Hired by GarageGames! Level Up!!!

Lara and I have been hired by GarageGames!!!

Wow, that feels like a really long time in the coming. The fun working with Brett Seyler and Matt Fairfax on TGEA 1.7 made the decision all that much easier :)

I'm really excited about the current projects and roadmap. Unfortunately, I can't quite talk about them yet... so, I'll (re)introduce myself a bit to the community and my new GarageGames comrades.

I was a founder and the Technical Director of Canopy Games. I wrote a couple engines in my time there and got to develop all kinds of games. I was the sole coder for the first few years (a mistake) and so ended up writing a LOT of varied code :)

Here's a sample of the titles I developed while at Canopy Games:


I really wanted to develop a role playing game, have creative freedom, and self publish a game. So, after leaving Canopy Games the next 4+ years of my life were consumed by my second startup: Prairie Games, Inc

I plan on posting about this experience in some detail as time allows. Though, the main thing Prairie Games and Minions of Mirth represent to me is: work, work, and then some more work. It was a hard won education both on running a completely independent game studio and developing "indie friendly" MMO games/technology.

The R&D leading up to developing and then launching Minions of Mirth was rather well documented in the GarageGames forums. There were a number of rather lively debates (and head butts)... The birth of MoM was plenty painful... tears were shed, food was charged on credit cards, lifespans were shortened... but in the end, I wouldn't trade the experience. I still can't believe that Minions of Mirth was Lara's first game...

I also developed the MMOWorkshop.com site and put together the Torque MMO Kit while at Prairie Games. which is a whole other story... which requires more time than I have right now :)

Here's a picture that somehow doesn't manage to capture my time at Prairie Games:


Alright.... there it is, a brief history, introduction, and my very first blog as a GarageGames employee. YES!!!! I'm really looking forward to working with the talented folks who make GarageGames so awesome!!!

-Josh Engebretson
GarageGames, Inc

(Oh, yeah!)