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PARIS – 5 July 2011 – Audrey Leprince and Emeric Thoa, two award-winning video game developers, are announcing the formation of a new game studio, The Game Bakers. Based in Paris and Montpellier, France, The Game Bakers are dedicated to crafting AAA quality games for mobile platforms.

Having worked on AAA titles including Tom Clancy’s EndWar™ and Splinter Cell Double Agent™, Leprince and Thoa are accustomed to building traditional console games that require 200-person teams, millions of dollars, and years to develop. With The Game Bakers, the duo will focus on smaller scale, more agile creative projects that will take advantage of the opportunities afforded by touch devices and the exploding mobile market. They have been joined by senior developers and talents from the video game world and the comic book industry.

The Game Bakers are currently working on SQUIDS™ for mobile platforms, PC, and Mac. In this epic adventure game, the player recruits a team of misfit squid to banish the Black Ooze from the seas. More details will be revealed in the coming months, with a release planned for Autumn 2011.

Download the press kit: https://www.thegamebakers.com/files/TheGameBakers_PressKit.zip

Logo and Developers pictures: https://www.thegamebakers.com/TGB_announcement.html

For more information visit https://www.thegamebakers.com/ or follow The Game Bakers on Facebook.

Contact:

hello@thegamebakers.com

The Game Bakers – 59, Rue Reaumur, Paris, 75002, France

Phone: +33 699 183 109

DEVELOPERS BIO

Emeric Thoa is in charge of The Game Bakers’ creative content. In a previous life he was Worldwide Director of Conception for Ubisoft and played a major role in the design of best-selling AAA console games such as Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter™, Splinter Cell Double Agent™ and Rayman Raving Rabbids™.

Audrey Leprince worked as a Producer on several best-selling console games. Her most recent game was the award winning voice controlled RTS Tom Clancy’s EndWar™. She started in the industry as a game designer and producer for independent studios, before spending 6 years developing games for Ubisoft in China.

Q&A WITH AUDREY AND EMERIC

What does it mean to deliver AAA games on mobile devices?

Emeric: it means that we take the best of the mobile gaming experience. For instance, all the qualities of a game like Cut The Rope™: super intuitive controls designed for the touch platforms, overall simplicity in gameplay, streamlined game structure, and attractive characters. But on top of that, we add a little bit of depth: an epic adventure to develop the universe, a light RPG progression where you build a team and take tactical decisions… all of it with top quality execution. A friend of ours said we want to be “Popcap meets Nintendo”. It made us laugh because we are big fans and we have a lot of admiration for those teams, and it became our dream goal!

How different is it to work for a major publisher than for a small independent studio?

Audrey: When you come out of a long console game development, it’s a breath of fresh air to work on shorter development cycles, with smaller development teams, and have a direct connection with the gamers. It’s a lot of work and presents a lot of new challenges, but it feels like this is where the future of gaming is happening. A lot of senior developers seem to be thinking along those lines, and it’s a great experience to be making games with people who would rather do nothing else but what they are doing.

Can you tell us more about the game SQUIDS™?

Emeric: I cannot say much right now but the game is about a team of squid that fate turns into the guardians of the oceans, and who must protect their world from an upcoming threat: the Black Ooze. The game features very cute squid characters, but it is also an epic journey that will seduce every gamer. More details on the game will be disclosed soon and we have a Beta test planned for this summer.

SQUIDS™, The Game Bakers™ are registered trademarks by The Game Bakers™. All trademarks are owned by their respective owners.

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So that’s it. After weeks of hard work we are happy to share with you the first pictures of SQUIDS: the preparatory work for characters and environments done by our Art Director Jerome. We hope you like it. The game is about a team of Squids that fate turns into the guardians of the Oceans, and who must protect their world from an upcoming threat: the Black Ooze. You will build an army of Squids to fight off zombie crabs and shrimps and live through an epic adventure. The game will release for iOS, PC and Mac. We are pretty impatient as we are preparing a Beta test for this summer so we can hear your feedback on the game and make the all the adjustments before it’s released in September. Stay posted as we will regularly release new information on the game. Or even better, register here for our newsletter so you won’t miss any news.

There has been quite some activity on the team side. Get ready for a new world tour! Gregoire (Tours, France) joined the team to help on the code side, and Meredith (Montpellier, France) is also on board to work with Emeric on the Game and Level design and lends a hand in Marketing. We have also been very lucky to find the best musician for the game namely mister Romain (Paris, France), and Jeff (Irving, Texas) who is doing a pretty awesome sound design too. We will dedicate a special post to the sound subject. We also had some reinforcement on the Art side: great models from Thomas (Tokyo, Japan), the most expressive animations from Alain (Paris, France), some help from Yann on matte painting (Paris, France)… And Jay our master user interface is also on board from Quebec, Quebec. We also worked with Gao et Zhang from Shanghai, China on some code support, and Antoine from Montpellier, France lent a quick hand too. So who is following? That’s a total of 8 locations in 6 countries for our team. And that’s what one of our video conference calls on Skype looks like (some of them are sleeping).