Twisted Pixel Games, LLC is an American

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 ...

based in

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 ...

. Originally a contractor, Twisted Pixel releases games based on its own

intellectual properties 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 ...

such as ''

The Maw ''The Maw'' is an action-adventure video game developed by Twisted Pixel Games and released for Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows. The game centers on the extraterrestrial Frank and a purple, amorphous creature called The Maw, who have crash-landed ...

'' and ''

'Splosion Man ''Splosion Man'' is a 2.5D action platform video game developed by Twisted Pixel Games for the Xbox 360, available through the Xbox Live Arcade digital download service. It was released on July 22, 2009 as part of the Xbox Live Summer of Arcade. ...

''. The company uses its own proprietary engine, known as Beard, to power its games. On October 12, 2011, it was announced that Twisted Pixel had become part of

Microsoft Studios Xbox Game Studios (previously known as Microsoft Studios, Microsoft Game Studios, and Microsoft Games) is an American video game publisher and part of the Microsoft Gaming division based in Redmond, Washington. It was established in March 2000, ...

. However, Twisted Pixel separated from Microsoft, and became an independent company again on September 30, 2015. In November 2021, the company became a subsidiary of

Oculus Studios Reality Labs is a business of Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook Inc.) that produces virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) hardware and software, including virtual reality headsets such as Quest, and online platforms such as Horizon Wo ...

History

Twisted Pixel Games was founded in 2006 by industry veterans Michael Wilford, Frank Wilson and Josh Bear. The company first performed contract work for the now-defunct

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'' ...

, providing engineering work for '' NBA Ballers: Chosen One'' and '' Blitz: The League II''. In 2008, Twisted Pixel announced that its focus had changed to digitally distributed games based on its own new intellectual properties. In 2008, the company moved from

Madison, Indiana Madison is a city in and the county seat of Jefferson County, Indiana, United States, along the Ohio River. As of the 2010 United States Census its population was 11,967. Over 55,000 people live within of downtown Madison. Madison is the larges ...

, to its current location in Austin. According to the then CEO, Michael Wilford, the move was to "tap into a broader talent pool." Initially, Twisted Pixel targeted

WiiWare WiiWare was a service that allowed Wii users to download games and applications specifically designed and developed for the Wii video game console made by Nintendo. These games and applications could only be purchased and downloaded from the Wii S ...

as its service of choice. Speaking of the 2005 planned state of the service, Wilford said, "Back then, WiiWare was planned to be more like Xbox Live Arcade.""Game Informer" (September 2011). ''The Zen of Twisted Pixel'' He noted the original plans for the service would require companies to submit games to Nintendo for approval, similar to the submission process Microsoft uses for Xbox Live Arcade. Early discussions with Microsoft were not positive, but Wilford stated that Nintendo was eager to work with them. "Twisted Pixel was the first company to get a green light for WiiWare." Nintendo later changed its WiiWare model to one that required no submission process. Twisted Pixel opted not to use the service and continued talks with Microsoft. In 2007, Wilford met with David Every, the portfolio planner for Xbox Live Arcade at that time. Twisted Pixel pitched multiple games, including ''The Maw'', which became its first Xbox Live Arcade title. Released on January 21, 2009, ''The Maw'' tells the story of the extraterrestrial Frank and a purple,

amorphous In condensed matter physics and materials science, an amorphous solid (or non-crystalline solid, glassy solid) is a solid that lacks the long-range order that is characteristic of a crystal. Etymology The term comes from the Greek ''a'' ("wi ...

creature called The Maw, who have crash-landed their spacecraft on an alien planet. Its second title, ''

'', is a

platform game A platform game (often simplified as platformer and sometimes called a jump 'n' run game) is a sub-genre of action video games in which the core objective is to move the player character between points in an environment. Platform games are charac ...

where players control an escaped science experiment with the ability to explode himself repeatedly. It was released on July 22, 2009. Twisted Pixel's third title, '' Comic Jumper: The Adventures of Captain Smiley'' was released on October 6, 2010. Players control Captain Smiley, a comic book hero whose comics are poorly received. Seeking help from Twisted Pixel themselves he "jumps" in other comics, hoping to glean from each genre's popularity. On December 3, 2010, Twisted Pixel announced ''

Ms. Splosion Man ''Ms. Splosion Man'' is a Platform game, platform video game developed by Twisted Pixel Games, and was released on Xbox 360 on July 13, 2011 as well as Windows Phone. It is the sequel to 2009's Splosion Man''. The game takes place directly afte ...

'', a sequel to 2009's ''Splosion Man''. It was released on July 13, 2011. On February 1, 2011, the company revealed its fifth original game, ''

The Gunstringer ''The Gunstringer'' is a third-person rail shooter video game developed by Twisted Pixel Games and published by Microsoft Studios for Xbox 360 with Kinect. It was originally planned as an Xbox Live Arcade release, but was later made into a full ...

'', a third person shooter designed for use with the

Xbox 360 The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox series. It competed with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation ...

Kinect Kinect is a line of motion sensing input devices produced by Microsoft and first released in 2010. The devices generally contain RGB cameras, and infrared projectors and detectors that map depth through either structured light or time of flig ...

peripheral. The game was originally intended to be the first

Xbox Live Arcade Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA) is a digital video game download service available through the Xbox Games Store, Microsoft's digital distribution network for the Xbox 360. It focuses on smaller downloadable games from both major publishers and independent ...

game to be featured as a Kinect title but instead became a retail release. It is set as a live-action play set in the

Old West The American frontier, also known as the Old West or the Wild West, encompasses the geography, history, folklore, and culture associated with the forward wave of American expansion in mainland North America that began with European colonial ...

. The protagonist, killed by his posse, has been resurrected and seeks revenge. Live action sequences for the game were filmed at The Paramount Theatre in Austin where the company is located. On September 30, 2015, Twisted Pixel Games announced that it had been separated from

and had become an independent studio again. Its games have been generally well-received by critics, and collectively have won several awards. ''The Maw'' won the 2008 Audience Choice award at PAX10, and was a finalist at the

Independent Games Festival The Independent Games Festival (IGF) is an annual festival at the Game Developers Conference (GDC), the largest annual gathering of the independent video game industry. Originally founded in 1998 to promote independent video game developers, ...

2009. ''Splosion Man'' was voted by the Xbox Live community as the Best Original Xbox Live Arcade Game of 2009. In a September 2010 ranking,

IGN ''IGN'' (formerly ''Imagine Games Network'') is an American video game and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa distri ...

listed it eleventh in its top twenty-five Xbox Live Arcade titles of all time. It also received several Best of E3 awards in 2009. Captain Smiley, the lead character in ''Comic Jumper'', received the Best New Character award from ''

Official Xbox Magazine ''Official Xbox Magazine'' (or OXM for short) was a British monthly video game magazine which started in November 2001 around the launch of the original Xbox. A preview issue was released at E3 2001, with another preview issue in November 2001. Th ...

'' in 2010. On November 14, 2018, it was announced that ''Ms. Splosion Man'' would be launching on the

Nintendo Switch The is a hybrid video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. The console itself is a Tablet computer#Gaming tablet, tablet that can either be docking station, docked for use as a home video ...

on November 22. On December 5, 2021, the website was updated to announce some changes are coming. Through legal documents from the

Federal Trade Commission The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is an independent agency of the United States government whose principal mission is the enforcement of civil (non-criminal) antitrust law and the promotion of consumer protection. The FTC shares jurisdiction ov ...

, it became public that Twisted Pixel Games was acquired by

Meta Meta (from the Greek μετά, '' meta'', meaning "after" or "beyond") is a prefix meaning "more comprehensive" or "transcending". In modern nomenclature, ''meta''- can also serve as a prefix meaning self-referential, as a field of study or ende ...

in November 2021.

Technology

All of Twisted Pixel's games are powered by Beard, a proprietary engine to compete with

Epic Games Epic Games, Inc. is an American video game and software developer and publisher based in Cary, North Carolina. The company was founded by Tim Sweeney as Potomac Computer Systems in 1991, originally located in his parents' house in Potomac, M ...

Unreal Engine Unreal Engine (UE) is a 3D computer graphics game engine developed by Epic Games, first showcased in the 1998 first-person shooter game ''Unreal''. Initially developed for PC first-person shooters, it has since been used in a variety of genres ...

. Content is developed with the company's proprietary Razor editor in conjunction with RAD Game Tools' Granny 3D animation toolset. Razor can be adapted to develop in 3D or 2.5D configurations. Games are scripted using

Lua Lua or LUA may refer to: Science and technology * Lua (programming language) * Latvia University of Agriculture * Last universal ancestor, in evolution Ethnicity and language * Lua people, of Laos * Lawa people, of Thailand sometimes referred t ...

, which allows the developers to share code between titles.

Games developed

References

External links

* {{Meta Platforms Video game companies established in 2006 Companies based in Austin, Texas Video game development companies Video game companies of the United States Video game companies based in Texas Former Microsoft subsidiaries 2011 mergers and acquisitions 2021 mergers and acquisitions Meta Platforms acquisitions Oculus VR