Ensemble studios was a video game developer established as
an independent but owned by Microsoft by the time it disbanded. They made
real time strategy games, most notably Age of Empires, Age of Mythology, and
Halo Wars. Ensemble also made the genie engine, a popular game engine used in
many strategy based games of the time. Ensemble closed its doors after
the release of Halo Wars, announcing that two studios were being formed by
former ES employees after the doors were shut.
Tony Goodman, the head of Ensemble studios started Robot
entertainment, and offered any former member of the company a position at the
start up. David Rippy, a former Ensemble studios producer, started Bonfire
Studios, which was staffed entirely of former Ensemble team members. A few
months later a new studio called Windstorm was created by ex Ensemble staffer
Dusty Monk. A few months past the creation of Windstorm, a fourth studio called
Newtoy, Inc. was created by several former Ensemble developers.
Bonfire Studios was later acquired by Zynga and renamed
Zynga Dallas. Newtoy was also acquired by Zynga and renamed, Zynga with friends,
a nod to Newtoy's popular "with friends" series of games they
released while still an independent company.
Upon creation Robot Entertainment announced they were
working on two new games, one would be an RTS published by Microsoft Game
Studios, and the other would be Age of Empires Online. The next year it was
announced that Gas Powered Games would be taking over development of AOEO so
Robot Entertainment could focus on a new IP. That new IP turned out to be Orcs
Must Die!
Orcs Must Die demo'd at PAX in 2011, then released to X-box
live arcade and PC in October 2011. The game is strategy/tower defense, the
player being tasked with protecting fortresses containing magical rifts from an
army of orcs, ogres, and gnolls that want to destroy the rifts for some reason
or another. The game had a minimal marketing push and generated revenue numbers
defined in technical rankings as double wood in the hood.
Orcs Must Die is one
of the rare tower defense titles that doesn't get insulted when it is called a
tower defense game. The Newgrounds and Candystands of the world have saturated
the RTS market, as the game type is pretty easy for one or a few people to poop
out. They are the new free ski, they are the free, free ski's. They can be as
deep or as simple as they like, as the gameplay is in the driver seat.
But the magic in Orcs Must Die is that it harkens back to
the days when developers didn't like players that much, and would show that disdain
by throwing enemies at you from all sides until you die, or they get tired of
throwing them, and players liked getting so beat up by a single level they
would throw the controller and swear to never play the game again because it is
a bullshit game that they do not like, then restart the level over and over out
of wounded pride.
It's also one of those games that people will automatically
compare to something else when someone attempts to explain why the game is fun.
The avvy acts like ash, the gameplay is horde mode, the traps are basic. All
possible truths, but here is the thing, it's fun to play even if all of that is
true, a very rare jewel in this gaming age. I loved Age of Mythology and Empires,
and am stoked that the guys that made those games survived wave after wave of
industry traps, emerging with a perfect simple soup that could only come from
experienced hands that know how to measure by eye. To put it simply, the game is fun.
