For the millions of gamers who enjoyed the games of Bizarre Creations, last year ended with some sad news. Their financier had elected to shut down the game studio. Bizarre was the studio behind the popular Project Gotham Racing series as well as Geometry Wars (of which there are innumerable clones on the App Store). However, from the ashes of Bizarre Creations comes Hogrocket, a new mini studio formed by veterans of Bizarre in Northwest England.
Only a small handful of people will be making the conversion, but the short list is encouraging. Among them are Peter Collier who was the senior level designer on several of Bizarre's latest games (The Club, Project Gotham Racing 3 and Bloodstone) and Stephen Cakebread the creator of Geometry Wars.
We asked Hogrocket representative Ben Ward about what type of focus the new studio will have. After all, there's a world of difference between developing an Angry Birds style game and Infinity Blade. He told us that for now the studio will be focused on creating smaller, tighter games than big 3D games, citing the difficulty of maneuvering a 3D camera with touch, and long loading screens.
On a personal website Collier wrote of their new venture, "Say what you like about developing for Apple iOS devices (discoverability etc) but now there is the opportunity to make smaller games for low development costs and make a living. This state of play simply hasn't existed in the industry for decades. So joining the indie ranks with Hogrocket is something that, as a creative, I feel is an incredibly liberating prospect."
This is a tremendous asset to the iPhone gaming world, and we will very much be looking forward to what these talented folks are able to create.
