 | |
| Industry | Video games |
|---|---|
| Fate | Unknown |
| Headquarters | , USA |
Key people | Ben Esposito Russell Honor |
Number of employees | 5[2] (2015) |
| Website | https://arcanekids.com/ |
Arcane Kids is an independent video game studio based in Los Angeles, California. They are a collective of developers, largely known for creating surreal and humorous video games using the Unity engine. As of 2015, the group consisted of 5 members, including Ben Esposito, Russell Honor, Tom Astle, Jacob Knipfing, and Yuliy Vigdorchik. The name "Arcane Kids" was derived from a mysterious re-writable compact disc with the phrase inscribed on top of it, which was found lying in a patch of dirt.
The team first met in college at Ground Zero, an on-campus DIY music club at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where they decided to start developing video games for fun, forming a homemade arcade at the club where they, alongside other student developers, could showcase game projects. After creating and featuring several small games at the Arcane Kids Arcade, the group of students developed Zineth, an open-ended skating game, as a student project in experimental video game design. Zineth was released in 2012 for Windows and Macintosh PCs, and went on to win the award for Best Student Project in the Independent Games Festival at the Game Developers Conference. The following year, Arcane Kids revealed Perfect Stride, a skating game that was never officially released though did have an alpha, which depicts what would have happened if Tony Hawk had never performed the 900 skating move. In 2013, Arcane Kids released Bubsy 3D: Bubsy Visits the James Turrell Retrospective, an ironic tribute to Bubsy 3D. In 2015 Arcane Kids released Sonic Dreams Collection, an unofficial game based on Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog, and CRAP! No One Loves Me, a racing game that was commissioned by Fantastic Arcade.[3]
Arcane Kids has not released any games since 2016, and its members have since joined other studios, developed their own self-published indie projects, or left game development altogether. There has been no official announcement as to the studio's status.
- ^ "Zineth wins Best Student Game at IGF!! – Games and Simulation Arts and Sciences".
- ^ "Asher Penn". asherpenn.com.
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