Off-Road Velociraptor Safari HD

A new, high definition version of Flashbang's most popular game, currently in development.
http://raptorsafari.com/

Blurst

Flashbang's portfolio of experimental games, many of which were made in 8 weeks.
http://blurst.com/

Independent Games Festival

Matthew co-chairs the premiere showcase of the best in independent games.
http://www.igf.com/

TIGRadio

Matthew and Ben host a weekly live radio show for indie game devs.
http://www.tigradio.com/

TIGJam

Flashbang's annual game jam for the TIGSource community, hosted at the Flashbang offices.
http://www.tigjam.com/

Fun-Motion

A collection of reviews, articles, and interviews focused on physics games.
http://www.fun-motion.com/

The Attach Rate Challenge

A series of popular training games developed for Cisco Systems.
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Sealab 2021: Sweet Mayhem

Lovingly crafted contract creation for Adult Swim's popular cartoon series.
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Your Project Here?

Flashbang occasionally does contract work. Need something? Get in touch!
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Flashbang Studios

is an independent game developer based in Tempe, Arizona, that has been making games since 2003.

We value our independence. We founded Flashbang because we need to care about the projects we work on. It's important that we love what we do, and we think this shows through in our games (both our own projects and our contract work).

Flashbang has shipped 13 self-funded titles, including web games, downloadable games, retail games, and iPhone games.

We occasionally do contract work, and have created games for companies as diverse as Cisco Systems and Cartoon Network.

Our network of sites, including Blurst.com, are viewed by 2.8 million people a year.

Flashbang is an authorized Wii developer.

Contact us at hello@flashbang.biz

Our Indie Game Portfolio:

Matthew Wegner

Founder

Matthew has lead Flashbang's development for the past 7 years. He also co-chairs the Independent Games Festival, advises the Independent Games Summit, hosts TIGRadio, edits Fun-Motion, and enjoys such things as unicycling 300 miles through Africa.

Shawn White

Graphics Captain

Shawn transforms artistic vision into technical implementation, through his encyclopedic knowledge of shaders and Unity's graphics pipeline. Anytime you see an effect in a Flashbang game, and wonder how it was programmed, the answer is always Shawn.

Ben Ruiz

Art Director

Ben is responsible for the look and feel of Flashbang's games. He joined the company midway through the original Raptor Safari project, after shipping an XBLA title, and has been making sweet polygons for Flashbang ever since. His favorite emotion is scorn.

Unity

Technical Experts

Flashbang is a top Unity development studio, and the only company outside of Unity to present at all three Unite conferences. We have years of Unity experience, with specific expert knowledge in physics, shaders, workflow, and rapid development.

Time Donkey

A minimum-wage donkey travels back in time on a quest for tacos. September, 2009

Crane Wars

Dueling construction sites continue the battle between Union and Scabs. June, 2009

Paper Moon

Collaboration with Infinite Ammo, extending their original 2D pop-up game. May, 2009

Blush

Survive in a dangerous yet beautiful deep-sea ecosystem. March, 2009

Minotaur China Shop

Help a Minotaur overcome his rage to run his own china shop. December, 2008

Rebolt

Scavenger robots battle for survival in a bleak, desert future. iPhone. December, 2008

Raptor Copter

Hunt velociraptors in your Chinook helicopter. iPhone. November, 2008

iSplume

Handheld adaptation of our popular Splume game. iPhone. August, 2008

Jetpack Brontosaurus

Splendid jetpack dreams of the apatosaurus named Brontosaurus. June, 2008

Raptor Safari

Hunt velociraptors in your off-road vehicle. The original version. January, 2008

Splume

Physics-based color matching game. Dozens of designed levels mix it up. November, 2008

I Hate Clowns

Throw metal pies at ragdoll clowns. Work out your aggression! March, 2007

Potion Motion

Brew up a delicious pot of critters by matching colors. September, 2006

Glow Worm

Make matches to hatch grubby glow worms into beautiful fireflies. April, 2005

Beesly's Buzzwords

Help Beesly store honey by spelling words in the honeycomb. November, 2004

Raptor 2010

2010, The Year of the Raptor! After a successful year of creating new games for our Blurst portfolio, we are returning to our most popular game, Off-Road Velociraptor Safari. The new version, with its fancy "HD" suffix, is on track for a late 2010 multi-platform release.

Our challenge is to bolster the best parts of the first game with modern production, without bloating or diluting the original concept. Fortunately, we can leverage the skills and techniques the company picked up in 8-week production cycles to really make the game stand out.

Follow the game's development on our Facebook and Twitter feeds, or pre-order the HD version of the game and check out early development builds firsthand!

Blurst 2009

Blurst was the company's focus in 2009. Financially, Flashbang began the year with ample savings, so we made the decision to ignore contract work to focus on developing new games for release on Blurst. We created several new Blurst projects in aggressive 8-week development schedules:

Blush, a beautiful underwater ecosystem
Paper Moon, an expanded version of Infinite Ammo's original title
Crane Wars, a Union vs. Scab struggle
Time Donkey, a donkey who inadvertently travels through time

In late 2009, Steve forms Enemy Airship to work on Shadow Physics full time. Flashbang provides seed funding and incubatation office space.

Prototype 2008

We launched Raptor Safari in January of 2008. The Internet loved it! This was our third game made with Unity as part of our plan to release "glorified prototypes". Our goal was to test our game ideas in playable form as free web games, utilizing Unity's web player as the delivery platform. After spending years polishing casual games, we were in the mood to work on experimental projects again.

The company hit six people full-time people in January, which we sustained until late 2009 (when two brothers left to pursue different PhDs).

We also released Jetpack Brontosaurus, Minotaur China Shop and three games for the iPhone/iPod touch.

Unity 2007

Technology improves and changes, and in 2007 we truly adopted Unity as our technology of choice. In retrospect, this was a fantastic decision. Unity allowed us to move into creating physics-based, 3D games with a small team, and using Unity early allowed us to forge a lasting relationship with the fantastic team over at Unity Technologies (known as Over The Edge Entertainment, back then).

Our first serious Unity game, Splume, was made in 8 weeks and took first place in Unity's first development contest.

Flashbang began to grow again. We started the year with a team of two full-time guys, and ended 2008 with a staff of four.

Transition 2006

One of our goals with Flashbang was to make the kind of games we wanted to make. That's why people go indie, right? In order to do this, we thought we needed a success in the marketplace. Our marketplace of choice was the casual games market, which allowed small teams to be reasonably competitive. This was changing in 2006—production values and budgets were increasing, and we were itching to work on games "for us", rather than games targeted to some other-than-us market.

We canceled production on our never-released third casual title, Potion Motion, and picked up some contract jobs build the company's coffers while we worked out what to do next.

Glow Worm 2005

Flashbang releases its second title for the casual market, Glow Worm. We adapted a color-hatching design from an old arcade game. Glow Worm was released on all of the major casual portals, but, alas, was not a smashing success. The founders' savings accounts begin to dwindle, and some of the original company founders depart for the mainstream game development industry.

Glow Worm takes nominations for art and audio in the 2006 IGF.

Matthew begins work on Fun-Motion to share his love of physics games with the world. His focus on physics games will set the tone for Flashbang's later work.

Goldmaster 2004

After winning "Project Goldmaster" at the 2004 IGF, Flashbang goes on to create a Sealab 2021: Sweet Mayhem game for Adult Swim. The project interrupts the development cycle of Glow Worm, but is a great learning experience and a lot of fun. We were all Sealab fans; it was neat to send out scripts for the voice actors and get back raw session recordings.

Steve Swink joined Flashbang in early 2004.

Buzzwords 2003

The beginning! Flashbang is founded in the spring of 2003 by Matthew Wegner, Mike Kime, Sean Weilage and Shane Wegner, three friends from college (and a brother). We were young and ambitious, but we had a specific plan in mind: Make a game for the casual market, where the barrier to entry was still low enough that a small team could release a game. And with a little luck, the company might even make enough money to survive!

Our first game, Beesly's Buzzwords, was released in the fall of 2003. It goes on to begin a finalist in the 2004 Independent Games Festival.