Gather 'round, and let me tell you a story of danger, intrigue, and adventure. It all started in the Spring of '07, when one motivated young university student traveled out into the world to prove his worth as a totally awesome game developer. Capable and confident, his achievements were sure to be many and magnificent in magnitude. But alas, no matter where he went all of the mega monolithic corporations saw in him an unbridled strength of spirit and were terrified.

"What if he brought integrity to our company?"

"What if he came up with original ideas?"

"What if he did work that didn't suck?"

This was unacceptable, and so in their fear they pushed him away! Confused and dejected, our hero began the long journey back to his homeland. But as he traveled, deluded visions began to seep into his mind. Could he -- one lone boy in the world of men -- make it on his own? Could he single-handedly stand up to the entrenched behemoths of the industry and establish himself as a powerful force of gaming goodness?

He knew his sanity must be slipping away. People don't make games in their bedrooms anymore! It's just not possible! But try as he may to dissuade his aspirations, the visions only became more and more clear. Deranged ideas of effective business plans and fun gameplay mechanics took over his mind. All was lost.

Thus, the mad pixelante was born. And with his coming, the formation of an indie development studio the likes of which the world had never seen.

A glorious studio that would start by making a casual PC platformer about bunnies.

And lo, the game was made, yet a nagging feeling tore at our hero's brilliant mind: This game was merely okay. "Unacceptable!" he declared, and lapsed into meditation over this revelation for many months that conveniently overlapped with extremely busy university semesters.

One must walk before running, and one cannot walk without a first step. Like all first steps it was shaky and not breaking many speed records. Yes! There was no folly here. There was only progress.

Exploding with furious passion the dashingly handsome young man engaged in a riveting analysis of just how much he sucked and how to fix it. His base of knowledge expanded rapidly to include such elusive concepts as "prototyping is good" and a bunch of other things that generally relied on prototyping and its ability to provide goodness. Armed with this knowledge he designed a cunnning plan that only a crazed mastermind such as he could even fathom.

He called it Phase Prototyping

Indeed, it involved both phases and prototyping. Why create a single game when one could construct several small games to build up a proven code base, engage in wide-spread playtesting, get rapid results, and make money on the side? Each substantial set of features in the final project could be tested in a fully fleshed out and wildly entertaining experience.

And best of all the first phase would be about lasers.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, two dazzling experiences emerged from the dark depths of the studio. Yes, you read that right, two! As in, more than one! Two games at once is unheard of, so how did this happen? Why did it happen? Had our intrepid hero finally gone mad!?

No not really, Hunted Forever just got tied up is business dealings for long enough to make Towering Forever in the meantime. And, uh, it was good, or some such.

And indeed it was good! Several stages into the phase prototyping plan, the mad pixelante was now armed with a formidable game engine with which to wreak havoc across the internets (yes, all of them). Plenty of mistakes led to plenty of improvements which led to things not sucking anymore. And all was right in the world.

"But what of the future?" the masses cried. What glorious endeavours were there to look forward to? What shining beacon of light at the end of the tunnel could justify living in this dreadful world any longer?

Well it involes a rooster, space suit, and vikings.

And I'm serious.