Loveshack Entertainment have formally announced themselves and their debut game called "Framed" today. The Melbourne-based indie startup was formed in August 2012 by Joshua Boggs, Adrian Moore, and joined by Ollie Browne in March 2013. The three are former senior developers from Melbourne games developer, Firemint/Firemonkeys. They're also an international bunch - originating from Australia, New Zealand, and England.
Boggs and Moore shared the lead development role on Firemint's SPY mouse, and with Browne, they are credited in many of Firemint's games including Sims DJ, Mega Monsters, Rolling with Katamari (Namco Bandai), Flight Control, Flight Control Rocket, and Real Racing 1, 2, and 3. If you look even further back, you can also add The Movies (Lionhead Studios), Populous, Theme Hospital, and Syndicate Wars (Bullfrog) to their combined list of credits.
The co-founders of Loveshack Entertainment credit their time at Firemint for sparking the idea of making it on their own as independent games developers...
(Adrian Moore) Josh and I really clicked when we worked together on SPY mouse. But we were also both finding that whilst we loved working at Firemint, we wanted to stretch our creative muscles outside of a larger company...
With Ollie joining the team, we’re now ready to unleash our love on the world.
Loveshack have been working on their first title, Framed, which is described as an "innovative puzzle game set in a noir comic book world", for the past six months. An early concept video shows off the main idea of it where players can rearrange the order of panels within a storyboard to change the narrative of the story. Framed has received funding from both Screen Australia and Film Victoria and is looking towards a late 2013 release date on tablets and PC.