2015 has been a great year for Tag Games with a lot of exciting growth. We recently we hit a pretty significant milestone in the story of our studio and 50 is the magic number!
It turns out that our latest title Downton Abbey: Mysteries of the Manor was the 50th game we’ve developed in our nine year history. In the same period we also reached the highest staff count to date with, yes you guessed it, 50 people!
So feeling a bit nostalgic, we chose our top five highlight projects over the years and what made them memorable.
First game: Dead Water
Our first title was Dead Water. Back then there were three of us working in a crazy indie games start-up making J2ME mobile games from Paul’s kitchen! Dead Water started off as a Tomb Raider-like, 2D side scrolling puzzle/adventure game. We quickly changed the theme to surviving a sinking ship with cool dynamic water and Dead Water was born.
First Free to Play game: Fun Park Friends
Funpark Friends was Tag Games’ first Free to Play social game. This was a huge learning experience for the whole team with internal server teams, economy designers, live support and customer support. Funpark Friends kickstarted the beginnings of our server side technology platform which became ChilliConnect.
Best-selling game: Car Jack Streets
We’ve worked on some very popular games with our partners, but we are sworn to secrecy on sales figures - sorry! As far as our own games, Car Jack Streets was the best seller. So successful in fact that shortly after its launch on J2ME and BREW handsets we produced versions for iPhone, PSP/Playstation and Nintendo DS. It even gets a few downloads to this day!
Most memorable game: Astro Ranch
Astro Ranch was chosen to be a launch title for the first iPad. Not only did this mean we got some great featuring from Apple and nice press coverage, but we also had to work ahead of time on the iPad to get the game ready for day one launch. This caused a number of production challenges, but we’re pleased to say we rose to every one and as the iPad was revealed to the world Astro Ranch was right there front and centre.
Most fun: Moshi Monsters
Working with the team at Mind Candy to bring the Moshi universe to mobile and tablet with Moshi Monsters Village was one of our most fun client projects. It was a real privilege to work on such a popular British IP and with a rich, virtual world with wonderful characters. Once launched, we ran Moshi Monsters Village as a live service, enabling us to make significant improvements and adapt to player behaviour.