DoubleBear Productions is an indie game studio founded in June 2009 by writer and game designer Brian Mitsoda.

Founding

In both the ''Making of Dead State'' book and various interviews, Brian Mitsoda stated that his primary motive for founding DoubleBear was to make the games that he wanted to create, and not have to worry about the heartbreak of a publisher changing their mind and killing the project: Regarding the studio's peculiar name, Mitsoda said:

Games

''Dead State''

DoubleBear's first project was ''

Dead State ''Dead State'' is a turn-based survival horror role-playing video game developed by DoubleBear Productions and Iron Tower Studio set in a zombie apocalypse scenario. Players are tasked with leading a group of survivors living in a shelter in the f ...

'', a turn-based role-playing game set in a

zombie apocalypse Zombie apocalypse is a subgenre of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction in which society collapses due to overwhelming swarms of zombies. Usually, only a few individuals or small bands of human survivors are left living. There are many d ...

scenario. The studio worked with Iron Tower Studio on the project, and the game utilized '' The Age of Decadence''s

game engine A game engine is a software framework primarily designed for the development of video games which generally includes relevant libraries and support programs such as a level editor. The "engine" terminology is akin to the term " software engine" u ...

. Information regarding the theme and setting was divulged in a

Rock, Paper, Shotgun ''Rock Paper Shotgun'' is a British video game journalism website. It was launched in July 2007 to focus on PC games and was acquired by Gamer Network, a network of sites led by ''Eurogamer'', in May 2017. History ''Rock Paper Shotgun'' ...

article, including a quote from Mitsoda that reveals that one of the goals of the game is a "serious examination of a national crisis or natural disaster," and that the game draws inspiration from Mitsoda's own experiences living in Miami, Florida, during

Hurricane Andrew Hurricane Andrew was a compact, but very powerful and devastating tropical cyclone that struck the Bahamas, Florida, and Louisiana in August 1992. It was the most destructive hurricane to ever hit Florida in terms of structures dama ...

. ''

'' launched a successful Kickstarter campaign in summer 2012, released on Steam

Early Access Early access, also known as alpha access, alpha founding, paid alpha, or game preview, is a funding model in the video game industry by which consumers can purchase and play a game in the various pre-release Software release life cycle, developm ...

in February 2014, and had a final release on

Steam Steam is water vapor, often mixed with air or an aerosol of liquid water droplets. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization. Saturated or superheated steam is inv ...

and

GOG.com GOG.com (formerly Good Old Games) is a digital distribution platform for video games and films. It is operated by GOG sp. z o.o., a wholly owned subsidiary of CD Projekt, based in Warsaw, Poland. GOG.com delivers DRM-free video games through i ...

on December 4, 2014. The game was supported with multiple free updates afterwards, culminating in the final ''Reanimated'' update, meant to act as a definitive edition of the game.

''PANIC'' series

For a while after the release of ''Dead State: Reanimated'', the team made various references to a second game on their Twitch streams, and mentioned that they had "pretty exciting (and very fun) projects in the works" in their ''Dead State'' postmortem on

Gamasutra ''Game Developer'' (known as ''Gamasutra'' until 2021) is a website created in 1997 that focuses on aspects of video game development. It is owned and operated by Informa TechTarget and acted as the online sister publication to the print maga ...

. On August 16, 2016, a surprise announcement in a story from

PC Gamer ''PC Gamer'' is a magazine and website founded in the United Kingdom in 1993 devoted to PC gaming and published monthly by Future plc. The magazine has several regional editions, with the UK and US editions becoming the best selling PC games m ...

revealed that DoubleBear was about to release one game - ''PANIC at Multiverse High!'' - and was announcing another - ''PANIC in the Multiverse!''

''PANIC at Multiverse High!''

''PANIC at Multiverse High!'' is a parody

visual novel A visual novel (VN) is a form of digital interactive fiction. Visual novels are often associated with the medium of video games, but are not always labeled as such themselves. They combine a textual narrative with static or animated illustratio ...

otome game An is a story-based romance video game targeted towards women with a female protagonist as the player character. Generally one of the goals, besides the main story goal, is to develop a romantic relationship between the female main player char ...

in the vein of ''

Hatoful Boyfriend is a Japanese ''dōjin soft'' '' otome'' visual novel released in 2011 for Microsoft Windows and OS X, in which all the characters other than the protagonist are sentient birds. It was developed by manga artist Hato Moa's dōjin circle PigeoNa ...

'': the main character wakes up unexpectedly with no memory of their past, nearly late for high school. Once there, they find that a cruel tentacled monster in a letterman jacket - Chad - has declared himself their rival, and they need to enhance their attributes (Cool, Nice, Tough) to make friends and defeat Chad at Prom. According to the PC Gamer article, ''PANIC at Multiverse High!'' was initially conceived as an internal joke, but became a real title when the initial project changed direction. The game was meant to act as a fundraiser for ''PANIC in the Multiverse!'', saying that "We decided to take this route instead of Kickstarter so that no matter what, people would have a game to play, and get to know the characters and setting more directly."

''PANIC in the Multiverse!''

''PANIC in the Multiverse!'' is the follow-up title, and is described as being a Japanese role-playing game-style base-defense game, involving gathering a team of heroes to push forward to an enemy base and destroying it before the enemy could do the same to the player's. According to the website, the gameplay involves collecting heroes from all over the Multiverse in order to and bring the fight to the main enemy, "the self-proclaimed overlord of the Multiverse, King Sha'art."

References

External links

* {{official website, http://www.doublebearproductions.com
DoubleBear Productions
at

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Software companies based in Seattle Video game companies established in 2009 Privately held companies based in Washington (state) Video game companies of the United States Video game development companies 2009 establishments in Washington (state)