XGen Studios, Inc (stylized as XGen Studios) is an

independent video 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 ...

studio based in

Edmonton Edmonton is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Alberta. It is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Central Alberta ...

Alberta Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three Canadian Prairies, prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to its west, Saskatchewan to its east, t ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

. Since 2001, XGen Studios has released 14 internally developed titles for consoles, mobiles, and the

web Web most often refers to: * Spider web, a silken structure created by the animal * World Wide Web or the Web, an Internet-based hypertext system Web, WEB, or the Web may also refer to: Computing * WEB, a literate programming system created by ...

, including the

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 ...

title '' Defend Your Castle''

History

XGen Studios was founded by Skye Boyes in 2001. Boyes was interested in programming in his childhood, and was studying

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

at the

University of Alberta The University of Alberta (also known as U of A or UAlberta, ) is a public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It was founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford, the first premier of Alberta, and Henry Marshall Tory, t ...

. While in university in 2003, he published a

browser game A browser game is a video game that is played on the internet using a web browser. They are sometimes referred to more specifically by their format, such as Flash games or HTML5 games. They are generally free-to-play and can be either single-pl ...

made with

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 ...

called ''Stick RPG''. This game amassed one million plays in the first month. Skye dropped out of his computer science program, incorporated the company, and began to accumulate staff. XGen Studios followed up ''Stick RPG'' by releasing another Flash game called ''Motherload'' in 2004. An offer to acquire the company for $8 million was made to XGen in 2007, but Boyes declined the deal. That same year, XGen Studios announced that they had obtained a license to develop for

Nintendo is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto. It develops, publishes, and releases both video games and video game consoles. The history of Nintendo began when craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi ...

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 ...

system, and intended to develop a WiiWare title. It was revealed in 2008 that '' Defend Your Castle'' would be part of Nintendo's WiiWare launch line up. In 2011, XGen Studios announced that they would take

Amanita Design Amanita Design is a Czech independent video game developing company founded in 2003 by Jakub Dvorský and headquartered in Prague, Czech Republic. The company has created award-winning games including '' Machinarium'', the '' Samorost'' series ...

's ''

Machinarium ''Machinarium'' is a puzzle point-and-click adventure game developed by Amanita Design. It was released on 16 October 2009 for Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux, on 8 September 2011 for iPad 2 on the App Store, on 21 November 2011 for BlackBerry P ...

'' to WiiWare. The project was eventually cancelled as of November 2011, due to the WiiWare platform's game size limit. In 2013,

Sony is a Japanese multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at Sony City in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The Sony Group encompasses various businesses, including Sony Corporation (electronics), Sony Semiconductor Solutions (i ...

announced that '' Super Motherload'' would be a day one title for the

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 ...

. On October 12, 2015, founder and CEO Boyes died in

Vancouver Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...

after experiencing cardiac arrest. His wife Kaelyn, who had worked on the operations side of the business, took over XGen Studios, overseeing the development of ''The Low Road''. ''The Low Road'' launched on July 26, 2017, on

Valve A valve is a device or natural object that regulates, directs or controls the flow of a fluid (gases, liquids, fluidized solids, or Slurry, slurries) by opening, closing, or partially obstructing various passageways. Valves are technically Pip ...

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 ...

available for PC, Mac and Linux. The following year, ''The Low Road'' was released on 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 ...

Console games developed

References

{{Reflist, refs= Video game development companies Video game companies of Canada Canadian companies established in 2001 Video game companies established in 2001 Companies based in Edmonton 2001 establishments in Alberta