Monkeystone Games
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Monkeystone Games was a
video game developer A video game developer is a broad term for 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 ...
and
publisher Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...
founded by
John Romero John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second ...
,
Tom Hall Tom Hall is an American game designer best known for his work with id Software on titles such as ''Doom'' and ''Commander Keen''. Career Hall attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he earned a B.S. in Computer Science. In 1987, ...
,
Stevie Case Stevana "Stevie" Case (born 1976–1977) is an American businesswoman. She is known for competing in the first-person shooter game '' Quake'' in the late 1990s, as well as contributing professionally to the video game industry. Competing under ...
, and Brian Moon. After its inception in July 2001, Monkeystone published several titles on multiple platforms.


History

Romero and Hall were co-founders of
Ion Storm Ion Storm, L.P. was an American video game developer founded by video game industry veterans John Romero and Tom Hall, both formerly of id Software. Despite an impressive pedigree and high expectations, the company only produced one commercial ...
, and had previously worked together at
Id Software id Software LLC () is an American video game developer based in Richardson, Texas. It was founded on February 1, 1991, by four members of the computer company Softdisk: programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer Tom Hall, and ar ...
on commercially successful titles like ''
Doom Doom is another name for damnation. Doom may also refer to: People * Doom (professional wrestling), the tag team of Ron Simmons and Butch Reed * Daniel Doom (born 1934), Belgian cyclist * Debbie Doom (born 1963), American softball pitcher * L ...
'' and '' Quake''. Case, who was Romero's girlfriend at the time, had also worked at Ion Storm as a level designer. The three of them all worked on the commercially unsuccessful video game, ''
Daikatana ''Daikatana'' is a 2000 first-person shooter game developed by Ion Storm. It was published by Eidos Interactive for Microsoft Windows and Kemco for Nintendo 64. Players control a swordsmaster who travels through various time periods in an eff ...
'', which went through a turbulent development process before releasing in 2000 to negative reviews. Case left Ion Storm in January 2001, with Romero and Hall completing ''
Anachronox ''Anachronox'' is a 2001 role-playing video game produced by Tom Hall and the Dallas Ion Storm games studio. The game is centered on Sylvester "Sly Boots" Bucelli, a down-and-out private investigator who looks for work in the slums of Anachronox, ...
'' before also leaving the company in July of that year. Romero, Hall, and Case founded Monkeystone Games in
Quinlan, Texas Quinlan is a rural city in the southern part of Hunt County, Texas, United States, within the Dallas–Fort Worth metropolitan area. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 1,394. It is west of Lake Tawakoni. History The city of Quinlan b ...
in August 2001, in order to explore the development of
mobile game A mobile game, or smartphone game, is a video game that is typically played on a mobile phone. The term also refers to all games that are played on any portable device, including from mobile phone (feature phone or smartphone), tablet, PDA to ...
s. According to Case, Romero became interested in the concept of mobile games towards the end of 1999, and wanted to see what was possible on handheld devices like the
Pocket PC A Pocket PC (P/PC, PPC) is a class of personal digital assistant (PDA) that runs the Windows Mobile or Windows Embedded Compact operating system that has some of the abilities of modern desktop PCs. The name was introduced by Microsoft in 2000 ...
with a new company. Romero elaborated that he founded Monkeystone with the intent of directly working on programming video games full-time alongside Hall and Case. He noted, "At Ion we were mainly working in management, managing people, but not able to do what we really wanted to do, and we were kind of torn between it." Joining the three were former Ion Storm employee Lucas Davis, as well as
chief financial officer The chief financial officer (CFO) is an officer of a company or organization that is assigned the primary responsibility for managing the company's finances, including financial planning, management of financial risks, record-keeping, and financ ...
and
chief operating officer A chief operating officer or chief operations officer, also called a COO, is one of the highest-ranking executive positions in an organization, composing part of the "C-suite". The COO is usually the second-in-command at the firm, especially if t ...
Brian Moon, who previously worked for
Ensemble Studios Ensemble Studios was an American video game developer. It was founded by Tony Goodman in 1994 and incorporated the following year. It borrowed the name of Ensemble Corporation, a consulting firm founded by Goodman in 1990. It was acquired by M ...
as their CFO. In October 2001, Monkeystone announced their first game, ''
Hyperspace Delivery Boy! ''Hyperspace Delivery Boy!'' is a puzzle action game released for the Pocket PC on December 23, 2001. It was ported to Microsoft Windows and Linux. The game was the first title released Monkeystone Games, a small developer formed by id Softwar ...
'', a
Pocket PC A Pocket PC (P/PC, PPC) is a class of personal digital assistant (PDA) that runs the Windows Mobile or Windows Embedded Compact operating system that has some of the abilities of modern desktop PCs. The name was introduced by Microsoft in 2000 ...
title which began development in August 2001 and was released on December 23 of the same year. They also announced a partnership with ZIOSoft to collaborate on a future title. Following this, the company completed 2003's ''Congo Cube'', which was first released on
Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
but later ported to BREW and
J2ME Java Platform, Micro Edition or Java ME is a computing platform for development and deployment of portable code for embedded and mobile devices (micro-controllers, sensors, gateways, mobile phones, personal digital assistants, TV set-top ...
. In August 2003,
THQ THQ Inc. was an American video game company based in Agoura Hills, California. It was founded in April 1990 by Jack Friedman, originally in Calabasas, and became a public company the following year through a reverse merger takeover. Initial ...
Wireless announced that Monkeystone would develop a version of the 2001 console video game, ''
Red Faction ''Red Faction'' is a series of shooter video games developed by Volition and owned by Koch Media. Originating in 2001, the ''Red Faction'' games have spanned Microsoft Windows, macOS and consoles, including the PlayStation 2, GameCube, Xbox, P ...
'', for the
Nokia Nokia Corporation (natively Nokia Oyj, referred to as Nokia) is a Finnish multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications industry, telecommunications, technology company, information technology, and consumer electronics corporatio ...
N-Gage. It was completed in October 2003. Monkeystone also published titles developed by third parties, such as ''Bust'em'', ''Argentum'', and ''Baseball Mogul 2003'', which were all released in 2002. Romero recalled in a later interview that the reason he left Monkeystone was because he and Case ended their romantic relationship in the spring of 2003. Describing the breakup as the "worst experience" of his life, Romero sought to leave Texas to do something else. Hall decided to join his business partner, so they both left the company in October 2003, leaving Davis to run the company in their absence. Both Romero and Hall were hired at
Midway Games Midway Games Inc., known previously as Midway Manufacturing and Bally Midway, and commonly known as simply Midway, was an American video game developer and publisher. Midway's franchises included ''Mortal Kombat'', ''Rampage (series), Rampage'' ...
the same month they left Monkeystone. During this time, Monkeystone worked on a game based on ''The'' ''Chronicles of Riddick'' for the N-Gage that was eventually cancelled. According to Romero, the company moved to
Austin, Texas Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the county seat, seat and largest city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and Williamson County, Texas, Williamson co ...
to assist Midway Studios Austin with programming the multiplayer mode for its
first-person shooter 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 pl ...
game, ''
Area 51 Area 51 is the common name of a highly classified United States Air Force (USAF) facility within the Nevada Test and Training Range. A remote detachment administered by Edwards Air Force Base, the facility is officially called Homey Airport ...
'', enabling Romero and Hall to pay Monkeystone's business loan off in full. After ''Area 51'''s release in 2005, Monkeystone Games closed, with Romero and Hall each taking half of Monkeystone's employees with them when they both left Midway.


Games

Their first in-house title, ''
Hyperspace Delivery Boy! ''Hyperspace Delivery Boy!'' is a puzzle action game released for the Pocket PC on December 23, 2001. It was ported to Microsoft Windows and Linux. The game was the first title released Monkeystone Games, a small developer formed by id Softwar ...
'' was first developed for the
Pocket PC A Pocket PC (P/PC, PPC) is a class of personal digital assistant (PDA) that runs the Windows Mobile or Windows Embedded Compact operating system that has some of the abilities of modern desktop PCs. The name was introduced by Microsoft in 2000 ...
and released on December 23, 2001. The game was then ported to
Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
, Mac,
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, which ...
and
Game Boy Advance The (GBA) is a 32-bit handheld game console developed, manufactured and marketed by Nintendo as the successor to the Game Boy Color. It was released in Japan on March 21, 2001, in North America on June 11, 2001, in the PAL region on June 22, 2 ...
, although the Game Boy Advance version was never released. Monkeystone also published titles by third parties such as ''Argentum'', ''Rocket Elite'', ''Bust Em'', ''Night Shift'', and others. Monkeystone's second in-house title was a puzzler called ''Congo Cube''. They initially developed Congo Cube for Windows, then ported it to the Pocket PC,
Java ME Java Platform, Micro Edition or Java ME is a computing platform for development and deployment of portable code for embedded and mobile devices (micro-controllers, sensors, gateways, mobile phones, personal digital assistants, TV set-top ...
phones, and BREW phones. Their third in-house title was a recreation of the
PlayStation 2 The PlayStation 2 (PS2) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October 2000, in Europe on 24 November 2000, and in Australia on 3 ...
hit ''
Red Faction ''Red Faction'' is a series of shooter video games developed by Volition and owned by Koch Media. Originating in 2001, the ''Red Faction'' games have spanned Microsoft Windows, macOS and consoles, including the PlayStation 2, GameCube, Xbox, P ...
'' on
Nokia Nokia Corporation (natively Nokia Oyj, referred to as Nokia) is a Finnish multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications industry, telecommunications, technology company, information technology, and consumer electronics corporatio ...
's new gaming deck, N-Gage. It was completed in October 2003. *
Hyperspace Delivery Boy! ''Hyperspace Delivery Boy!'' is a puzzle action game released for the Pocket PC on December 23, 2001. It was ported to Microsoft Windows and Linux. The game was the first title released Monkeystone Games, a small developer formed by id Softwar ...
(2001) * Baseball Mogul 2003 (2002) *
Red Faction ''Red Faction'' is a series of shooter video games developed by Volition and owned by Koch Media. Originating in 2001, the ''Red Faction'' games have spanned Microsoft Windows, macOS and consoles, including the PlayStation 2, GameCube, Xbox, P ...
(2003) * Jewels and Jim (2003) * Congo Cube (2003) *
Dig It! ''Dig It!'' is a jazz album by The Red Garland Quintet, recorded in 1957 and 1958 but not released on the Prestige label as PRLP 7229 until 1962. Reception Harvey Pekar wrote in the December 6, 1962 issue of '' DownBeat'' magazine: "This Lp i ...
(2003) * Cartoon Network: Block Party (2004)


Monkeystone Staff

*John Romero - ''Chief Executive Officer & Chief Technology Officer'' *Tom Hall - ''President & Chief Creative Officer'' *Stevie Case - ''Chief Operating Officer'' *Lucas Davis - ''Studio Director & Programmer'' *Jess Dominguez - ''Programmer'' *Eric Nava - ''Artist'' *Eric Seiler - ''Artist'' *Billy Browning - ''Artist''


Closure

Brian Moon left Monkeystone sometime in 2002. Stevie Case left Monkeystone in mid-2003. Tom Hall and John Romero left Monkeystone in October 2003 to work at
Midway Games Midway Games Inc., known previously as Midway Manufacturing and Bally Midway, and commonly known as simply Midway, was an American video game developer and publisher. Midway's franchises included ''Mortal Kombat'', ''Rampage (series), Rampage'' ...
. One of their colleagues, Lucas Davis, was left to run the day-to-day operations until company closed in January 2005.


References


External links


Official website
{{Authority control Video game development companies Video game companies established in 2001 Video game companies disestablished in 2005 Defunct video game companies of the United States Video game publishers Defunct companies based in Texas