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 [email protected].

Dexter Woltman, recently promoted to writer|designer II, sporting his Brunette Games logo jacket.

Brunette Games has grown by leaps and bounds over the past year. We're now a crew of six full-time writer/designers, supported by a pool of five contract voice actors who voice our scripts. One measure of our success is the individual professional growth you can see in our many team promotions in the first half of 2021. Here's a breakdown, and note that we use the title "writer/designer" to capture our team members' dual roles as both game designers and writers of all manner of in-game text, from character dialogue to tutorial messages.

Dexter Woltman: Writer|Designer II

Employee No. 3 at Brunette Games, Dexter has worked on 16 released titles to-date, which includes a wide variety of casual and mid-core games, from My Beauty Spa to Kingdoms of Heckfire. He joined us as a contractor during his senior year in Scriptwriting at Webster University, stepped right into a full-time job as writer|designer I once he graduated in 2019, and was just promoted to writer|designer II, in recognition of his increased leadership and innovation on our clients' projects.  

Jenna Faulkner: Writer|Designer I

Writer/Designer Jenna Faulkner proudly displaying her new biz card.

The fastest promotion our company's ever seen happened this winter when Jenna went from writer/editor to writer/designer I after just six weeks on the job. Maybe it's the fact that she came to us with a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing already in hand, or maybe she was just born for this kind of work! Whatever the case, Jenna's been a key asset as writer and editor for our G5 titles, Homicide Squad: New York Stories and Crime Mysteries: Find Objects, as well as pitching in on Family Guy: The Quest for Stuff and a couple of meaty, unannounced projects where she's already proved her mettle at designing narratives and characters that integrate superbly well with gameplay. 

Amanda VanNierop: Associate Writer|Designer

Amanda VanNierop, associate writer|designer, in her spiffy Brunette Games polo.

In just a year and a half on the job, Amanda has racked up credits on eight released titles, including the high-profile games Sweet Escapes and Disney Frozen Adventures. Wise beyond her years and in possession of enviable talent and confidence, she started out as an editor but quickly took on both writing and designing duties as well, proving she could handle some tough assignments, hence the promotion to associate writer|designer. Amanda's with us full-time for the summer, but the rest of the year she keeps up the good work while finishing her double majors in English and Psychology. In her spare time, she wields a sword in her fencing classes, too! We're all in awe.

Anthony Valterra: VP Game Design & Strategy

VP Game Design and Strategy, Anthony Valterra, one-half of Brunette Games leadership.

Along with our creative team promotions, with a growing staff has come expanded roles for leadership as well, with two key title changes.

First, Anthony's done a bang-up job as business director over the past two years, and a good deal of our tremendous growth is to his credit. He's also written, designed, and consulted on 14 released titles since joining Brunette Games, including Ava's Manor: A Solitaire Story and Sweet Escapes. He's more than earned his new title as vice president, game design and strategy, which does a better job of encompassing his dual roles, too, as well as showcasing his veteran status in the game industry, having shepherded illustrious brands such as Dungeons & Dragons and Avalon Hill prior to the top-grossing games currently under his purview.

Lisa Brunette: Chief Creative Officer

CCO Lisa Brunette, with her award for five years at the helm of Brunette Games.

Last but not least is founder and owner Lisa Brunette, a game-industry influencer who shaped the way we design stories and characters in casual games through her work on top titles Matchington Mansion, Lily's Garden, and literally hundreds of other released titles in her nearly 15-year career in games. With one foot in the narrative puzzle genre and the other in interactive novel apps, Lisa has grown Brunette Games from a solo act to a highly respected team of creatives in just five years. While she never imagined herself in C-level shoes, she finally found the right title for her work in this one: chief creative officer.

Join us in congratulating the team on their well-deserved promotions! Here's to another successful year.