Company type | Private |
---|---|
Industry | Video games |
Founded | 2008 |
Founder | Dan Marshall |
Products | Gibbage Time Gentlemen, Please! |
Website | www |
Size Five Games (formerly Zombie Cow Studios) is a British independent video game developer founded by Dan Marshall in 2008. Dan Marshall's previous games, Gibbage and Cruxade were retroactively brought under the Zombie Cow banner upon its founding.
Their first new release was a donationware adventure game called Ben There, Dan That! , released in 2008. It was widely praised by the adventure game community and downloaded 50,000 times but brought in only "a couple of hundred quid" due to its donation model. [1] [2] Marshall self-funded the game's development, telling the BBC in 2010 "What I do keeps me fed and warm. I'm not sure I get to lead the most extravagant lifestyle, or how my earnings compare to people working in the mainstream games industry." [3] Marshall later said of the game "I didn't think people would really pay money for it ... I think that was a bit naive, in retrospect. It's well worth a couple of quid, and I do regret not charging for it initially. You can always move the price down, you can't really move it up." [4] A 2011 updated edition of the game, which added a soundtrack and other features, was sold on a "pay what you want" model, with a minimum price. [5]
The sequel, Time Gentlemen, Please! , was released in 2009 to positive reviews. PC Gamer called it "point-and-click adventuring done right for a change." [6] It holds a Metacritic score of 84%. Both Ben There, Dan That! and Time Gentlemen, Please! were later made available for purchase on Steam and GOG.com.
In 2010, Zombie Cow Studios released Privates , a sex education game funded by Channel 4 and intended to match the "personal, social, and health education" guidelines of the National Curriculum [7] The Xbox 360 version was cancelled when Microsoft confirmed that the game contravened the Xbox Live guidelines on sexual content of games, [7] but the company released the Microsoft Windows version for free download from Channel 4's website. [8] The game won a BAFTA award in the "Learning - Secondary" category. [9] [10]
In May 2011, Zombie Cow Studios changed their name to Size Five Games. [11] [12]
In 2013, Size Five Games released Gun Monkeys , a "procedurally-generated, physics-based, 1-on-1 online platform shooter" featuring the voice of English actor and comedian, Kevin Eldon. [13]
In 2015, the studio released The Swindle , a stealth roguelike. In 2017, they released Behold the Kickmen , a parodic football game. In 2020, the studio released Lair of the Clockwork God , the third game in the Ben and Dan series. [14]
Lucasfilm Games is an American video game licensor and a subsidiary of Lucasfilm. It was founded in May 1982 by George Lucas as a video game development group alongside his film company; as part of a larger 1990 reorganization of the Lucasfilm divisions, the video game development division was grouped and rebranded as part of LucasArts. LucasArts became known for its line of adventure games based on its SCUMM engine in the 1990s, including Maniac Mansion, the Monkey Island series, and several Indiana Jones titles. A number of influential game developers were alumni of LucasArts from this period, including Brian Moriarty, Tim Schafer, Ron Gilbert, and Dave Grossman. Later, as Lucasfilm regained control over its licensing over the Star Wars franchise, LucasArts produced numerous action-based Star Wars titles in the late 1990s and early 2000s, while dropping adventure game development due to waning interest in the genre.
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Gibbage is a fighting game developed by Zombie Cow Studios. It was released on April 25, 2006, for Windows.
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Time Gentlemen, Please! is a point-and-click adventure game developed by Zombie Cow Studios. It is the sequel to the freeware game Ben There, Dan That! and was commercially released on July 2, 2009. As with the first game, Time Gentlemen, Please! was created using the Adventure Game Studio engine.
Ben There, Dan That! is a point and click adventure game developed by Zombie Cow Studios. It is freeware and was released on July 14, 2008 for Windows.
Cartoon Network: Punch Time Explosion is a 2011 crossover fighting video game developed by Papaya Studio and published by Crave Games, for the Nintendo 3DS. It features characters from various Cartoon Network programs battling against one another. The game was released in June 2011 in North America and in April 2012 in Europe. An upgraded port, Cartoon Network: Punch Time Explosion XL, was released for the Wii, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 less than a year later.
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State of Decay 2 is a 2018 action-adventure survival video game developed by Undead Labs and published by Xbox Game Studios. The game is a followup to State of Decay and was released for Windows and Xbox One on May 22, 2018. Like its predecessor, players are tasked with building a community, managing resources and surviving against the horde of zombies.
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Lair of the Clockwork God is a platforming and point-and-click game developed and published by Size Five Games for Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 in 2020. It is the third game in the Ben and Dan Series.
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