
BioShock Infinite is a first-person shooter video game in the BioShock series, developed by Irrational Games and published by 2K. Infinite was released worldwide for the PlayStation 3, Windows, Xbox 360, and OS X platforms in 2013. The game is set in the year 1912 and follows its protagonist, Booker DeWitt, who is sent to the airborne city Columbia to retrieve Elizabeth, a young woman held captive there. Booker and Elizabeth become involved in a class war between the nativist Founders that rule Columbia and the rebel Vox Populi, representing the city's underclass. Elizabeth possesses the ability to manipulate "Tears" in the space-time continuum, and Booker and Elizabeth discover she is central to Columbia's dark secrets. The player controls Booker DeWitt throughout the game, fighting enemies and scavenging supplies, while the computer-controlled Elizabeth provides assistance.
Robin Hunicke is an American video game designer and producer. She is a professor of game design at UC Santa Cruz and the co-founder of Funomena.
The Potato Sack is the name of an alternate reality game (ARG) created by Valve and the developers of thirteen independent video games to promote the release of Valve's game Portal 2, in April 2011. Valve president Gabe Newell envisioned the game as a "Cross Game Design Event" in December 2010, and allowed the developers free rein to design the game using Valve's Portal intellectual property. The game, requiring players to find and solve a number of puzzles hidden within updates of the thirteen games, led to the opportunity for players to release Portal 2 about 10 hours earlier than its planned release by playing games under the pretense of powering up GLaDOS, the sentient computer antagonist from the Portal series. The ARG's theme of potatoes is based on plot elements within Portal 2, specifically that for part of the game, GLaDOS's personality module is run off a potato battery.
Zachtronics LLC is an American video game developer, best known for engineering-oriented puzzle video games and programming games. Zachtronics was founded by Zach Barth in 2000, who serves as its lead designer. Some of their games include SpaceChem, Infinifactory, TIS-100, and Shenzhen I/O. Infiniminer (2009) inspired the creation of Minecraft.
Cogs is a puzzle video game released in 2009 by Lazy 8 Studios, originally released as a Microsoft Windows title, but receiving subsequent ports to other operating systems, mobile platforms, and game consoles. The game requires the player to manipulate a three-dimensional object's sides as sliding block puzzles as to complete specific goals, such as meshing gears to complete a clockwork mechanism or routing gas flow through pipes to a balloon.
The Indie Game Challenge was an American award competition run in conjunction between the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS), GameStop and The Guildhall at Southern Methodist University (SMU) to support independent video game development. Started in 2009, the competition highlighted ten to twelve independent games, with winning games receiving monetary rewards in addition to the award. The ceremonies were held during the annual D.I.C.E. Summit, during which the finalists are able to demonstrate their games to the press. The competition has not been held since the 2012 D.I.C.E. Summit.
Chris Remo is an American video game designer, composer, writer, podcaster, and former journalist.
The development of BioShock Infinite began after BioShock's release in August 2007. The five-year development, led by studio Irrational Games, began under the moniker "Project Icarus". Irrational's creative lead, Ken Levine was inspired by events at the turn of the 20th century and the expansion of the concept of American Exceptionalism set by the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. His story took these events to create a tale set in 1912 where the player, as former Pinkerton agent Booker DeWitt, is challenged to rescue a young woman, Elizabeth, who has been kept aboard the floating city of Columbia in the middle of a civil war between its founder Father Zachary Comstock and the Vox Populi, the underclass revolting against him.
Voyager was a graphic adventure computer game developed by Looking Glass Technologies from 1995 until its cancellation in 1997. It was published by Viacom New Media. Based on the Star Trek: Voyager license, the game followed Kathryn Janeway and the crew of the USS Voyager in their attempts to rescue members of their team from the Kazon. Voyager was the first game in a multi-title agreement between Viacom and Looking Glass, and Viacom took a minority equity investment in the company as part of the deal. However, Viacom decided to leave the video game industry in 1997, and Voyager was cancelled in spring of that year. In response to Voyager's cancellation, team members Ken Levine, Jonathan Chey and Rob Fermier left Looking Glass to found Irrational Games.
Rod Fergusson is a Canadian video game producer, best known for overseeing the development of the Gears of War franchise, originally at Epic Games and then as head of The Coalition. More recently, Fergusson moved over to Blizzard Entertainment to oversee development on the Diablo series.
Ghost Story Games, LLC is an American video game developer based in Westwood, Massachusetts, and led by Ken Levine. The studio is the rebranding of Irrational Games as announced in February 2017, and while still the same business subsidiary under Take-Two Interactive, the rebranding was considered a fresh start by the founders as they move into more emergent narrative-driven titles compared to the larger titles they had made under Irrational.
An immersive sim (simulation) is a video game genre that emphasizes player choice. Its core, defining trait is the use of simulated systems that respond to a variety of player actions which, combined with a comparatively broad array of player abilities, allow the game to support varied and creative solutions to problems, as well as emergent gameplay beyond what has been explicitly designed by the developer. This definition is not to be confused with game systems which allow player choice in a confined sense or systems which allow players to easily escape consequences of their choices.
References
- 1 2 "2010 Indie Game Challenge Winners". Indie Game Challenge. Archived from the original on 2012-10-22. Retrieved 2012-10-24.
- ↑ Jagnow, Rob (2011-05-06). "The POrTAl TwO ARG: The Whole Story". Gamasutra . Retrieved 2011-05-06.
- ↑ Rose, Mike (2011-09-02). "Interview: Exploring The Galaxy With Lazy 8's Extrasolar". Gamasutra . Retrieved 2012-10-24.
- ↑ Whitehead, Dan (2014-02-24). "Rovers Return: reinventing the ARG with Extrasolar". Eurogamer.net. Retrieved 2023-12-31.
- 1 2 Conditt, Jessica (2012-10-22). "Lazy 8 on the Cogs behind BioShock Infinite: Industrial Revolution". Joystiq . Retrieved 2012-10-24.
