BLENDO GAMES

Blendo Games is an award-winning independent games company run by Brendon Chung. Brendon has been making games since the ancient before-times, for 20+ years.

Their work is known for rich worlds, storytelling, and well-crafted gameplay. Blendo Games was founded in 2010 and is located in Los Angeles, and has developed for PC, Mac, and Linux.

Hi, I'm Brendon Chung. I founded Blendo Games and I make video games. I'm a game designer, artist, and programmer. Some Blendo titles have won awards, including the IGF Seumas McNally Grand Prize, the IGF Excellence in Design, and the IndieCade Grand Jury.

I've given various talks at the Game Developers Conference ([1], [2]) and panel talks at IndieCade, TwitchCon, LudoNarraCon, and more. Prior to founding Blendo Games, I was a level designer at Pandemic Studios.

I'm also a co-founder of Los Angeles art collective Glitch City.

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Click here to view list of all works.

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Independent Games Festival Quadrilateral Cowboy Seumas McNally Grand PrizeWinner 2017	Independent Games Festival Quadrilateral Cowboy Excellence in DesignWinner 2017
Independent Games Festival Quadrilateral Cowboy Excellence in NarrativeHonorable Mention 2014	South by Southwest Quadrilateral Cowboy Gamer's Voice awardNominee 2014
Indiecade Quadrilateral Cowboy Grand Jury awardWINNER 2013	Indiecade East Thirty Flights of Loving Featured Game2013
Independent Games Festival Thirty Flights of Loving Nuovo AwardHonorable Mention 2013	Independent Games Festival Thirty Flights of Loving Seumas McNally Grand PrizeHonorable Mention 2013
Indie Game Challenge Atom Zombie Smasher Finalist2012	Independent Games Festival Thirty Flights of Loving Excellence in Narrativenominee 2013
Indie Game Magazine Atom Zombie Smasher Game of the Yearnominee 2011	Independent Games Festival Atom Zombie Smasher Excellence in Designnominee 2012
Gamasutra Atom Zombie Smasher Top Ten Indie Games2011	Gamasutra Atom Zombie Smasher Top Five PC Games2011
EDGE Magazine Flotilla Best 20 Indie Games2010	Penny Arcade Expo Atom Zombie Smasher PAX 10 selection2011
Independent Games Festival Flotilla Excellence in Designhonorable mention 2011	Independent Games Festival Flotilla Excellence in Visual Arthonorable mention 2011
GameTunnel Gravity Bone Best Arthouse Game2008	Independent Games Festival Flotilla Vision Awardnominee 2011

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Yes.

Blendo Games permits monetization of productions such as review videos or "Let's Play" videos whereby a production site (e.g. YouTube, Twitch.tv) may pay you for views.

Pick a toolset (Twine, Processing, Unity, Unreal, Bitsy, Godot, etc.) and start making something.

Is there an optimal toolset for you to use? There probably is! But I think your time is better spent actually making something rather than thinking about which toolset is best.

Some further thoughts here.

If you're interested in getting your feet wet in making games, I recommend checking out Bitsy and/or Twine. They're both very flexible and you can get up and running in less than a day.

When I was a kid, I made maps for Doom II. This led to making mods for Quake II, Half-life, and Duke Nukem 3D. And that led to more maps, more design, more art, and learning to code. Some of these projects can be found here.

Basically, if a game supported player-made modifications, I'd try my hand at it.

I definitely didn't do it by myself -- I was very lucky to grow up with supportive family and friends. There are some things in life we don't have control over, and I'm very fortunate to have the life I've had.

I use bastardized versions of the Kanban board and Pomodoro technique.

I (Brendon) do design, art, programming, and the business stuff. However, this is not a strictly solo operation! I've been very lucky to collaborate with a lot of great folks:

• For Flotilla 2, a handful of incredible local Los Angeles developers created the game's level designs: Aquma, Valerie Lin, ATL3Y, and Evan Hemsley.
• I'm very fortunate to have music from talented musicians, including Benny Hammond (Atom Zombie Smasher, Air Forte) and Chris Remo (Thirty Flights of Loving).
• On Quadrilateral Cowboy, I collaborated on its design with Tynan Wales for several months. Aaron Melcher ported Quadrilateral Cowboy to Mac and Linux, and Ethan Lee ported the digital art book program.
• Air Forte was ported to Mac by Quinn Dunki.
• Ethan Lee ported Flotilla and Atom Zombie Smasher and Thirty Flights of Loving to Mac/Linux.
• And I owe a huge thanks to all my friends and family for playtesting my work and being there for me.

I enjoy using the idTech engines for various reasons, including:

• They're free!
• I've been working with idTech engines for...20+ years?
• I like their laser-focus on making first-person games.
• As a result of that, I like how tight the code is.
• It gives me peace of mind to have 100% control of the tech.

I was a film student.

Drink a lot of water, get plenty of sleep, and learn how to get along with others.

Here are some books/articles that resonated with me:

• Donald Norman's The Design of Everyday Things was a big influence on me.
• The Door Problem (by Liz England) is an incredible glimpse into game design.
• Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics is a wonderful resource.
• I revisit The Best Icon is a Text Label several times every year.
• Tom Francis' Failure Spectrum is such a great writeup.

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