We're excited to share ironSource LevelUp's latest podcast interview, with Brunette Games Founder Lisa Brunette. Highlights:

Different platform and audiences require different narratives

The first game I worked on was for the DS, and I worked on some other platform games. Those were for families and younger players.

So in the case of that first game for the DS, it was for teen girls. So that's a different audience than when I migrated over to mobile games. That became a new focus for me.

But that's a way different context than when you're in your living room with your Wii. So just taking that context into consideration every step of the way. You know, if you're dedicated to your PC, and this is your me-time, that's different. For mobile games, when I'm on the bus and I might get called for my stop, or I get my notifications coming in, it needs a different kind of storytelling.

Lessons for indie studios

Don’t let the story get in the way. I think especially those indies sometimes come to games with a novel in a drawer that they want to turn into a game. And that's usually a bad way to start. We instead start with the game and then craft a story that's integrated with it.

We don't want to turn anyone's novel into a game. That means that the story was written for passive entertainment, not for the interaction of games. So right off the bat, the first thing you want to do is make sure that your story is in service to the game.

How to write narratives for mobile games

We actually have distinct milestones that we follow on all of our projects with clients. We start with them at the concept stage, and we pitch three high-level story ideas. This is after a conversation with the client in which we understand what the main gameplay is, whether that's jigsaw puzzle or merge gameplay or match three. In our games, often that meta element is decorating or perhaps makeover, or sometimes both. And then we create a story that really attempts to bridge and merge those. 

The number one reason the player is there is to play the game. They're not passive. So we're really working on what is that story that is going to merge all those three things together in this beautiful way. And we carry that through that process with every milestone.

We want things to be very short and very punchy. And, in most cases, while there's drama and interesting conflict that has to occur otherwise it's not interesting, most of what we're writing is jokes and we're really pushing the humor and being kind of meta and fun and just giving players that opportunity to enjoy.

Listen to the full podcast at the ironSource LevelUp website.

We've had a long relationship with ironSource, now owned by Unity, with many of our writers authoring industry articles:

Who Goes There? The Importance of Writing Distinct Character Voices, by Sara Hardin

The top 5 mistakes mystery writers make - and how to avoid them, by Lisa Brunette - Lisa was top writer for LevelUp in 2022 for this piece

Punchline: How to use humor to bridge player connection, by Dexter Woltman

The power of storytelling in blockbuster casual games, by Lisa Brunette

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!

By Dexter Woltman

Follow Peter Griffin on a debaucherous journey through Quahog in Jam City's Family Guy: Another Freakin' Mobile Game! Written in collaboration with the writers of the hit "Family Guy" TV show, Family Guy: Another Freakin' Mobile Game is a Match-3 title featuring all your favorite characters from the Griffin family and Meg!

In this new content release, Brunette Games collaborated with Jam City to modify the existing narrative in the game. As part of this rework, players now unlock scenes of episodes with clams they earn from completing levels.

Solve puzzles, fight bosses, watch episodes, and more! With hilarious lines and an easy-to-access story system, Family Guy: Another Freakin' Mobile Game puts a fresh spin on the Match-3 genre. Now get out there and explore Quahog from the comfort of your toilet!

Family Guy: Another Freakin' Mobile Game is available on Android and iOS devices.

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