Longbow Games

Last updated

Longbow Games
FormerlyLongbow Digital Arts
Company type Private
Industry Video games
Founded1998;26 years ago (1998)
Founder Seumas McNally
Headquarters,
Canada
Key people
Website longbowgames.com

Longbow Games is a Canadian video game developer based in Toronto. It was founded in 1998 by Seumas McNally.

Contents

History

Longbow Games was established in 1998 as Longbow Digital Arts by Seumas McNally. In 2000, the company's tank combat game Tread Marks won the top award at the Independent Games Festival. Shortly thereafter, McNally died of Hodgkin lymphoma aged 21. The Independent Games Festival renamed its grand prize in his honour. Since then, Longbow is run by McNally's family, such as father Jim, brother Phillipe, and mother Wendy. In 2012, the company had seven employees and an intern, otherwise outsourcing tasks to subcontractors. [1]

Projects

Hegemony: Philip of Macedon was a pet project of Jim McNally, who became interested in Philip while researching Alexander the Great and discovering that it was actually his father who had developed the troop types, tactics and infrastructure that enabled Alexander's invasion of the Persian Empire. [2] In hindsight, the early arcade games Longbow produced were mere stepping stones to the more in-depth real-time strategy games of the Hegemony series. [3] In 2018, Longbow released the puzzle-adventure game Golem . [4]

Finances

A bottleneck has been financing, since independence from publishing firms meant being forced to rely on self-funding. However, as Longbow developed the game engine for Hegemony from scratch, it was eligible to receive research and development credit from the government. An export fund for sending Canadian companies abroad to promote their games supported Longbow to visit trade shows. [5] With its title Hegemony Rome: The Rise of Caesar , Longbow attempted Steam Early Access to gain player feedback in 2013/14. [6] In 2014/15, Longbow launched a crowdfunding campaign via Kickstarter for its next strategy title, Hegemony III: Clash of the Ancients , [7] but raised only a fraction of its CA$30,000 goal. [8]

Games

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reflexive Entertainment</span>

Reflexive Entertainment was an American video game developer based in Lake Forest, California. The company was cofounded by Lars Brubaker, Ernie Ramirez, James C. Smith and Ion Hardie in 1997. They developed nineteen games independently, published two games, started distribution of downloadable casual games on their online Arcade, created a division of their Arcade entirely devoted to Mac games for Mac users and started hosting ad supported free online web browser games. In 2005, Reflexive's Wik and the Fable of Souls won three awards at the 2005 Independent Games Festival which included Innovation in Visual Art, Innovation in Game Design and the Seumas McNally Award For Independent Game Of The Year. In October 2008, Reflexive Entertainment was acquired by Amazon.com. On February 3, 2009, Amazon.com began hosting casual game content for internet download.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Seumas McNally</span> Canadian video game designer

Seumas McNally was a Canadian video game programmer and designer. He is best known for indie games, notably DX-Ball and Tread Marks, which won the Grand Prize at the Independent Games Festival (IGF). The award was posthumously renamed in his honour when he died at age 21 of Hodgkin's lymphoma, shortly after having received the award himself.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tread Marks</span> 2000 video game

Tread Marks is a 3D, third-person perspective, multiplayer-focused tank combat and racing computer game developed by Independent video game developer Longbow Digital Arts. The game won the 2000 Independent Games Festival grand prize, later renamed to the Seumas McNally Grand Prize in honor of the game's lead programmer Seumas McNally who died on 21 March 2000, after receiving the award. A notable feature of the game is fully deformable terrain.

Kru Interactive is a company that operates and manages online gaming and MMORPGs. Its headquarters is located in Santa Clara, California.

<i>Strange Adventures in Infinite Space</i> 2002 video game

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.

<i>DX-Ball 2</i> 1998 video game

DX-Ball 2 is a 1998 brick buster game for Microsoft Windows, developed and published by Longbow Games. As a follow-up to the 1996 cult-classic DX-Ball by Michael P. Welch, the sequel introduced a number of improvements to the original game, including high-colour textured graphics, an original soundtrack by Eric "Sidewinder" Gieseke, multiple board-sets with distinct visual styles, and a hotseat multiplayer mode. On November 21, 2018, the game was re-released on Steam as DX-Ball 2: 20th Anniversary Edition, commemorating the game's 20th anniversary, while also ensuring compatibility with more recent versions of Windows. The anniversary edition introduced high-definition graphics, widescreen gameplay with a selection of new widescreen board-sets, additional power-ups, online leaderboards, and a board-set editor for creating custom board-sets. Following the release of the anniversary edition on Steam, distribution of the original demo version of DX-Ball 2 via the Longbow Games website was discontinued, alongside sales of the game's original board pack expansions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rick Priestley</span> British miniature wargame designer

Rick Priestley is a British game designer and author mainly known as the creator of Warhammer miniature wargame.

<i>Zeno Clash</i> 2009 video game

Zeno Clash is a first-person fighting video game with elements of a first-person shooter. It is the debut game of developer ACE Team and uses the Source engine. It was released for download through content delivery service Steam on 21 April 2009. The Xbox 360 version, entitled Zeno Clash: Ultimate Edition, was released 5 May 2010 and contains additional features not found in the Windows version. The game is set in the fantasy world of Zenozoik, and follows Ghat, a young man who is on the run from his vengeful siblings, and Deadra, his female companion, as they travel through strange and exotic lands.

Rival Ball is the sequel to the PC Breakout clone DX-Ball 2 from Longbow Digital Arts. Released on March 19, 2001, the game features square bricks and online split-screen multiplayer. It introduces a cursor-based layout with buttons for navigation, two new power-ups, the ability to save and resume games, and game options for randomising board order, setting timers, repeating board-sets, and choosing between four difficulty levels. The game also plays all the original DX-Ball 2 boards. A Mac version was announced on April 3, 2002. Rival Ball was the first game from Longbow Games to succeed the passing of Seumas McNally (1979–2000), the company's founder and lead programmer. Rival Ball was followed by Rival Ball Tournament in 2004.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Seumas McNally Grand Prize</span> Main award given at the Independent Games Festival

The Seumas McNally Grand Prize is the main award given at the Independent Games Festival (IGF), an annual event that takes place during the Game Developers Conference, one of the largest gatherings of the indie video game industry. The award is named after computer game programmer Seumas McNally (1979–2000), founder of independent game development company Longbow Digital Arts. McNally died of Hodgkin's lymphoma shortly after receiving the award, then just the IGF Grand Prize, in 2000 for his game Tread Marks. The award is given alongside a prize of US$30,000.

<i>Hegemony Gold: Wars of Ancient Greece</i> 2010 strategy video game

Hegemony Gold: Wars of Ancient Greece is a real-time strategy game developed and published by Canadian studio Longbow Digital Arts Inc. It began as Hegemony: Philip of Macedon which revolved around the campaigns of Philip II of Macedon. It was originally released on Windows on 11 May 2010. It was updated as Hegemony Gold: Wars of Ancient Greece on 23 February 2011 which added scenarios set in the Peloponnesian War. The game features simultaneous real-time tactical battles and real-time strategic empire management, with a focus on the logistics and planning of military campaigns. It was followed by Hegemony Rome: The Rise of Caesar in May 2014 and Hegemony III: Clash of the Ancients in August 2015. A DLC for Clash, The Eagle King, was released in February 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harebrained Schemes</span> American video game developer

Harebrained Schemes, LLC is an American video game developer based in Seattle, Washington. It was co-founded in 2011 by Jordan Weisman and Mitch Gitelman. Prior to founding Harebrained Schemes, Weisman and Gitelman worked together on the MechCommander and Crimson Skies franchises at FASA, another company founded by Weisman. As of mid-2015, the studio had under 60 employees. The studio was acquired by Paradox Interactive in June 2018.

868-HACK is a 2013 roguelike video game developed and published by Michael Brough. The player controls a hacking program in a computer system and must grab as much computer data as possible before a defence program destroys it.

Hegemony is a series of computer strategy games developed by Canadian studio Longbow Games. The games combine historical grand strategy with real-time battles on a seamless map. The title references the concept of hegemony, i.e. the political, economic, or military predominance or control of one state over others.

<i>Hegemony III: Clash of the Ancients</i> 2015 strategy video game

Hegemony III: Clash of the Ancients is the third installment in the Hegemony strategy video game series, which was developed by the Canadian studio Longbow Games and released for Windows on August 25, 2015.

<i>Golem</i> (2018 video game) 2018 video game

Golem is a single-player adventure developed by Longbow Games about a young girl and a shape-shifting golem who must navigate the ruins of an ancient tower to solve its ever more challenging puzzles and re-activate its long-dormant machines. It was released 29 May 2018.

<i>Hegemony Rome: The Rise of Caesar</i> 2014 real-time strategy video game

Hegemony Rome: The Rise of Caesar is a 2014 historical real-time strategy video game developed by Longbow Digital Arts and published by Kasedo Games for Microsoft Windows. Like its 2010 prequel Hegemony Gold: Wars of Ancient Greece, it combines tactical real-time battles and strategic empire management while focusing on logistics and planning of military campaigns. Hegemony Rome is set in the period of the Gallic Wars during the campaigns of Julius Caesar, proconsul of Gaul and Illyria.

References

  1. Torontos Longbow Studios avoiding iOS in favour of hardcore PC games. On the website of Financial Post, visited 4 February 2021 (English)
  2. Great Expectations: Hegemony Interview. On the website of Rock Paper Shotgun, visited 4 February 2021 (English)
  3. Developer Interview: Jim McNally. On the website of Flash of Steel, visited 4 February 2021 (English)
  4. Tarason, Dominic (30 May 2018). "Quiet & stylish point-and-click puzzler Golem is out now". Rock Paper Shotgun . Retrieved 12 April 2021.
  5. Interview: Longbow Games Talks Indie RTS Hegemony: Philip Of Macedon. On the website of Gamasutra, visited 4 February 2021 (English)
  6. Strategy Informer talks with Rob McConnell about Hegemony Rome: The Rise of Caesar's Early Access on Steam and more. On the website of GameWatcher, visited 4 February 2021 (English)
  7. Longbow Games sets up kickstarter campaign for Hegemony 3: Clash of the Ancients. On the website of GameWatcher, visited 4 February 2021 (English)
  8. Hegemony III: Clash of the Ancients - Funding Unsuccessful. On the website of KickTraq, visited 4 February 2021 (English)