Developer Confidential: Toy Studio, Part 1

Game development is a curious field to say the least. All that consumers really know is that cool ideas come in and fun games come out, with very little insight into the tedious process that ultimately forms the final product. Even on a platform like iOS where the overhead to actually producing a game is far smaller, taking a game from conception to completion requires the time and effort of several tremendously dedicated individuals. But why would you take our word for it? We have enlisted the help of the team over at Toy Studios, who generously gave us a brief glimpse behind the curtain of their newly released puzzle game, Squishy's Revenge.

Toy Studio is a fairly small developer based out of Chicago Illinois made up of fifteen folks that share a common thread of passion for creating quality videogames. When asked about the origins of studio's unique name Studio Director Christian Arca stated confidently:

"What does everyone consider fun? Toys. You’d be extremely hard pressed to find someone who wouldn’t think a toy is fun at some point in his or her life. The only purpose of a toy is to be played with, which is key to having fun. Toys stimulate the imagination and take you to a magical place only you can see. So we wanted to emphasize play and fun, not just in our games but the studio culture itself."

Despite only having been in existence since September of 2009 the team working behind the scenes at Toy Studio have been hard at work, churning out an impressive thirteen games in that short span. Having successfully released titles on both the Nook Color and Facebook, it seemed like the next logical step was to transition into the iOS space.

The process of learning to develop for a completely new platform is not necessarily an easy one, even for the most talented of squads. So why would a team want to go through the hassles of trying to come up with a whole new game design, when they already have thirteen successful templates already in their quiver. After careful consideration and deliberation amongst the group, it was decided that the best way to introduce themselves to the iOS world was with their Nook Color game, "Monster Slider."

Stay tuned for part two and three next week, wherein we learn all about Squishy and his Revenge!