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].

Official ‘Jigsaw Puzzle Villa’ artwork

By Dexter Woltman

Who doesn’t love snuggling on the couch with their favorite furry (or not-so-furry) friend? Pets play an important role in our lives, and most of the team at Brunette Games find ourselves fortunate enough to own one. Whether our pets are scratching at a toy, napping beside their owner, or—in my case—trying to crawl on my shoulder while I write, pets are a source of comfort and levity. When we’re designing ways to engage audiences with our games, we often translate that familiar sense of animal companionship into the stories we see onscreen.

Across Brunette Games’ 35 released titles and counting, we’ve featured a wide range of lovable pets. Some of our titles include a more traditional choice when it comes to our characters’ animal friends, such as Tiffany’s endearing-yet-sassy cat in Magic Tavern’s Machington Mansion. But whether it’s a cat, dog, or goat, each takes a unique role in their owner’s life.

When Justine travels to Spain in ZiMAD’s Jigsaw Puzzle Villa, she’s surprised to find the owner of the villa she’s staying in hasn’t given her cat a set name. Much like in Machington Mansion, this allows players the opportunity to name the cat themselves, building a deeper connection between the player and the animal.

Jigsaw Puzzle Villa also brings pets into the forefront of its gameplay by allowing players to solve animal-themed jigsaw puzzles. These adorable puzzles feature dogs, birds, horses, cats, and more!

Traveling beyond Spain, Justine isn’t the only woman in our games who meets animal friends abroad. Even acclaimed actor Jane Seymour sets out on a quest to rescue exotic animals with her loyal pet companions in “Into the Islands,” a time-limited event in Playtika’s Solitaire Grand Harvest.

Sometimes, the roles of pets in our games is even more involved. In Jam City’s Family Guy: The Quest for Stuff, the family dog Brian is the (literal) voice of reason. When he’s not busy ranting about politics or his superiority complex, he’s steering the dysfunctional family out of harm’s way.

Speaking of the “voice of reason,” when handyman Emilio’s feeling down in Jigsaw Puzzle Villa, his goat offers him valuable advice like “Bleat!” and “Bleaty! Bleat! Bleat!” Did we mention the goat is also nameable?

But the fun doesn’t stop there. While the goat in Jigsaw Puzzle Villa helps Emilio find himself, the dog in Sparkling Society’s City Escape helps the family in the game find… their rival? City Escape follows the Filburns' move to the countryside, where the parents quickly enter into a feud with their neighbor, Owen Timmons. When the Filburn kids—Ben and Chloe—find a lost dog, they’re surprised to discover he belongs to Owen. They return the dog to his home, marking the first step in healing the relationship between the Filburns and their disgruntled neighbor.

But not every dog who wanders feels lost. In Uken Games’ Ava’s Manor, the lead character is a mystery-seeker whose loyal dog Marlowe joins her on adventures. Marlowe’s larger-than-life presence is felt throughout the game as he points Ava in the direction of clues. Marlowe’s even voiced by our very own Andy Mack, who brings life to the dog’s many yips and barks.

Pets bring out the best in the characters we write. In a way, they’re humanizing and allow our characters to see themselves through the animals’ eyes. Whether you’re a longtime pet owner or admire animals from a distance, our games have four-legged companions for anyone to fall in love with—and these pets don’t require vacuuming loose hair! Be sure to check our Brunette Games’ expanding catalog of titles, where we continually find new animals to add to our growing roster of beloved pets.