Large Animal Games

Basic Information
Company Type	N/A}
Company Industry	N/A
Company Status	Active
Foundation	2001
Key People	Wade Tinney, Josh Welber, Brad Macdonald
Products	Games (See List)
Location(s)
115 W. 29th St., 11th floor; New York, NY 10001

Large Animal Games is an independent casual game developer based in New York City, New York founded in January 2001 by Wade Tinney and Josh Welber. Both partners are graduates of the MFA program in interactive design at Parsons School of Design in New York City. Large Animal has made about 60 games; puzzle games, celebrity name games, role-playing games, action games, and word games for clients. The name comes from the company's general love of animals.

Future development includes RocketBowl for the Xbox 360 game console, as well as new client games.

Games

Large Animal has developed client games and also produced its own titles. The more notable releases are:

• AlphaQueue
• Fashion Solitaire
• RocketBowl
• Snapshot Adventures
• TeamUP
• Unipong
• Bricktopia

Large Animal currently develops Flash based widget games called Playwidgets and has a collection of web versions of its PC games. Some web versions are limited releases of the regular games, while others are modified to work in a web browser.

CAS Framework

Create and Share Framework is currently under development. This framework is designed to support a variety of games, created in Flash, that allow for the player to create their own game objects. Once a game object is created the player can use it in the game right away, send it to a friend via email, and submit it to the public gallery for other players of the game to use. CAS will provide some resources like server and database access to encourage 3rd party development.

The current iteration of CAS power Large Animal's Playwidgets, which also serve as a testbed for the framework.

Social Games

In 2008, Large Animal Games began game development for social networking sites. Bumper Stars, Lucky Strike Lanes, and Bananagrams are all available to Facebook and Bebo members. Each game shares certain commonalities despite having different objectives. These include a leaderboard (which ranks players according to a variety of criteria), solo and social play options, a store, and rewarding of virtual trophies (“Achievements”) for excellence in play. All games are available free of charge.

Bananagrams

Developed in partnership with Majesco Entertainment, Bananagrams was created as an online alternative to the popular word game. This version follows the same rules as the original, but adds features such as varied play modes (Solitaire and Café) as well as options to challenge friends and engage in live play. Bananagrams players may exchange Banana Chips (credits) for items such as new tiles and playing boards in the store.,

Bumper Stars

Bumper Stars is styled after arcade pinball games, and the object is for a character (a “Star”) to consume as much food as possible while hitting bumpers and racking up points. Players have three chances to clear the screen of food and progress to the next level. Credits are earned with each game and can be applied towards the purchase of new characters, screen backgrounds, custom bumpers, and food items.,

Lucky Strike Lanes

Modeled after the national, upscale chain of alleys, Lucky Strike Lanes [1] maintains the same objective as a traditional bowling game. Players control the speed and angle with which the ball is released and scoring is recorded at the bottom of the screen. The Pro Shop offers players the chance to personalize their games with new bowling balls, alleys, and background music. Lucky Strike Lanes has received critical acclaim for its realism.

External links

• Official website