Renegade Kid LLC was an American video game developer based in

Austin, Texas Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the seat and largest city of Travis County, with portions extending into Hays and Williamson counties. Incorporated on December 27, 1839, it is the 11th-most-populous city ...

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

Iguana Entertainment Acclaim Studios Austin (formerly Iguana Entertainment) 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 located in S ...

. In August 2016, Hargrove and Watsham announced that they had split their operations, with 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, cop ...

rights distributed between each's own studios, Atooi (Watsham) and Infitizmo (Hargrove).

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 by Nintendo. The successor to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, it was released on June 23, 1996, in Japan, on September 29, 1996, in North America, and on March 1, 1997, in Europe and ...

(N64) game development into Renegade Kid's projects, and Watsham described the Nintendo DS, 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 Nintendo eShop. However, the following July, Gamescribe announced that it was shutting down and PitchWinPlay was canceled. Also in 2012, Renegade Kid released ''

Mutant Mudds ''Mutant Mudds'' is a platform video game developed by Renegade Kid. The game was first released for the Nintendo 3DS in 2012, and arrived on Microsoft Windows and iOS in 2012. An enhanced version of the game, titled ''Mutant Mudds Deluxe'', ...

'', 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 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 game, short for independent video game, is a video game typically 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) games. ...

. Renegade Kid's 2014 game '' Moon Chronicles'' sold poorly and the studio struggled to survive. The situation stabilized following the release of ''

Xeodrifter ''Xeodrifter'' is a Metroidvania video game developed by Renegade Kid. The game was first released for Nintendo 3DS and Microsoft Windows in 2014. A Wii U port of the game was released 2015, and after Gambitious Digital Entertainment acquired ...

'', 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

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, 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 specializes in the release of digital games on physical media, with the games being sold on their website. The company, founded by Douglas ...

as the 3DS' final physical title prior to Nintendo's official discontinuation of the system. In September 2018, Hargrove died of pancreatic cancer.

Games

Unreleased

* ''

Demon's Crest ''Demon's Crest'', known in Japan as ''Demon's Blazon'', is a platform game, side-scrolling platform video game developed and published by Capcom for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. It is the third video game starring Firebrand (an enemy ...

'' (

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, ...

) * ''Son of the Dragon'' ( Wii) * ''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 operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...

, Microsoft Windows, Nintendo 3DS,

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 ...

, 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