Ex-Naughty Dogs go to work on Wii

via Computer and Video Games


Naughty Dog veterans Jason Hughes and Andrew Gilmour have formed the Texas-based Steel Penny Games, and are hard at work on the development of a WiiWare title.

The company was organized in 2007, and the team has spent the past year building a proprietary engine geared toward the Wii platform's capabilities, and creating a new intellectual property which it hopes will span a series of games.

Set to focus initially on digitally distributed titles, Steel Penny's first release will be a WiiWare game in mid-2008. The company says the title "blends a challenging puzzle game with dramatic fantasy environments and appealing characters".

Hughes, an industry veteran of 13 years, and most recently a senior graphics tools engineer at Naughty Dog, said he was "impressed with the egalitarian approach Nintendo has taken toward WiiWare developers.

"It allows the risk burden to shift back onto the creative developers." He went on to describe Steel Penny's strategy as "the modern equivalent of the garage method for an independent to gain a foothold in the industry".

Gilmour, who has been working in the games industry for 20 years, was previously a senior background artist at Naughty Dog.