Wadjet Eye Games

Wadjet Eye Games
Private
Industry Video game
Founded 2006
Headquarters New York City, United States
Key people
Dave Gilbert
Products Blackwell series
Gemini Rue
Number of employees
4
Website Wadjet Eye Games

Wadjet Eye Games is an indie video game developer and publisher which specialises in point and click adventure games. It was founded in 2006 by Dave Gilbert as a means to publish his own games, but has since expanded to publishing games by other designers as well.

History

Gilbert produced The Shivah in 2006 for MAGS, the monthly one-month Adventure Game Studio game contest. After winning the contest, Gilbert continued to improve The Shivah, adding voice acting and extra puzzles, then released it as a commercial title. It was originally sold via Manifesto Games, until Gilbert formed Wadjet Eye Games in order to sell it himself and move into game design full-time.,[1]

In 2006, Wadjet Eye released The Blackwell Legacy, the first in the Blackwell series. This was followed in 2007 by the continuation of the series, Blackwell Unbound. In February 2008, a publishing deal was announced between Wadjet Eye Games and PlayFirst. Under the agreement, Wadjet Eye Games would develop a casual adventure game for PlayFirst. The resulting game, Emerald City Confidential, a noir story set in L. Frank Baum's Land of Oz, was released on 19 February 2009. That year also saw the release of the third Blackwell game, Blackwell Convergence.

In 2010, Wadjet Eye Games published the first game developed by somebody other than Gilbert; this was Puzzle Bots, a casual puzzle game developed by Ivy Games. Further third-party games published by Wadjet Eye Games through 2011 and 2012 were Gemini Rue, Da New Guys, Resonance and Primordia. In February 2013 it was announced that Wadget Eye Games would be publishing their first portable release, with Gemini Rue being ported to both iPhone and iPad.[2]

Gilbert has stated that he and his wife plan to develop an RPG together "in the vein of Fallout," a project which will require them to design an original engine rather than using middleware like AGS.[3]

Awards

Wadjet Eye Games was nominated for the Best New Studio award at the Game Developers Choice Awards in 2007,[4] the same year that Gilbert received the AGS Lifetime Achievement Award[5] In 2008, Gamasutra listed Wadjet Eye among their top 20 breakthrough developers.[6]

Games

Title Developer Publication year
The Shivah Dave Gilbert 2006
The Blackwell Legacy Dave Gilbert 2006
Blackwell Unbound Dave Gilbert 2007
Blackwell Convergence Dave Gilbert 2009
Emerald City Confidential PlayFirst/Dave Gilbert 2009
Puzzle Bots Ivy Games 2010
Gemini Rue Joshua Nuernberger 2011
Blackwell Deception Dave Gilbert 2011
Da New Guys: Day of the Jackass Icebox Games 2011
Resonance Vince Twelve 2012
Primordia Wormwood Studios 2012
The Shivah: Kosher Edition Dave Gilbert 2013
Blackwell Epiphany Dave Gilbert 2014
A Golden Wake Grundislav Games 2014
Technobabylon Technocrat Games 2015

References

  1. Adventuregamers.com interview with Dave Gilbert
  2. Morgan, Joe (February 27, 2013), Wadjet Eye Games Gives Reason For Retro Adventure Fans To Rejoice, Capsule Computers, accessed March 1, 2013
  3. The Dave Gilbert / Wadjet Eye Interview, Gnome's Lair, accessed February 28, 2013
  4. Game Choice Awards nominees (cited 12 February 2007)
  5. AGS Awards for 2006 winners (cited 12 February 2007)
  6. Gamasutra Top 20 Breakthrough Developers (cited 20 October 2008)

External links