Description

Bit By Bit Studios is a duo of former AAA developers who believe games without IAP, ads, or psychological gimmicks are what players really want and deserve.

History

Founding

Sean Sanders founded Bit By Bit Studios (BXB) in June 2012 after his employer, Buzz Monkey Software, was acquired by Zynga. Sean left the company and quickly released BXB's first product, a developer tool on the Unity Asset Store. Revenue from that product helped finance development of BXB's first game, Fiz.

Fiz: The Brewery Management Game

In July 2012, Sean began solo work on BXB's first game, Fiz: The Brewery Management Game. Fiz was envisioned as Lemonade Stand from the Apple II era, except with beer instead of lemonade, and targeted for release on iOS and Android mobile devices. In Fiz, the player makes and markets their own beer in order to grow a simple homebrewing operation into an international beer sensation.

In December of 2012, former co-worker Kelly O'Donnell joined the team as Lead Artist. The pair launched a Kickstarter campaign in February 2013 in order to raise funding to complete the game, which successfully funded in March 2013. The game was released in December 2013.

Since its release, Fiz has maintained an average 4.5/5 rating, sold over 150,000 copies, and has featured in subscription gaming services like Google Play Pass and Amazon Underground.

Thirsty Heroes

After a year of maintaining Fiz and prototyping various ideas, work began on BXB's next release in November 2014. Thirsty Heroes was designed to answer the question "What would a management sim such as Fiz look like if it were crossed with a game like Diablo?"

Players take the role of Quartermaster in service of an inept King. The Quartermaster's job is to keep treasure flowing into the royal vault by hiring heroes to fight their way through dungeons. From behind the bar of the tavern, players enlist the Royal Seer to determine dungeon specifics, then hire bar patrons strategically suited to crawl the dungeon. Fees are negotiated and the player then controls the hero as they make their way through the procedurally-generated dungeon, collecting loot on the way. Players use spoils gained to satisfy the King's demands as well as upgrade their heroes and kingdom.

Like Fiz, Thirsty Heroes features a light-hearted but engaging story featuring a villain as a foil.

Prior to Bit By Bit

Sean graduated from the University of Kansas with a BS in Computer Science in 2008. He previously worked at Buzz Monkey Software as a software engineer on 6 shipped titles on 5 different platforms, including major franchises such as Tony Hawk and Tomb Raider.

Kelly completed her BA in Fine Arts from Austin College in 2004, then went on to complete a certificate from Art Institute of Dallas in 2006. Kelly has contributed to shipped projects on nearly every platform ranging from Nintendo DS to Next Gen Consoles during her 15 year career.

Projects

• Fiz: The Brewery Management Game
• Thirsty Heroes