Q-Games is a development studio well-known to Nintendo fans; company founder Dylan Cuthbert was part of the team for the original Star Fox and Star Fox 2, with the company then going on to make the rather enjoyable Star Fox Command and the nostalgic delight of Star Fox 64 3D. In terms of its own IPs, the PixelJunk series has been a standout, most recently for Switch owners with PixelJunk Eden 2.
Away from Switch releases and beloved Nintendo franchises, however, Q-Games has been rather busy and enjoyed some successes through 2020; it cites smart device game and Konami tie-in Frogger in Toy Town as a notable success, and we imagine the company did rather well financially from the Stadia-exclusive deal for PixelJunk Raiders. With a stated goal of maintaining that momentum, Q-Games has promoted three long-serving staff to new executive roles.
Akito Takahashi will be COO (Chief Operating Officer), he has worked on various projects with the team since 2006 and served as Studio Manager for four years. Gari Biasillo steps up CTO (Chief Technology Officer), and Ryuji Nishikawa is CCO (Chief Creative Officer); Nishikawa-san has been with Q-Games since 2001, he was one of the company's original members.
Moves like this are certainly a sign that Q-Games is seeking to bolster its results further in 2021; hopefully that means even more imaginative and intriguing titles to come from the Kyoto-based studio.
Comments 14
You mean to tell me putting an exclusive on Stadia didn't pay off? I'm shocked...
@Rika_Yoshitake It says the opposite thing lol.
Not gonna lie, I was expecting a new game called Management Overhaul from the headline.
@syrupdash Haha, love that.
@Rika_Yoshitake Though actual player numbers on Stadia are bad, Google has been paying out lots of money, so that explains why they took it and can use it to expand.
I love Q but I haven't been attracted to much of their output this entire generation. I skipped Nom Nom Galaxy, Tomorrow Children, don't have Stadia for PJ Raiders and PJ Monsters 2 was a huge disappointment IMO. I haven't tried Eden 2. I liked the first one a lot, but I bever finished it and didn't really need a second one.
On PS3 though, PJ was my go to. Monsters, Shooter 1, 2, Sidescroller, I ate them all up. I miss their simpler games frankly. Perhaps none of them were the commercial hits tgey were hoping for, but I feel like with Switch those games might have a much larger player base now.
I loved monsters, actually playing it again on Wii U right now. Definitely my favorite tower defense. Monsters 2 was good but had some glitches and didn't quite grab the feeling of both relaxation and challenge the first had. I also really liked shooter. I hope the company can get back on track with some fun original games.
PixelJunk Shooter would be perfect for the Switch.
@RudeAnimat0r Monsters 2 was disappointing at first. But they had a major update that fixed a lot of issues I had changing it from an ok to a good game in my opinion. That being said, it was missing many things from the first and though I loved the art style, the loading times were atrocious on the Switch.
I instabought Pixeljunk monsters 2....and regretted it. No full map view? F*ck dat. I played through the first one twice and enjoyed every minute. New management fix this.
I know I shouldn't port beg but man do I want PixelJunk Shooter and Monsters 1 on Switch.
@Cheez Never tried it again post patch. Maybe I'll give it another shot. It just felt off, sluggish. I didn't like the art or the music either.
I haven't played anything from Q-games since Trajectile and X-Scape on DSi. I would personally really like to see them make X-3 or X-Remake. That game was fun, fast, unique and challenging.
@RudeAnimat0r I liked the claymation looking style, but yeah the music was just fine. Not nearly as good as the 1st. The 3D didn't work well because you could only see a part of the map, though, with the update you could at least see entire map all at once. Still not as good as seeing all the map the whole time. I definitely have plenty of complaints, but I still think it was a good game. Though definitely not great like the original.
@Cheez Fair. I will probably give it another shot at some point. I guess with the art it's not that I didn't like it, I actually love claymation. I guess I just I had certain expectations from the original and the sequel's graphics didn't hit the right note for me.
Tap here to load 14 comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...