Greg Wohlwend
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Greg Wohlwend is an American
independent video game developer An indie video game or indie game (short for independent video game) is a video game 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 ...
and artist whose games include '' Threes!'' and '' Ridiculous Fishing''. He originally formed
Intuition Games Mikengreg is an independent video game development team of Mike Boxleiter and Greg Wohlwend. Their games include ''Solipskier'', ''Gasketball'', and ''TouchTone''. The two met in a game development class at Iowa State University and later began ...
with
Iowa State University Iowa State University of Science and Technology (Iowa State University, Iowa State, or ISU) is a Public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Ames, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1858 as the Iowa Agricult ...
classmate Mike Boxleiter in 2007 where they worked on '' Dinowaurs'' and other small
Adobe Flash Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a mostly discontinuedAlthough it is discontinued by Adobe Inc., for the Chinese market it is developed by Zhongcheng and for the international enterprise market it is developed by Ha ...
games. Trained as an artist, Wohlwend worked mainly on the visual assets. As Mikengreg, they released '' Solipskier'' (2010,
iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...
), whose success let the two take a more experimental approach with '' Gasketball'', which did not fare as well. At the same time, Wohlwend collaborated with
Asher Vollmer Asher Vollmer (born September 14, 1989) is an American indie video game developer. He created '' Puzzlejuice'' and ''Threes''. Vollmer also worked on '' Guildlings'' and '' Beast Breaker''. While a student at USC Interactive Media & Games Di ...
to make '' Puzzlejuice'', and with
Adam Saltsman 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. Career Flixel (2008-11) Saltsm ...
to make '' Hundreds'' based on Wohlwend's first game design. He later released ''Threes!'' with Vollmer in 2014 to critical acclaim. His later games '' TouchTone'' and '' TumbleSeed'' were also the products of collaborations. Wohlwend was named among
Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The co ...
' 2014 "30 under 30" in the games industry.


Career

Wohlwend studied graphic design at
Iowa State University Iowa State University of Science and Technology (Iowa State University, Iowa State, or ISU) is a Public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Ames, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1858 as the Iowa Agricult ...
and graduated in 2008. He has described his aesthetic as "simple and elegant", and has said about his practice that he is not good at character design and that he prefers to work with vector file formats in
Adobe Illustrator Adobe Illustrator is a vector graphics editor and Computer-aided design, design software developed and marketed by Adobe Inc., Adobe. Originally designed for the Apple Inc., Apple Mac (computer), Macintosh, development of Adobe Illustrator began ...
so that the images can work at all resolutions. Wohlwend also feels that creativity is a skill that is cultivated and not inborn. He has been influenced by his lifelong experience playing video games, and his favorite game is '' Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn''. His writings on the lifestyle required for indie development have been noted by games journalists. Wohlwend was named among
Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The co ...
' 2014 "30 under 30" in the games industry.


Intuition and Mikengreg

Wohlwend met Mike Boxleiter in an experimental video game development class they took together at
Iowa State University Iowa State University of Science and Technology (Iowa State University, Iowa State, or ISU) is a Public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Ames, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1858 as the Iowa Agricult ...
. Wohlwend had attempted to help Boxleiter with a project, but quit after drawing a few aliens. They met again as coworkers at the university's Virtual Reality Application Center during Boxleiter's final year of college. Upon discovering their close interests, they began to work on an
Adobe Flash Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a mostly discontinuedAlthough it is discontinued by Adobe Inc., for the Chinese market it is developed by Zhongcheng and for the international enterprise market it is developed by Ha ...
game named '' Dinowaurs'' while they completed college. So as to make money while they worked on the game, they founded Intuition Games at the university's
Research Park The following is a list of science park, technology parks and biomedical parks of the world, organized by continent. Asia China Mainland China * Shanghai Pudong Software Park (Shanghai) * Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park (''aka'' Zhangjiang Drug ...
around May 2007. They decided to stay in
Ames, Iowa Ames () is a city in Story County, Iowa, United States, located approximately north of Des Moines, Iowa, Des Moines in central Iowa. It is the home of Iowa State University (ISU). According to the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, Ames ha ...
due to its financial feasibility and local connections, but two other team members (friends from Iowa State) lived farther away. They saw Flash games as an easy entry point into full-time self-employment, but planned to eventually work on console platforms such as
WiiWare WiiWare was a digital media entertainment service operated by Nintendo that allowed the download of games and applications developed for the Wii video game console. These games and applications could only be purchased and downloaded from the W ...
. In their development process, Boxleiter and Wohlwend both proposed and worked on each other's ideas, and would drop the ideas they found unexciting. Wohlwend said they often argued over aspects of their games, which he found normal and natural. Their labor as a team was divided in that Wohlwend always did the art and Boxleiter the programming, as reflective of their skills at the time. The pair agreed to an assessment of their partnership as " left-brain
right-brain The lateralization of brain function (or hemispheric dominance/ lateralization) is the tendency for some neural functions or cognitive processes to be specialized to one side of the brain or the other. The median longitudinal fissure separates ...
", and saw the majority of their joint work as "editing". Aside from the business aspects, they were grateful to have the "creative freedom" to do their own work. Wohlwend appreciated the benefits of not doing contract work, but struggled with the relative "isolation" of having few colleagues, a low salary, and job instability. He disagreed with the "cinematic action games" he saw to be popular at the time and hoped to contribute more compelling ideas to the young industry. They thought of themselves as artists and of their work as experimental. Boxleiter and Wohlwend worked long hours when making the Flash games, which they found exciting and unsustainable. At Intuition, they worked on games such as ''Dinowaurs'', ''Gray'', ''Fig. 8'', and ''Lifecraft'' and participated in at least six game jams. As of April 2010, they had created 10 games together. Intuition's first game, ''Dinowaurs'', is a Flash-based
strategy Strategy (from Greek στρατηγία ''stratēgia'', "troop leadership; office of general, command, generalship") is a general plan to achieve one or more long-term or overall goals under conditions of uncertainty. In the sense of the " a ...
and
action game An action game is a video game genre that emphasizes physical challenges, including hand–eye coordination and reaction time. The genre includes a large variety of sub-genres, such as fighting games, beat 'em ups, shooter games, rhythm games and ...
where two players compete as dinosaurs to seize the most cavemen settlements so as to upgrade their own capacity and eventually kill the other dinosaur. It features online matchmaking. The concept came from one of Boxleiter's unfinished projects and another Intuition member's drawing of a
stegosaurus ''Stegosaurus'' (; ) is a genus of herbivorous, four-legged, armored dinosaur from the Late Jurassic, characterized by the distinctive kite-shaped upright plates along their backs and spikes on their tails. Fossils of the genus have been fo ...
with a
jetpack A jet pack, rocket belt, rocket pack or flight pack is a device worn as a backpack which uses jets to propel the wearer through the air. The concept has been present in science fiction for almost a century and the first working experimental d ...
. The team was funded then-new Flash site
Kongregate Kongregate is an American web gaming portal and video game publisher. Its website features over 124,000 online games and 30+ mobile games available to the public. The company also publishes games for PC, mobile, and home consoles. It was purchase ...
by November 2007 as one of the first five games for Kongregate platform. It was finished in two years for a 2009 release. ''IndieGames.com'' reported mixed reviews from players. Their later games would only take a few months each, in comparison. They abandoned the use of design documents after ''Dinowaurs'', and instead chose to refine and experiment in process. Intuition released ''Effing Hail'' and ''Gray'' around April 2009. Players in action game ''Effing Hail'' control hail and wind to destroy the most buildings and midair objects within a time limit. The game was published through Kongregate. In ''Gray'', players control a single character and try to end a riot by influencing other individuals in the crowd. The game was featured at
IndieCade IndieCade is an international juried festival of independent games. Game types include video games, live-action games, and tabletop games. Independent game developers are selected to demo, screen, and promote their work at the annual IndieCade fe ...
in 2009. In the case of ''Fig. 8.'', Wohlwend thought of the idea based on a college art project. In the project, Wohlwend followed a bike trail in the snow, metaphorically related it to the tribulations of romantic relationship, and made an art installation involving a bike spray-painted black with two errant red and blue tracks painted on the floor. The concept went unused on their whiteboard for four months until they needed an idea, whereupon Boxleiter added game mechanics to the visuals. In their next game, ''Liferaft'', the player-character is a young woman set to escape "a post-apocalyptic
sci-fi Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...
... test chamber", with core gameplay that revolves around a "''
Bionic Commando ''Bionic Commando'' is a series of Platformer, platform video games developed and owned by Capcom. Unique from other platformers, the player character is unable to jump, instead using a bionic arm to cross gaps and climb ledges. The player char ...
''-style grappling hook". Wohlwend used a
16-bit era In the history of video games, the fourth generation of video game consoles, more commonly referred to as the 16-bit era, began on October 30, 1987, with the Japanese release of NEC Home Electronics' PC Engine (known as the TurboGrafx-16 in Nort ...
graphics style. They sought
crowdfunding Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising money from a large number of people, typically via the internet. Crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing and Alternative Finance, alternative finance, to fund projects "withou ...
from
Kickstarter Kickstarter, PBC is an American Benefit corporation, public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York City, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative project ...
, but later canceled and put the project on hiatus in October 2009. In March 2010, and under the moniker Mikengreg, Boxleiter and Wohlwend's ''4fourths'' was selected for Kokoromi's Gamma IV showcase. Based on the showcase's "one button game" theme, four players control two spaceships using one button apiece to cooperatively destroy enemy ships. It was Michael Rose of ''IndieGame.com'' favorite game of the Gamma IV selections, was later displayed at the 2010 Game Developers Conference and in Brandon Boyer's 2011 Wild Rumpus event. Mikengreg announced ''Liferaft: Zero'' and ''Solipskier'' in November 2010. The former is a "prequel teaser" to ''Liferaft'': a game of trial-based challenges with wall-jumping and grappling wherein girl clones attempt to swing and jump around test chambers to reach and ring a bell. Wohlwend and Boxleiter made the shorter version to limit the
scope creep Scope creep (also called requirement creep, or kitchen sink syndrome) in project management is continuous or uncontrolled growth in a project's scope, generally experienced after the project begins. This can occur when the scope of a project i ...
of the overall project. ''IndieGames.com'' named the Flash game their third best browser platformer of the year. Their other game, ''4fourths'', was put on hiatus for lack of resources. They were interested in making games outside the Flash market.


''Solipskier''

Their first game as Mikengreg was the sport-inspired ''Solipskier'', where the player's finger draws the ground for the on-screen skier to pass through a level filled with gates, tunnels, and walls. It was designed as a Flash game, which set the limitations for its mechanics. The game concept came from a brainstorming session about
parallax scrolling Parallax scrolling is a technique in computer graphics where background images move past the camera more slowly than foreground images, creating an illusion of depth in a 2D scene of distance. The technique grew out of the multiplane camera te ...
, and was revised in fits of creativity. They paired the parallax scrolling with speed and began to prototype. Wohlwend saved the skier's character design for last since he felt it was his weakest area. Mikengreg then decided to develop for iOS in addition to Flash, and to release both versions simultaneously. It was released simultaneously for Kongregate (Flash) and iOS on August 29, 2010. ''Solipskier'' became their first game to receive public appreciation. The iOS version made around $70,000 in its first two months (as compared to $15,000 from the Flash release), which gave them enough stability to branch out into non-Flash platforms.


''Gasketball''

Riding the earnings from ''Solipskier'', Mikengreg continued to pay themselves their same salary but now had the means to try new ideas. Wohlwend estimated that they discarded about six "fairly polished prototypes" over the development of their next game, ''Gasketball''. They were able to live on $20–25,000 a year each in Iowa for the next two years while working on the new game. Wohlwend made somewhat more income due to other collaborations, such as '' Puzzlejuice'' with
Asher Vollmer Asher Vollmer (born September 14, 1989) is an American indie video game developer. He created '' Puzzlejuice'' and ''Threes''. Vollmer also worked on '' Guildlings'' and '' Beast Breaker''. While a student at USC Interactive Media & Games Di ...
, but shared his income with Boxleiter. Even though ''Solipskier'' was successful, the duo did not have a following comparable to indie developers like Team Meat and thus felt like their external pressure was low. Instead, their pressure was internal. Wohlwend said he worked 100-hour weeks with no weekends or vacations while living off of the ''Solipskier'' funds. In making ''Gasketball'', Boxleiter and Wohlwend felt that their game quality had improved continually, but found the idea of a million-person audience "daunting". Wohlwend questioned whether he could even recreate ''Solipskier'' success. When they ran out of money, Boxleiter borrowed money from his parents, and eventually they both went homeless, living off of the couches of friends. ''Gasketball'' was released for
iPad The iPad is a brand of tablet computers developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple that run the company's mobile operating systems iOS and later iPadOS. The IPad (1st generation), first-generation iPad was introduced on January 27, 2010. ...
on August 9, 2012. They had decided to release the game as an ethically non-coercive
free-to-play "Free-to-play" ("F2P" or "FtP") video games are games that give players access to a significant portion of their content for free. The term "free-to-play business model" or simply, "free-to-play model", refers collectively to business models tha ...
game, with a free base game and
in-app purchases Microtransaction (mtx) refers to a business model where users can purchase in-game virtual goods with micropayments. Microtransactions are often used in free-to-play games to provide a revenue source for the developers. While microtransactions ...
for the extended content. Not as many players paid for the content as expected. This was due, in part, to the players' difficulty in finding the purchase function. The game had been downloaded 200,000 times in its August 2012 launch week and was briefly ranked near the top of an iTunes top downloads ranking, though it did not break the top 200 grossing chart.


''Puzzlejuice''

Wohlwend began to collaborate with Asher Vollmer when Vollmer reached out to Wohlwend for aesthetic advice on a game he was designing, ''Puzzlejuice''. The game has been compared to a cross between ''
Boggle ''Boggle'' is a word game introduced in 1972 and in which players try to find as many words as they can from a grid of lettered dice, within a set time limit. It was invented by Allan Turoff and originally distributed by Parker Brothers. Rules ...
'', ''
Tetris ''Tetris'' () is a puzzle video game created in 1985 by Alexey Pajitnov, a Soviet software engineer. In ''Tetris'', falling tetromino shapes must be neatly sorted into a pile; once a horizontal line of the game board is filled in, it disa ...
'', and tile-matching, where
tetromino A tetromino is a geometric shape composed of four squares, connected orthogonally (i.e. at the edges and not the corners). Tetrominoes, like dominoes and pentominoes, are a particular type of polyomino. The corresponding polycube, called a tetra ...
blocks fall from the top of the screen that players turn into letters and rearrange into words. Wohlwend and Vollmer communicated nonverbally through the entire development process via a 365-message email chain. Vollmer served as the game's programmer, Wohlwend as the artist, and Jimmy Hinson as the composer. ''Puzzlejuice'' was selected for the PAX 10, a spotlighted group of indie games, in July 2012. It was released as a universal app for iPhone and iPad on January 19, 2012.


''Hundreds''

Upon finishing his role as artist on ''Solipskier'', Wohlwend wanted to experiment with game programming by designing his own game. He developed '' Hundreds'' from an idea he had while staring at a ceiling, where he imagined a circle growing without overlapping another when growing. He found this to be a good core game concept and based the game around "patience and persistence". The game's style inadvertently borrowed from his first year in art school, where Wohlwend composed in black, white, and red so as to focus on composition rather than color. While Wohlwend's design style is "simple and elegant", the game's minimalism was also functional due to his inexperience with programming. The code was " brute forced" and written in a single file. He finished ''Hundreds'' as a Flash game in 2010, but when Flash sites were not interested in purchasing it, Wohlwend chose to
open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...
the code (partly with the intent to spur "non-coders" to try coding, as he had). This version is available online at
Newgrounds Newgrounds is an American entertainment website founded by Tom Fulp in 1995 and owned by Newgrounds.com, Inc. The site hosts user-generated content such as games, films, audio, and artwork. Fulp produces in-house content at the headquarters and ...
. At a lull in-between projects, programmer Eric Johnson of Semi Secret Software found the open source code and
ported In software engineering, porting is the process of adapting software for the purpose of achieving some form of execution in a computing environment that is different from the one that a given program (meant for such execution) was originally desig ...
the game to
iPad The iPad is a brand of tablet computers developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple that run the company's mobile operating systems iOS and later iPadOS. The IPad (1st generation), first-generation iPad was introduced on January 27, 2010. ...
in a weekend before notifying Wohlwend. At the time, Wohlwend did not have an iOS device to test the port, and had to purchase an iPad. Johnson's iPad version spurred Wohlwend to consider how ''Hundreds'' would work with multitouch and cooperative play, and Semi Secret's Adam Saltsman to consider a ''Hundreds'' collaborative iOS release. The project was intended to be a quick level expansion, but quickly surpassed its several month estimate. Wohlwend and Saltsman extended the game's mechanics with new circles and puzzles, and many of their implemented ideas were later removed. Wohlwend was happy with the final result and credited the game's "emergent interaction" qualities to Saltsman. They built on each other's level designs, though Wohlwend said that Saltsman made "basically all the levels". The new team enjoyed working with each other. In ''Hundreds'', players touch circles to make them grow without overlapping. There are 100 puzzles that increase in complexity. The Flash version was much simpler in design, and added circles onscreen as the game progressed. The iOS version added a new gameplay mode and a narrative element based on ciphers and codes, and was released on January 7, 2013 for iPhone and iPad, and later for Android. It was nominated for several
Independent Games Festival The Independent Games Festival (IGF) is an annual festival at the Game Developers Conference (GDC), the largest annual gathering of the independent video game industry. Originally founded in 1998 to promote independent video game developers, ...
awards, and ''
The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher based in Washington, D.C. It features articles on politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 185 ...
'' critic
Ian Bogost Ian Bogost is an American academic and video game designer, most known for the game '' Cow Clicker''. He holds a joint professorship at Washington University as director and professor of the Film and Media Studies program in Arts & Sciences a ...
wrote that the game functioned like a design object, a feat unique for the video game medium.


''Ridiculous Fishing''

Wohlwend produced the art for
Vlambeer Vlambeer is a Dutch independent video game developer based in Utrecht. Founded in 2010, the studio was composed of Rami Ismail and Jan Willem Nijman. The studio is known for the games ''Super Crate Box'' (2010), ''Serious Sam: The Random Encount ...
's '' Ridiculous Fishing''. The four-person teamVlambeer designer Jan Willem Nijman and marketer Rami Ismail alongside iOS developer Zach Gagewas described by games journalists as an "indie supergroup" and a "dream team". In ''Ridiculous Fishing'', the player uses motion and touch controls to catch fish and consequently shoot them out of the sky for cash. The game is known for its developers' battle against a cloned version of their game released by another company. The team worked separately and sporadically with little progress as disheartened by their cloned game predicament, until an August 2012
road trip A road trip, sometimes spelled roadtrip, is a long-distance Travel, journey traveled by a car or a motorcycle. History First road trips by automobile The world's first recorded long-distance road trip by the automobile took place in German Em ...
home across the
United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
from
Penny Arcade Expo PAX (originally known as Penny Arcade Expo) is a series of gaming culture festivals involving tabletop, arcade, and video gaming. PAX is held annually in Seattle, Boston, Philadelphia, and Melbourne. Previously, it was also held in San Anton ...
in
Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...
to
New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
convinced the team to set a deadline. They scrapped "90 percent" of their work, and Wohlwend moved to
New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
to live with Gage and work 14-hour days during the final weeks. The last parts of ''Ridiculous Fishing'' assembled smoothly and it was released March 14, 2013, for iOS and later that year for Android. It was well received at launch with "near-universal perfect scores" and won both a 2013
Apple Design Award The Apple Design Awards (ADAs) is an event hosted by Apple Inc. at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference. The purpose of the event is to recognize the best and most innovative Macintosh and iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός ...
and Apple's iPhone
game of the year Game of the Year (GotY) is an award given to a video game by various award events and media publications that they feel represented the pinnacle of gaming that year. Events and ceremonies British Academy Games Awards (BAFTA Games Awards) ...
. While
IGN ''IGN'' is an American video gaming and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa district and is headed by its former e ...
's Justin Davis thought the game's levels could have been more differentiated in theme and art style, he found the "almost
cubist Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement which began in Paris. It revolutionized painting and the visual arts, and sparked artistic innovations in music, ballet, literature, and architecture. Cubist subjects are analyzed, broke ...
design ... absolutely gorgeous". Welsh of ''
Eurogamer ''Eurogamer'' is a British video game journalism website launched in 1999 alongside parent company Gamer Network. In 2008, it started in the formerly eponymous trade fair EGX (Eurogamer Expo until 2013) organised by its parent company. Fr ...
'' agreed that Wohlwend's art was "achingly cool" and reflected a "retro and minimalist" indie gaming trend without overpowering the gameplay.


''Threes!''

Wohlwend, Vollmer, and Hinson of ''Puzzlejuice'' collaborated again on '' Threes!'', a game where the player slides numbered tiles on a four-by-four grid to combine addends and multiples of three. Its development began before ''Ridiculous Fishing'' March 2013 release. Vollmer presented an idea similar to the final product in its simplicity: pair tiles as multiples of three. The first prototype was written in a single night. Vollmer and Wohlwend spent at least half a year of the game's 14-month development iterating on this main idea. Early ''Threes'' designs had no inclination towards
minimalism In visual arts, music, and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in the post-war era in western art. The movement is often interpreted as a reaction to abstract expressionism and modernism; it anticipated contemporary post-mi ...
: the pair felt that the game needed to appear more complex so as to interest players. Wohlwend sent Vollmer designs with themes such as
sushi is a traditional Japanese dish made with , typically seasoned with sugar and salt, and combined with a variety of , such as seafood, vegetables, or meat: raw seafood is the most common, although some may be cooked. While sushi comes in n ...
,
chess Chess is a board game for two players. It is an abstract strategy game that involves Perfect information, no hidden information and no elements of game of chance, chance. It is played on a square chessboard, board consisting of 64 squares arran ...
, broccoli and cheese soup, and
hydrogen atoms A hydrogen atom is an atom of the chemical element hydrogen. The electrically neutral hydrogen atom contains a single positively charged proton in the nucleus, and a single negatively charged electron bound to the nucleus by the Coulomb force ...
, which confused their test audiences. They received a "wake-up call" from fellow game designer Zach Gage, who encouraged them to return from their foray into complexity. The final game returned to its original theme of numbers. Speaking in retrospect, Wohlwend said the game "always wanted to be simple". He noted that players "think math" upon seeing the game's numbers, though the game is more about "spatial relationships" and just happens to have a "number theme". When returning to the fundamental and original game conceptpairing tiles as multiples of threethe developers felt their experiments informed their final game development decisions. The theme of individual tile personalities extended to the final version, as tiles have faces and express emotions when paired. For example, the 384 tile has a pirate personality with a large tooth and a pirate eyepatch. Of the development process, Wohlwend called it "tough and frustrating and sometimes hard to see if it was worth it". It was released for iOS on February 6, 2014 and later ported to Android, with an
Xbox One The Xbox One is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. Announced in May 2013, it is the successor to Xbox 360 and the third console in the Xbox#Consoles, Xbox series. It was first released in North America, parts of Europe, Austra ...
version announced as in development. The game received what video game review score aggregator
Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...
described as "universal acclaim". ''Eurogamer'' and ''TouchArcade'' awarded the game perfect scores, with the latter calling ''Threes'' "about as close as it gets to a perfect mobile game". ''Re/code'' reported that it "dominated" the chart in the following weeks and became one of the 25 highest grossing apps on the App Store. It later won a 2014 Apple Design Award.


''TouchTone''

After ''Gasketball'' 2012 release, Boxleiter and Wohlwend planned a celebratory road trip to a
game jam A game jam is an event where participants try to make a video game from scratch. Depending on the format, participants might work independently, or in teams. The event duration usually ranges from 24 to 72 hours. Participants are generally program ...
in
Victoria, British Columbia Victoria is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of British Columbia, on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada's Pacific Ocean, Pacific coast. The city has a population of 91,867, and the Gre ...
. The game did not fare as expected, so Boxleiter used the two-day jam to create the core mirror reflection mechanics of what would become ''TouchTone'', though it would take two years of sporadic work to finalize the remainder of the game. In ''TouchTone'', the player monitors phone calls as part of a government surveillance program to find public threats. The story is told through a series of reflection puzzles wherein the player swipes the screen to reflect a beam around a room to its intended destination. Mikengreg felt that their first theme of light, prisms, and audio signal too closely mimicked "a hacking
minigame A minigame (also spelled mini game and mini-game, sometimes called a subgame or microgame) is a short game often contained within another video game. A minigame contains different gameplay elements and is often smaller or more simplistic than th ...
from a bigger
AAA AAA, Triple A, or Triple-A is a three-letter initialism or abbreviation which may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Gaming * AAA (video game industry) - a category of high budget video games *'' TripleA'', an open source wargame Mu ...
game like ''
BioShock ''BioShock'' is a 2007 first-person shooter video game developed by 2K Boston (later Irrational Games) and 2K Australia, and published by 2K. The first game in the ''BioShock'' series, it was released for Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360 ...
'' or ''
System Shock ''System Shock'' is a 1994 first-person action-adventure game, action-adventure video game developed by LookingGlass Technologies and published by Origin Systems. It was directed by Doug Church with Warren Spector serving as producer. The game ...
''", but eventually paired the concept with a satirical
Edward Snowden Edward Joseph Snowden (born June 21, 1983) is a former National Security Agency (NSA) intelligence contractor and whistleblower who leaked classified documents revealing the existence of global surveillance programs. Born in 1983 in Elizabeth ...
theme following the mid-2013
global surveillance disclosures During the 2010s, international media reports revealed new operational details about the Anglophone cryptographic agencies' global surveillance of both foreign and domestic nationals. The reports mostly relate to top secret documents leaked ...
. Their original efforts were jocular, but their concept became more serious as the story and "political message" grew deeper. Boxleiter wrote most of the script, and together with Wohlwend, would conference after each chapter for coherency. Mikengreg decided against including an option to skip puzzles, which they felt would spoil the game and the player's capacity to adapt to increasing difficulty. They called this philosophy the " Derek Yu (of ''
Spelunky ''Spelunky'' is a 2008 platform video game created by independent developer Derek Yu and released as source-available freeware for Microsoft Windows. It was remade for the Xbox 360 in 2012, with ports of the new version following for various ...
'') school of
game design Game design is the process of creating and shaping the mechanics, systems, rules, and gameplay of a game. Game design processes apply to board games, card games, dice games, casino games, role-playing games, sports, Wargame (video games), war ga ...
". ''TouchTone'' was released on March 19, 2015 for iOS. Review aggregator Metacritic characterized its reviews as generally favorable.


''TumbleSeed''

Wohlwend's friend Benedict Fritz developed a prototype of a mechanical arcade game from a bar that they frequented in Chicago. When Wohlwend saw the video of '' Ice Cold Beer'' online, they began work on an
open world In video games, an open world is a virtual world in which the Gamer, player can approach objectives freely, as opposed to a world with more linear and structured gameplay. Notable games in this category include ''The Legend of Zelda (video game ...
,
dungeon crawl A dungeon crawl is a type of scenario in fantasy role-playing games (RPGs) in which heroes navigate a labyrinth environment (a "dungeon"), battling various monsters, avoiding traps, solving puzzles, and looting any treasure they may find. Video g ...
version of the game, which became '' TumbleSeed''. They also worked through a ''
Cards Against Humanity ''Cards Against Humanity'' is an adult card-based party game in which players complete fill-in-the-blank statements, using words or phrases typically deemed offensive, risqué, or politically incorrect, printed on playing cards. It has been co ...
'' game incubation program in 2015, and several other indie developers based in Chicago joined the production. Based on the project's loose, collaboratory nature, '' Metro'' called the game's pedigree "as indie as indie gaming gets". With the announcement of the
Nintendo Switch The is a video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. Released in the middle of the Eighth generation of video game consoles, eighth generation of home consoles, the Switch succeeded the ...
, the development team sought to become a "flagship" demonstration of the console's
HD Rumble Joy-Con are the primary game controllers for the Nintendo Switch, a hybrid video game console. A set of Joy-Con consists of two individual units, each containing an analog stick and an array of buttons. They can be used while attached to the mai ...
feature, in which the player proprioceptively "feels" in-game textures through the controller's fine-tuned vibrations. They cold-called Nintendo and began work together in June 2016, prior to the Switch's announcement. ''TumbleSeed'' was released on May 2, 2017, on
Nintendo Switch The is a video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. Released in the middle of the Eighth generation of video game consoles, eighth generation of home consoles, the Switch succeeded the ...
,
macOS macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...
,
PlayStation 4 The PlayStation 4 (PS4) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Announced as the successor to the PlayStation 3 in February 2013, it was launched on November 15, 2013, in North America, November 29, 2013, in ...
, and
Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...
platforms. The developers credited the game's tepid critical reception and associated stigma of intense difficulty for the game's slow sales. While Wohlwend hoped that a post-release patch would resolve some of these issues, he did not expect the game to recoup its costs, though the team was proud of their product. See also Wohlwend'
postmortem of the development process
(June 22, 2017).


Notes


References


External links

*
Intuition Games archive
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wohlwend, Greg American video game designers Artists from Chicago Indie game developers Iowa State University alumni Living people Place of birth missing (living people) Artists from Ames, Iowa Articles containing video clips Year of birth missing (living people)