A spider is a type of arthropod.
Game Developer, formerly known as Gamasutra, is a website founded in 1997 that focuses on all aspects of video game development. It is owned and operated by Informa and acted as the online sister publication to the print magazine Game Developer. The site was known as Gamasutra until August 2021.
Randy Smith is an American video game designer. He co-owns and is the creative director of Tiger Style. He has worked extensively on the Thief series with both Looking Glass Studios and Ion Storm.
An indie game, short for independent video game, is a video game typically created by individuals or smaller development teams without the financial and technical support of a large game publisher, in contrast to most "AAA" (triple-A) games. However, the "indie" term may apply to other scenarios where the development of the game has some measure of independence from a publisher even if a publisher helps fund and distribute a game, such as creative freedom. Because of their independence and freedom to develop, indie games often focus on innovation, experimental gameplay, and taking risks not usually afforded in AAA games, and may explore the medium to produce unique experiences in art games. Indie games tend to be sold through digital distribution channels rather than at retail due to lack of publisher support. The term is synonymous with that of independent music or independent film in those respective mediums.
Xbox Live Indie Games are video games created by individual developers or small teams of developers released on Microsoft's Xbox Live Marketplace for the Xbox 360. The games were developed using Microsoft XNA, and developed by one or more independent developers that are registered with App Hub. Unlike Xbox Live Arcade titles, these were generally only tested within the local creator community, had much lower costs of production, and generally were less expensive to purchase. The service was released to widespread use alongside the New Xbox Experience, and as of November 2014, over 3,300 games had been released on the service, many receiving media attention. All Indie Games currently require the user to be logged into their Xbox Live account to initiate the start-up of each game. Indie Games were not available in Australia, due to the requirement for all games to be rated by the Australian Classification Board, and the prohibitive expenses involved. The Xbox Live Indie Games program did not continue with the release of the Xbox One, and the marketplace for these games was shuttered in October 7, 2017.
Blitz Games Studios Limited was a British video game developer based in Leamington Spa. Founded in 1990 by the Oliver Twins, who ran the company until its closure in 2013, it is best known for producing games such as The Fairly OddParents, Bratz, SpongeBob SquarePants, The Biggest Loser, and Karaoke Revolution.
Fez is an indie puzzle-platform video game developed by Polytron Corporation and published by Trapdoor. The player-character Gomez receives a fez that reveals his two-dimensional (2D) world to be one of four sides of a three-dimensional (3D) world. The player rotates between these four 2D views to realign platforms and solve the game's puzzles. The objective of the game is to collect cubes and cube fragments to restore order to the universe.
Kellee Santiago is a Venezuelan American video game designer and producer. She is the co-founder and former president of thatgamecompany. Santiago was born in Caracas, Venezuela, and raised in Richmond, Virginia, where Santiago played video games from a young age and was encouraged by her software engineer father to experiment with computers. While attending New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, she became active in experimental theater, planning to pursue it after earning a master's degree in the Interactive Media Program of the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California. However, Santiago became involved in video game design and produced Cloud, a game developed by Jenova Chen and a student team. Its success sparked her and Chen to found thatgamecompany upon graduating, and she became the president.
Limbo is a puzzle-platform video game developed by independent studio Playdead and originally published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox 360. The game was released in July 2010 on Xbox Live Arcade, and has since been ported by Playdead to several other systems, including the PlayStation 3, Linux and Microsoft Windows. Limbo is a 2D side-scroller, incorporating a physics system that governs environmental objects and the player character. The player guides an unnamed boy through dangerous environments and traps as he searches for his sister. The developer built the game's puzzles expecting the player to fail before finding the correct solution. Playdead called the style of play "trial and death", and used gruesome imagery for the boy's deaths to steer the player from unworkable solutions.
Heather Kelley is a media artist, writer and video game designer. She is a co-founder of the Kokoromi experimental game collective, with whom she produces and curates the annual Gamma game event promoting experimental games as creative expression in a social context. She regularly appears as a jury member for several computer gaming festivals. She is also a frequent public speaker at technology events.
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.
Dust: An Elysian Tail is an action role-playing video game developed by American independent designer Dean Dodrill, published by Microsoft Studios. It was released for Xbox 360 through Xbox Live Arcade in August 2012, and subsequently for Microsoft Windows in May 2013, for Linux and OS X in December 2013, and for PlayStation 4 in October 2014. A version for the Nintendo Switch was announced at E3 2018 and was released in September 2018.
Blendo Games is an American independent video game development company based in Culver City, California. It was founded by Brendon Chung in 2010 and is primarily a one-person effort. Blendo Games gained more widespread exposure with the short form stand alone title Gravity Bone; the following games Flotilla and Atom Zombie Smasher were met with critical praise. The studio has also released several other games in several genres.
Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor is a 2009 side-scrolling action-puzzle video game for iOS and Android, developed and published by Tiger Style. The player takes control of a spider who comes to reside in to the deserted Bryce Manor and must spin webs to trap various types of insects, whilst simultaneously ascertaining what happened to the former residents of the manor. The game received critical acclaim and won multiple awards. Originally released in August, a Director's Cut update replaced the original version on the App Store in December. The update added ten levels, twenty-four Game Center achievements, new music, more story elements and an insect. A year after the game's initial release, a HD version was released for the iPad. In 2013, the game was also released for Android. A sequel, Spider: Rite of the Shrouded Moon, was released in August 2015 for iOS, Android, Windows, Mac and Linux.
Waking Mars is a platform-adventure game produced by Tiger Style in which players jetpack through underground Mars caves and encounter a host of alien lifeforms that operate as an ecosystem. Players must master the behaviors of these creatures to create ecosystems of their own design to survive and discover the secrets of Mars' past. The game has been nominated for Best Mobile Game and Excellence in Audio in 2012 Independent Game Festival. In June 2012, Waking Mars was also named the Best Game of 2012 by Paste.
David Kalina is the co-founder and co-owner of the award-winning game studio Tiger Style. Kalina started Tiger Style with Randy Smith in 2009, and released the award-winning game Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor, and most recently the Independent Games Festival nominated game Waking Mars.
The Indie Game Challenge is an 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 highlights ten to twelve independent games, with winning games receiving monetary rewards in addition to the award. The Indie Game Challenge ceremonies are held during the annual D.I.C.E. Summit, during which the finalists are able to demonstrate their games to the press.
Adam Saltsman, also known as Adam Atomic, is an American indie video game designer best known for creating the endless runner Canabalt. He is a founder of Semi Secret Software and Finji video game studios.
Hundreds is a mobile puzzle video game where players touch circles to make them grow without overlapping. In the game's 100 levels, the player interacts with different types of circles to bring a counter to the number 100. The game was developed and published by Semi Secret Software in collaboration with Greg Wohlwend and was released for iOS on January 7, 2013, and on Android later that year.
Spider: Rite of the Shrouded Moon is a 2015 puzzle video game developed by Tiger Style. It is the sequel to the multiple award-winning 2009 game Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor.
