Renegade Kid LLC was an American

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in Pennsylvania, United States * Independentes (English: Independents), a Portuguese artist ...

video game developer A video game developer is a software developer specializing in video game development – the process and related disciplines of creating video games. A game developer can range from one person who undertakes all tasks to a large business with em ...

based in

Austin, Texas Austin ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Texas. It is the county seat and most populous city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and W ...

. The studio was founded in 2007 by Gregg Hargrove and Jools Watsham, video game development veterans formerly of

Iguana Entertainment Iguana Entertainment, later known as Acclaim Studios Austin, was an American video game developer based in Austin, Texas. The company was founded in 1991 by Jeff Spangenberg, previously lead designer for Punk Development, and originally locat ...

. Well known for their distinctive style of game design, it served as a pioneer in developing

indie games 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 Video game publisher, game publisher, in contrast to ...

prior to its closure in 2016. Watsham currently owns all rights of its output and continues to develop games under the brand Atooi.

History

Prior to founding Renegade Kid, Gregg Hargrove and Jools Watsham had been working together for 12–13 years, starting at

. The two launched Renegade Kid in early 2007. Hargrove and Watsham incorporated their expertise in

Nintendo 64 The (N64) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on June 23, 1996, in North America on September 29, 1996, and in Europe and Australia on March 1, 1997. As the successor to the Super Nintendo E ...

(N64) game development into Renegade Kid's projects, and Watsham described the

Nintendo DS The is a foldable handheld game console produced by Nintendo, released globally across 2004 and 2005. The DS, an initialism for "Developers' System" or "Dual Screen", introduced distinctive new features to handheld games: two LCD screens worki ...

, which would become the studio's primary target platform, as "basically a portable N64". The studio's first game, '' Dementium: The Ward'', was announced on March 5, 2007, and found

Gamecock Media Group Gamecock Media Group was an American video game publisher based in Austin, Texas, founded in February 2007 by Mike Wilson, Harry Miller and Rick Stults, formerly founders and executives of Gathering of Developers. The company was acquired by ...

as its publisher by June. At that time, Renegade Kid had three employees. In March 2012, Renegade Kid and Gamescribe jointly announced PitchWinPlay, a competition in which people could pitch their game ideas to the two companies, the winning entry would be developed as a game for the

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. However, the following July, Gamescribe announced that it was shutting down and PitchWinPlay was canceled. Also in 2012, Renegade Kid released '' Mutant Mudds'', the first game it funded and published on its own. Afterward, Renegade Kid went back to cooperating with publishers. The studio arranged a publishing deal for a licensed game in which the publisher would grant Renegade Kid a budget of but only allocated of those, keeping the remaining locked down until the later stages of the game's development. This meant that any

financial risk Financial risk is any of various types of risk associated with financing, including financial transactions that include company loans in risk of default. Often it is understood to include only downside risk, meaning the potential for financi ...

the publisher could have faced would have been shifted to the developer instead. Renegade Kid rejected the deal and, from that point on, turned its business model entirely to

indie game development 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 ...

. Renegade Kid's 2014 game '' Moon Chronicles'' sold poorly and the studio struggled to survive. The situation stabilized following the release of '' Xeodrifter'', but running the studio still proved to be a financial challenge for Hargrove and Watsham. As a result, the two decided to split up. On August 29, 2016, Renegade Kid announced that it was shutting down. The

intellectual property Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, co ...

rights were divided between the companies set up by Hargrove and Watsham independently: Atooi, founded by Watsham in 2015, obtained the rights for Renegade Kid's two-dimensional games (including ''Mutant Mudds'' and the then-in-development ''Treasurenauts''), while Infitizmo, which was established in 2016 by Hargrove, received the three-dimensional titles (including ''Dementium'' and ''Moon Chronicles''). Five games from the former were included in a compilation video game for the

Nintendo 3DS The is a foldable dual-screen handheld game console produced by Nintendo. Announced in March 2010 as the successor to the Nintendo DS, the console was released originally on February 26, 2011 and went through various revisions in its lifetime, ...

, titled ''Atooi Collection'' and released on August 7, 2020 by

Limited Run Games Limited Run Games, Inc. is an American video game distributor based in Apex, North Carolina. The company produces and sells limited quantities of physical video game copies via its website and select retail stores. Josh Fairhurst and Douglas B ...

as the 3DS' final physical title prior to Nintendo's official discontinuation of the system. In September 2018, Hargrove died of pancreatic cancer. Watsham negotiated with Hargrove's widow to acquire Infitizmo's intellectual properties and subsequently released remasters of the ''Dementium'' games.

Games

Unreleased

* '' Demon's Crest'' (

Game Boy Advance The (GBA) is a 32-bit handheld game console, manufactured by Nintendo, which was released in Japan on March 21, 2001, and to international markets that June. It was later released in mainland China in 2004, under the name iQue Game Boy Advanc ...

) * ''Son of the Dragon'' (

Wii The Wii ( ) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released on November 19, 2006, in North America, and in December 2006 for most other regions of the world. It is Nintendo's fifth major home game console, f ...

) * ''Crash Landed'' (Nintendo DS) * ''Maximilian and the Rise of the Mutant Mudds'' (Nintendo DS) * ''Razor Global Domination Pro Tour'' (PlayStation 4, Wii U, Xbox One) * ''Cult County'' (

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 ...

, Microsoft Windows, Nintendo 3DS,

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Wii U, Xbox One) * ''Dementium II Remastered'' (Nintendo 3DS)

External links

References

{{Reflist Companies based in Austin, Texas Defunct companies based in Texas American companies established in 2007 American companies disestablished in 2016 Video game companies established in 2007 Video game companies disestablished in 2016 Defunct video game companies of the United States Video game development companies 2007 establishments in Texas 2016 disestablishments in Texas