Templar Studios

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Templar Studios LLC is one of New York City's longest-running independent game development companies. It was formed in 1997 by Peter Mack and several associates to create bespoke video games for clients looking to market products and services on the Internet, which in turn would fund internal development of proprietary titles. The company is based in New York City and was originally located on the Lower East Side. Templar moved its offices to Chinatown in 2003. Templar continues to be managed by Peter Mack ( President & Creative Director), Gordon Klimes (Animation Director) and Brian Fisher (Finance & Operations Director), and employs many creative and programming professionals.

[edit] Templar and LEGO

For many years, The LEGO Company was Templar's largest client. Templar produced a number of video games and specialized content for LEGO beginning with the Mindstorms product line in 1997/1998. That relationship grew and in 2000, Templar begin working with LEGO on a new concept in online gaming for LEGO's Bionicle toy line. The Bionicle toy line was created with an extensive back-story to accompany the characters in the toy line. Templar designed and produced a large-scale Flash-based adventure game entitled Mata Nui Online Game, with chapters introducing the various characters. Each chapter was added to the online game as LEGO released new toys in the product line. Both the online game and the toy line were extremely popular. The online game received millions of visitors¹ and Bionicle became on of the best-selling action figures in 2001². The online game was extremely popular among LEGO devotees and spawned several fan-based Websites where children (and adults) could post their experiences and share clues and other info³. Templar would produce several additions to the site for LEGO between 2001 and 2003. In 2003, Templar produced a next-generation sequel for the Bionicle line entitled Hali's Quest.

Currently based in New York's Chinatown, Templar continues to produce high-quality PC and Web games for a variety of clients across numerous business sectors, including the entertainment industry (20th Century Fox, Universal, Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, others); manufacturing and retail (Puma, Office Max, Slim Jim, others) automotive (Volkswagen, Mini, others), and advertising (Goodby Silverstein & Partners, CP+B, BBH, BBDO, others). Templar has won several industry awards, including a nomination for Mata Nui at the 2003 Flash Forward Festival, and a Golden Lion award by the International Advertising Festival in Cannes, for its work with Volkswagen.

[edit] Other Clients and Projects

Television:
BBC America (Footballers Wives)
Cartoon Network (Ed, Edd n Eddie, Kids Next Door, BoBoBo-bo)
HBO (The Sopranos)
Movie Studios:
20th Century Fox (Transporter 2,Pathfinder: Legend of the Ghost Warrior)
Lions Gate (Lord of War)
Sony Pictures (Triple X 2: State of the Union)
Warner Bros. (Yu-Gi-Oh!)
Advertising Agency & Clients:
Arnold Worldwide: Truth Campaign
Bartle Bogle Hegarty: Axe Shower Gel
Beam Interactive: Puma Sneakers
Crispin Porter + Bogusky: Gateway Computers, Geeksquad, Slim Jim, Volkswagen, Virgin Atlantic
Goodby, Silverstein & Partners: Comcast, Hewlett Packard, Saturn Cars