Description
Called Shot is and independent game studio formed and operated by John Koenig, Gabriel Brockman, and William Block.
Called Shot's mission is to be a purveyor of fine games while contributing to the gaming community through the creation of open, innovative game technology and art assets.
History
Pre-History
A long time ago, in the mid-to-late 90s, there was a very special basement. This wasn't the sort of finished basement with comfortable furniture and gaming consoles that one might host guests in, but a dark, musty place suitable for only the darkest form of gaming: Dungeons and Dragons. It was here amongst mountains of source books and rivers of dice that Will, John, and several friends spent a majority of their formative years battling just about everything listed in a Monstrous Manual. Their tradition of gaming continued on into college where Gabriel joined as a regular party member. By the end of university the three had finally reached level six. The respective level progressions of our three heroes were now as follows:
- John - 1 Difficult PC / 3 Computer Scientist / 2 Mathematician
- Will - 2 Rules Lawyer / 2 Linguist (English) / 1 Philosopher / 1 Theologian
- Gabriel - 1 Shirtless Warrior / 3 Digital Artist / 2 Interactive Performer
Inception
One day, in the Spring of 2010, while sitting bored in his cubicle John caught a glimpse of himself in the glossy screen of his monitor. Much to his surprise a strange yellow exclamation mark was inexplicably hovering just above his head. He had a quest for himself. After a brief internal monologue John discovered that he was to embark on a journey to craft a game engine, Ymir, which was capable of effectively using all cores that modern CPUs could muster. This powerful engine was the only hope for the good citizens of the gaming community to finally break free of the tyranny brought upon them by client/server architectures. Certainly, this would be no easy task. John approached this quest the same as he had done all quests previous, by assembling a balanced party (Will and Gabe) and gathering all the source books he could find by enrolling in the PhD program and University of Minnesota. By 2011, our heroes had discovered and assembled enough pieces of Ymir that they became excited and they officially named their party Called Shot LLC.
Recent History
The next two years flew by as the three trained heavily to prepare themselves for demonstrating to the world the power contained within Ymir. Gabriel focused himself on learning the tools and techniques they would need to model and animate the 3D meshes as well as carefully honed his talent for 2D concept art. John continued to grow Ymir with the help of his adviser and the Applied Motion Research Group at the University of Minnesota, finally earning his Masters in Computer Science in 2013. As for Will, his urge to interpret rules became too strong and put his work with Called Shot on hold while he entered and completed his prestige classes in Lawyer.
In the Summer of 2013, our heroes felt Ymir was ready to wield and announced their flagship game project: The Electric Adventures of Watt (TEAoW). The group is currently seeking its first round of funding to develop the playable demo for TEAoW and the continue to labor diligently to see TEAoW to completion.
Projects
Logo & Icon
Selected Articles
- "An Interview with John Koenig About Ymir"
- Paolo D'Incau, Paolo D'Incau's Erlang Blog
Team & Frequent Collaborators
John Koenig
Lead Programmer, Called Shot
Gabriel Brochman
Lead Artist, Called Shot
William Block
Game Design & Legal Consultant, Called Shot
Peter Wallin
Musician, Freelancer
Contact
Inquiries:john@calledshot.org
Twitter:
twitter.com/CalledShotLLC
Quick Navigation
DescriptionHistory
Projects
Logo & Icon
Selected Articles
Team
Contact
Fact Sheet
Developer:Called Shot
Founding Date:
March 2011
Press / Business Contact:
john@calledshot.org
Website:
calledshot.org
Social:
twitter.com/CalledShotLLC
Related Sites:
