Blendo Games is 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 the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

development company based in Culver City, California. It was founded by Brendon Chung in 2010 and is primarily a one-person effort. Blendo Games gained more widespread exposure with the short form stand alone title '' Gravity Bone''; the following games ''

Flotilla A flotilla (from Spanish, meaning a small ''flota'' ( fleet) of ships), or naval flotilla, is a formation of small warships that may be part of a larger fleet. Composition A flotilla is usually composed of a homogeneous group of the same clas ...

'' and ''

Atom Zombie Smasher ''Atom Zombie Smasher'' is a real-time strategy game developed by independent developer Blendo Games. In it, the player attempts to rescue as many citizens as possible from an oncoming zombie horde using helicopter rescue units and an array of m ...

'' were met with critical praise. The studio has also released several other games in several genres.

Background

Chung had done hobbyist programming, such as

modding ''Modding'' is a slang expression derived from the English verb " to modify". The term refers to modification of hardware, software, or anything else, to perform a function not originally intended by the designer, or to achieve bespoke specif ...

for games like '' Quake 2'' and ''

Half-Life Half-life (symbol ) is the time required for a quantity (of substance) to reduce to half of its initial value. The term is commonly used in nuclear physics to describe how quickly unstable atoms undergo radioactive decay or how long stable at ...

'', for about a decade before being hired as a designer at

Pandemic Studios Pandemic Studios, LLC was an American video game developer based in Westwood, Los Angeles. Andrew Goldman and Josh Resnick founded the studio in 1998 after leaving Activision. Pandemic Studios, alongside BioWare, was acquired in 2005 by Elevation ...

. While there, he worked on '' The Lord of the Rings: Conquest'' and '' Full Spectrum Warrior: Ten Hammers'', although he continued to work on personal projects including an episodic ''Citizen Abel'' series that toyed with traditional mechanics of

first-person shooters First-person shooter (FPS) is a sub-genre of shooter video games centered on gun and other weapon-based combat in a first-person perspective, with the player experiencing the action through the eyes of the protagonist and controlling the pla ...

. Chung considered his first officially released game to be the espionage game '' Gravity Bone'' in 2008. In November 2009,

Electronic Arts Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the ...

shut down Pandemic Studios and Chung began development on ''

'', a space combat game that takes cues from an abandoned personal project Chung had worked on previously. ''Flotilla'' was released in 2010. Later that same year, Blendo Games released ''Air Forte'', an

edutainment Educational entertainment (also referred to as edutainment) is media designed to educate through entertainment. The term was used as early as 1954 by Walt Disney. Most often it includes content intended to teach but has incidental entertainmen ...

game in which the player indicates their knowledge about math, geography, and vocabulary by flying a plane in response to prompts. In 2011, Chung released

real-time strategy Real-time strategy (RTS) is a subgenre of strategy video games that do not progress incrementally in turns, but allow all players to play simultaneously, in "real time". By contrast, in turn-based strategy (TBS) games, players take turns to p ...

game ''

'', which received critical praise from several outlets and was featured at the 2011

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 and Philadelphia in the United States; and Melbourne in Australia. PAX w ...

, as well as being part of the 3rd

Humble Indie Bundle Humble Bundle, Inc. is a digital storefront for video games, which grew out of its original offering of Humble Bundles, collections of games sold at a price determined by the purchaser and with a portion of the price going towards charity and t ...

charity drive. A sequel to ''Gravity Bone'', ''Thirty Flights of Loving'', was developed to support a Kickstarter project for the Idle Thumbs podcast, and released in 2012.Meer, Alec (February 28, 2012)
"Gravity Bone’s Sequel: Thirty Flights Of Loving"
Rock Paper Shotgun. Retrieved March 7, 2012. Following ''Thirty Flights of Loving'', Chung began what would become over four years of development on '' Quadrilateral Cowboy'', which released in 2016. ''Flotilla 2'', a

virtual reality Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye displays to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video games), e ...

sequel to ''Flotilla,'' was released in August 2018. In October 2018, a new project titled ''Skin Deep'' was revealed to be in development at Blendo Games although no release date has yet been announced. Blendo Games later announced in April 2021 that ''Skin Deep'' would be published through Annapurna Interactive.

Culture

Blendo Games remains a one-man studio, though according to a 2016 feature in

Gamasutra ''Game Developer'', known as ''Gamasutra'' until 2021, is a website founded in 1997 that focuses on aspects of video game development. It is owned and operated by Informa and acts as the online sister publication to the print magazine '' Gam ...

, Chung spends some time working in a shared office space called Glitch City. He has also directly collaborated with several individuals on several projects. The musical score of Thirty Flights of Loving was composed by Chris Remo, and the design of ''Quadrilateral Cowboy'' was a joint effort between Chung and Tynan Wales. The Mac and

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, w ...

ports of ''Quadrilateral Cowboy'' were done by Aaron Melcher, and the game's art book was ported to those same platforms by Ethan Lee. Chung has also indicated he gets play testing help from his friends and family.

''Barista''

''Barista'' is a series of four first-person games for Microsoft Windows by Brendon Chung. All of the games involve the player character waking up. The first game is a

mod Mod, MOD or mods may refer to: Places * Modesto City–County Airport, Stanislaus County, California, US Arts, entertainment, and media Music * Mods (band), a Norwegian rock band * M.O.D. (Method of Destruction), a band from New York City, US ...

ification for '' Doom II: Hell on Earth.'' In an interview, Chung stated that his inspirations for the first game included the ''

Doom Bible ''Doom (1993 video game), Doom'', a first-person shooter game by id Software, was released in December 1993 and is considered one of the most significant and influential titles in video game history. Development began in November 1992, with progr ...

'' and Bungie's '' Marathon''. Chung has indicated the second game was an independent study project developed while he was in college. It centers on a nameless spaceship pilot, and features a disjointed story line. There are several characters featured, including a talking skull and an unidentified woman. The skull mentions a person named Hannah, though when an interviewer suggested the unidentified woman was Hannah, Chung said "she's not Hanna. You never meet Hanna." The third game is a modification for ''

Doom 3 ''Doom 3'' is a 2004 survival horror first-person shooter video game developed by id Software and published by Activision. ''Doom 3'' was originally released for Microsoft Windows on August 3, 2004, adapted for Linux later that year, and ported ...

''. Chung has indicated he developed the game so he could learn the constraints of the

Id Tech 4 id Tech 4, popularly known as the ''Doom 3'' engine, is a game engine developed by id Software and first used in the video game ''Doom 3''. The engine was designed by John Carmack, who also created previous game engines, such as those for '' Do ...

engine before using it on a larger project. The fourth game is a modification for ''

Half-Life 2 ''Half-Life 2'' is a 2004 first-person shooter game developed by Valve Corporation, Valve. It was published by Valve through its distribution service Steam (service), Steam. Like the original ''Half-Life (video game), Half-Life'' (1998), ''Half- ...

''.

Games

* '' Gravity Bone'' (2009, PC) * ''

'' (2010, PC and Xbox Live) * '' Air Forte'' (2010, PC and Xbox Live) * ''

'' (2011, PC) * '' Thirty Flights of Loving'' (2012, PC) * '' Quadrilateral Cowboy'' (2016, PC) * ''Flotilla 2'' (2018, PC/

HTC Vive VIVE, sometimes referred to as HTC Vive, is a virtual reality brand of HTC Corporation. It consists of hardware like its titular virtual reality headsets and accessories, virtual reality software and services, and initiatives that promote appl ...

) *''Skin Deep'' (TBA, PC)

References

External links

*
Interview with Brendon Chung
{{Blendo Games American companies established in 2010 Video game companies established in 2010 Companies based in Culver City, California Privately held companies based in California Video game companies of the United States Video game development companies 2010 establishments in California Indie game developers