Hi there. I’m Steve. I wanted to tell you about this company I’m a part of.
It’s a new video game studio, founded by me, Johnnemann Nordhagen, and Karla Zimonja. We all worked together for years, then parted ways for a while, and now we’re back together, starting up our own thing in beautiful Portland, Oregon.
So why did we decide to start The Fullbright Company?
We spent a lot of time working on games that were incredibly inspiring to be part of: games in the BioShock series, that do such an amazing job of balancing story and atmosphere with player-driven exploration. And we got a chance to tell a story of our own in the world of Rapture when we collaborated closely on Minerva’s Den, work we’re very proud of.
And basically, in our time apart after that project, we missed it. We missed working on a small team, on a small project, focused on telling a personal story in a player-driven way. We wanted to do that again. It was fun last time.
So we bailed out of corporate game development and reformed as an indie team, to see what we can do on our own. Well, ‘on our own’ is a big exaggeration. We’ll need lots of help from our talented friends who make amazing music and sound, and from environment artists who want to get involved in making our gameworld look mysterious and atmospheric and alive.
But regardless of the means, our intent in the end is simply to make a great game. A memorable experience that you’ll be drawn into, and keep thinking about after the game’s turned off, and want to come back to again someday. An experience that gets away from the constraints of ossified game genres, while relying on what we’re good at as a team: creating immersive places to inhabit, and a deep, personal story to explore at your own pace. A nonviolent game in an unfantastical locale; an experience that not many games provide, built out of techniques that only video games can employ.
There’s a long journey ahead of us, and we intend to share as much of it with you as we can. For now though, we’re just glad to have you along for the ride.
Watch this space. There’ll be more soon.
The Fullbright Company 
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Your new endeavor sounds quite promising. It’s always good to see someone breakout into the field of indie games. I feel that in most cases indie games are much better at storytelling than mass market games (with certain exceptions). Besides the nonviolence and unfantastical locale, your description remind me of Bastion, my favorite game of all time. I plan to follow the development of your game, and your company. Who knows, maybe you guys can top Bastion in my book.
Cool! I hope you guys do well. Are you staying in Novato, or somewhere close? Also, let me know if you need any part time animation. 😛
Great news Steve!
I hope we’ll get some hot scoops on The Idle Thumbs podcast somewhere down the line 🙂
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Congrats, hope that you will include Mac/iOS in development plans from day 1.
This sounds very promising, and Minerva’s Den was my favorite piece of story through the entirety of the BioShock series. Can’t wait to see whay you’re all up too! Good luck!
Congratulations and good luck, I have to add the obligatory Idle Thumbs memes that you love so much so… The Wizard, Puffins, Scoops, Far Cry 2 and Jeff Goldblum
Congrats! I’m so excited to see what you will create! Best of luck!
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Sounds great, its inspiring when people pull away from the pack to create something of thier own
Good Luck! 😀
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Gee.. How sweet-!.. I can’t wait to see your first step, I’m gonna wait til that the day, and you know we’ll behind you all the way! good luck guys! :))
best of luck dudes! Some of us local Portland game developers will definitely be following your progress, including myself 🙂 It would be great to have more opportunities in the area for game development, since Portland is such a great place to live.
Is this the place where can expect hot scoops on Fullbright exciting new game?
“Fictional context” was what the indiegames.com article described your idea as, something other than Sci-Fi or Fantasy. That’s very interesting. Can’t wait to see what you’ll come up with!
This is fantastic news Fullbright! I want to get in touch with you guys! I know you’re all very busy with resettling here in Portland and planning your next step, but if you can shoot back a response so I can find a way to talk to you guys I would greatly appreciate it! I live here in Portland and am interesting in talking. If you get this, please drop me a message. Thanks, and congradulations on the new company and returning to the greatest city ever.
Have you checked with the Fulbright Program to be sure they are not going to have any legal problem with this? I hardly think the USA’s government is going to worry that your games will negatively impact their ability to process millions of dollars of grant money, but I still worry there could be a problem.
This game looks excellent! We really need a good adventure game like this
Please, official Facebook page of the company. I love Minerva’s Den! As indie developers, your game, in my opinion, should be developed for PC/MAC and OUYA. PLEASE!