Official ‘Family Guy’ artwork

By Dexter Woltman

In my time with Brunette Games, our team has had the exciting opportunity to work on two Family Guy titles for the well-known game publisher Jam City. One of which—Family Guy: The Quest for Stuff—still receives new content from us on a weekly basis! Written in collaboration with the writers of the hit TV show, Family Guy: The Quest for Stuff stays true to the show’s characters and often references its many iconic episodes. There’s a lot to unpack in Family Guy’s 21 seasons (and counting), and another writer may have felt the pressure of honoring a decades-long IP; but for me, it’s a dream-come-true. Long before I was a writer for the Family Guy games, I was a fan of the show.

My coworkers say I have an encyclopedic knowledge of Family Guy. It feels like I’ve been watching all my life—and really, I have been! The show recently celebrated its 24th anniversary, making it almost as old as I am. In its latest season, the show surpassed 400 episodes. It’s a milestone achievement, and I’ve watched every installment! I grew up with Peter Griffin and his family’s wacky hijinks, even if the characters haven’t actually aged.

My familiarity with Family Guy started at a young age—too young of an age, some might say. Despite its crude humor, I’ve been tuning in since I was a kid. Sure, my mom tried to stop me from watching it until I was older, but I couldn’t resist youthful rebellion, and I snuck in the occasional episode or two on cable while she was at work. Once Family Guy dropped on streaming, it was game over for my mom. My sister and I watched each episode repeatedly, and we still find ourselves frequently quoting our favorite jokes.

Years later, I began studying scriptwriting at Webster University. I developed my skills writing film, TV, radio, plays, and—most importantly—games. At Webster, I met the one-and-only Lisa Brunette when I attended her course on narrative design. In one of my TV-writing courses, I was instructed to write an original episode for an established TV show. Naturally, I chose Family Guy.

I wrote my own episode titled “The Curious Case of Peter Griffin.” Of course, my skills were less developed back then, and the episode doesn’t compare to the talented writing that comes from Fox. But it was my first attempt at capturing the characters’ voices, and it would later prove a valuable practice when our team was tasked with writing for the Family Guy mobile games. Classic character traits—like Peter’s distaste for his daughter, Meg—are all present.

In “The Curious Case of Peter Griffin,” Peter Griffin becomes a child again, and his genius baby, Stewie, works to restore him to his proper age. It has plenty of hijinks, and it’s one of my favorite pieces of writing—even if I've kept it safely hidden away in the depths of my computer until now. It also highlights the differences between writing for television versus games when I tie in gameplay elements and focus on dialogue to convey jokes rather than the complex animations regularly found in the show.

As soon as I graduated, Lisa hired me on full-time. We got the opportunity from Jam City to work on their Family Guy titles, and knowing my extensive knowledge of the show, Lisa asked me to write scripts. Never did I expect that my childhood obsession would someday be a vital part of my career! Knowing each season of the TV show inside and out has helped me craft exciting events that can tie into fan-favorite episodes, and my familiarity with the character voices is showcased in the games’ dialogue. 

But just like with the show, writing for the Family Guy games is definitely a team effort. Each of us at Brunette Games has lended a hand in shaping the exciting world of The Quest for Stuff, and in fact, all five full-time staff members have taken a turn at writing scripts. With a top-notch crew of narrative talent, we ensure each event is filled to the brim with LOL-worthy jokes. Best of all, no one gets burned out, and we always have a source of fresh ideas.

Having been tasked with the game’s narrative for three years now, Family Guy: The Quest for Stuff is one of our longest-running titles at Brunette Games. My experience with the franchise illustrates that if you’re passionate about something, you should never let it fall to the wayside. Personal hobbies may wind up tying into a career in surprising ways. And just like the characters of Family Guy never seem to grow up, I’ll never outgrow my favorite animated sitcom.

You can download Family Guy: The Quest for Stuff on the Apple App Store or Google Play.

We celebrate our seventh anniversary as a studio this month, and we've enjoyed a bit of fanfare around the milestone. Here's a roundup of Brunette Games in the news as we reflect on how far we've come.

Cover This

Our team landed on the cover of the Community News, a newspaper that itself has been in business more than a hundred years. As reporter Wendy Todd points out in her lede, while women make up 46 percent of video-game players, they represent only 16 percent of executives in the industry. So our founder's place in the industry was not without its hard-won aspects, though Lisa Brunette herself cites Brunette Games' status as a small business as her number one challenge: "Increasingly, the world is built to work against us, with rules and regulations often favoring large corporations at the expense of mom-and-pop shops like Brunette Games."

Fun Fact: Community News is Brunette Games team member Sara Hardin's former employer; she penned stories on beekeepers and veterans for this well-loved paper before joining us as a writer/designer.

In the Pocket

Our story was picked up by PocketGamer.biz, which highlighted Brunette Games' status as a niche storytelling studio, a key aspect of our success: 

For a diverse, female-led studio like Brunette Games, this anniversary will not only be an achievement in itself but also symbolic of how a specialist studio can maintain its place in the mobile gaming industry. While many may think that a studio has to be all things at once, being able to focus on providing critical narrative support has helped their games consistently chart across top 20s.

We couldn't agree more.

Stairs to the Top

CEO Lisa Brunette was a guest on the GameDevStairs Podcast, a free philanthropic community whose mission is to help people start their careers in game development. They outreach especially to those affected by the current war in Ukraine, connecting 2000+ subscribers in their Telegram channel from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and elsewhere. Here's the hourlong interview with Sergey Gres of GameDevStairs:

It was an honor for us to help out GameDevStairs, which offers such an important service to the game community.

The 7-Year Itch

It's said in US culture that a relationship can suffer from the "seven-year itch," as the couple might feel tempted to stray from their mission together when they cross that milestone. As  for us, we're fully committed to our focus on great game storytelling. We added voice acting to our suite of offerings back in 2019, and we're exploring some new services you might see on our menu in the year ahead. We're very proud of our accomplishments, which include:

• We have credits for the narrative in 36 games, many of them top-performing, genre-defining hits, including Merge Mansion, Lily's Garden, and Matchington Mansion. Our clients' games consistently rank in the top 20 in the app store charts and are played by billions.
• Our expertise spans casual mobile genres: hidden object, match-3, slots, merge, jigsaw, and others. We also have extensive experience on deep interactive novels with branching dialogue, including the first mystery novel published in the Choices app. We've recently expanded into subscription-based games as well, with Netflix and Apple projects currently underway, and we've worked on some mid-core projects, including one NFT/blockchain title.
• Our clients include large, well-established studios such as Jam City and Metacore, as well as talented up-and-comers like Trollgames and ZiMAD. We've worked on some of the best IPs in the world: M&M'S, Family Guy, Disney Frozen.

We've weathered incredible change over our seven years in business, and we've witnessed great creativity and innovation in our clients' projects as well. We look forward to what lies ahead. Here's to another seven years!

ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI, February 8, 2023––Brunette Games, the game industry’s premiere storytelling studio, turns seven this year, with 35 released games to its credit, many of them top-performing, genre-defining hits.

Studio Founder Lisa Brunette launched Brunette Games in 2016 after an eight-year stint as a narrative designer––cutting her teeth at top employers Nintendo, Take-2 Interactive, and Big Fish––plus 15 years’ prior experience as a journalist. Her indie studio achieved immediate success through groundbreaking work on Matchington Mansion and Lily’s Garden, bringing effective game storytelling techniques to the match-3 decorating genre for the first time––elements that have been endlessly copied and are now standard best practices.

A narrative-focused company, Brunette Games provides a suite of services to its clients, from concept design to scriptwriting to voice-overs. The team has worked with some of the best companies in the game industry, including Jam City, Metacore, Playrix, and many others. Their clients’ games consistently rank in the top 20 across multiple categories in the app stores and are played by billions of people worldwide. Credits include high-profile IPs such as Disney Frozen and Family Guy alongside breakout hits like ZiMAD’s Puzzle Villa.

“Our team expertise is unparalleled, and it’s key to our success,” says Brunette. The team as a whole regularly authors industry articles and presents at events such as Pocket Gamer Connects and Geekle.

“I’m thrilled to see where our talented creatives take the company next,” says Brunette.

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About Brunette Games:

Brunette Games LLC is the industry's leading storytelling studio, headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, in the United States. The studio has designed and written narratives for multiple chart-topping mobile games played by worldwide audiences in the billions, including Merge Mansion, Matchington Mansion, and Choices: Veil of Secrets. Their clients’ games have been featured in the App Store and on Google Play and consistently rank in the top 20 in multiple categories. Founder Lisa Brunette has been named a game-industry influencer and is widely regarded as an expert in the field. Brunette Games is the go-to creative resource for interactive storytelling.

For more information, please contact Sara Hardin at sara@brunettegames.com.