The game follows the story of Martin “Marty” Hall, an average high school student who has been gifted a powerful ability to channel magic through everyday objects. With his newfound powers Marty has inadvertently attracted the ire of the world’s most heinous villain – the evil Commander Hood. This leads Marty into a series of dangerous plans that he must unravel to save the world (several times!).

Saturday Morning RPG is a Japanese style RPG that allows players to build Marty’s power up throughout multiple stand alone episodes. Players can carry over stats, inventory, and even story decisions between these episodes (sometimes your actions in one episode will ripple into previous or future episodes!). Saturday Morning RPG is a truly unique and engrossing role-playing game experience that can not be missed!

• Lab Rats Studio, a team with no previous experience, who launched their critically-acclaimed iOS title M.U.S.E. in January 2012
• Nix Hydra Studio, another team that started with no game development experience and has since received significant angel funding to develop their first title, Wishing Well
• Mighty Rabbit Studios, whose iOS title Saturday Morning RPG will launch in February 2012
• Wefiends, whose iOS title We Make Movies will launch in March 2012

Joystick Labs is looking for great teams with innovative game ideas, regardless of previous development experience. For each company selected, we provide funding, mentoring, support and introductions to publishers and other influencers in the game development community. The shared experience with other new studios in the 12-week program establishes a creative cauldron that benefits everyone involved.

For those of you who plan on attending the Game Developers Conference next month in San Francisco, Joystick Labs will be participating in the panel “Finance Options for Smaller Games” on Thursday at 2:30 p.m. Development teams participating in GDC Play and Game Connection can sign up on those websites for meetings with Joystick, and other teams can directly contact Joystick Labs for meetings.

Remember, the application process opens March 6 and concludes May 25. Due to the competitive nature of the screening process, applicants are strongly encouraged to apply by the “early decision” deadline of May 1, giving them the benefit of an extended review period.

If you’re interested, click here to get started!

Excerpt from PadGadget (4 of 5 stars):

To buy or not to buy: The RPG-style character enhancements and fast paced action make M.U.S.E. a game that you won’t want to miss.

Excerpt from App-Score (8/10):

M.U.S.E. is a well done shooter that ranks up there with the best. It doesn’t try to copy any old formula but comes up with something new and interesting itself. Even for the current price the game it is well worth it. The controls may take some getting used to, but once you do you will have a solid shooter on your hands.

Excerpt from  apptudes.com (4 of 5 stars):

For fans of Gears of War and Mass Effect, finding a quality 3rd-person shooter on iOS has been a difficult task, outside of the technically impressive but substance-lacking Shadowgun. M.U.S.E., the latest title from Ayopa Games and Lab Rats Studios, may not be as graphically impressive as Shadowgun, but the arcade-style gameplay and fun combo system make for a more well-rounded and fully-featured title.

Excerpt from The App Shack (4 of 5 stars):

These guys have come a long way.

16 months ago they were students in the game development program at Wake Technical Community College.

Truth be told, they originally were not one of the five teams that Joystick Labs selected last year.  Lab Rats were the sixth choice, and (thank goodness!) one of the top five teams decided not to join our program.

10 months ago when I joined Joystick Labs they told me the game was about six weeks from getting done.  This past summer they said they were about six weeks from getting done.  In mid-October they said they were about six weeks from getting done.  Finally, they were right.

And in these last four months  they figured out the difference between done and really done.

Congratulations to Adrian, Alan, Rion, and Shadie and the rest of the Lab Rats team on shipping your first game.  You guys developed your idea and design, built the game, and then did the part that’s more work than  fun.  You  took something that looked and played pretty good and kept grinding and grinding until M.U.S.E became  a really polished, fun game.

You have delivered and set the bar for the current and future Joystick Labs teams.

Thanks to Pierre Roux, who joined Joystick as our Producer last summer and has been instrumental in helping the Lab Rats turn the corner.

Thanks to the mentors who have provided advice and wisdom along the way – not just to Lab Rats Studio but to all of our teams.

Thanks to Lab Rats’ publisher Ayopa for their part in getting M.U.S.E. launched.

Congratulations to Joystick Labs co-founders Glen Caplan and Justyn Kasierski.  Who’d have thunk that two lawyers would come up with the idea for a video game accelerator?

And this is just the beginning – for both Lab Rats and Joystick.  Lab Rats will soon have an update of M.U.S.E. and we look forward to the next episode.  Three other Joystick teams – Mighty Rabbit Studios, wefiends, and Buckle Up Game Studios – will be shipping games in the next three months.

(Josh, Nic, Nick, Kevin, Steph, Kory, Chris – are you paying attention?!?!)

In hindsight it is pretty obvious, and it has led us to doing a few things differently.

If you’re a startup in a tech accelerator, those three months are mostly spent on getting a plan and maybe a prototype done, with the objective of raising a seed round of several hundred thousand dollars.  When you come across a really hard problem, that’s not such a bad thing.  You think up a few possible solutions and write into the business plan that you are best equipped to solve this incredibly hard problem using one of these potential solutions.  You point out that’s one of the reasons that you need to raise the money.  It’s pretty easy to punt the problem down the field (and easy, and safe, and often the right thing to do).

All of our Joystick teams to date have been building mobile games with schedules of 3-15 months.  When they come across a tough problem, they’ve got to solve it – they have to finish their game.

Our next insight follows directly – finishing that last 10% and knocking out that tough problem is a whole lot harder than writing a business plan – specially for relatively inexperienced teams.

Two changes resulted.

Our initial funding and 3 month program is enough to get 1/4 to 3/4 done.  You don’t need a lot more resources to finish – certainly not enough to spend the time required to raise money.  So we took some funds we had intended for new teams and instead put them back into the teams that were getting closest, and in the future that will be part of the plan.  We realized that solving those tough problems required a little more hands-on advice than mentors can provide, and brought in an experienced producer to help find that fund and polish in a game that can make the title stand out.

That brings us to tomorrow.  Lab Rats Studio is the first of our teams to finish a game.   M.U.S.E. will be in the App Store tomorrow.

I’ll save the accolades for tomorrow’s post when I see it live!

These are exciting times for Joystick Labs – our teams are very, very close and experiencing all the joys(?!) of polishing off the last 10%.  Joystick Labs teams will be shipping four titles in the next four months.

We have gone pretty quiet on the blogging front lately – it was nice to have Brian, Dean, and Samir around during the summer to help keep our content up to date (thanks, guys!)  - but here’s the latest.

Lab Rats Studio

M.U.S.E. has made incredible strides in the last couple months and has been picked up by Ayopa Games, a new mobile games publisher.  M.U.S.E. will ship in December on iOS and not too long after that on Android.  They have gotten some great press lately – nice interview in ifanzine.  Check out the trailer.

Mighty Rabbit Studios

Saturday Morning RPG is also getting close to launch, nice preview and trailer on kotaku and touchArcade.

wefiends

wefiends finished up the Joystick Labs program and are now headed back to the Left Coast to finish up We Make Movies – got a nice profile in The Atlantic.  Nick, Kevin, Steph – we’ll miss you – and we are looking forward to seeing WMM ship.

Buckle Up Game Studios

Our newest addition is working on Flipped, a puzzle game for iOS and Android – more to come on these guys soon.

Buckle Up was founded by Kory Sherman and Chris Snyder while studying in the game program at Wake Technical Community College.  As part of Joystick Labs, they will develop “Flipped”, a puzzle game for mobile devices that takes advantage of the accelerometer and physics to create a unique gameplay mechanic.  The game was originally conceived and prototyped as a class project at Wake Tech.

Seven teams have been funded and the first games developed by Joystick teams will ship in Q4 2011.

Joystick Labs next session will begin in Q1 2012 with an application deadline in December, 2011.

The Lab Rats’ journey to nearly completing an iOS shooter begins rather unconventionally — waiting tables in Italian restaurants. Lab Rats Studio founders Alan Rueda, Shadie El-Haddad, Rion Holland and Adrian Schmettau shared two things: a passion for video games and a burning desire to change their line of work.

However, they agreed waiting tables instilled willingness to work and motivation to pursue any opportunities related to their skills. They all possessed a talent for art and creating 3D worlds, so video games were a natural fit.

They became proactive, and the Triangle residents enrolled in the Wake Technical Community College Simulation and Game Development Program. There they created Lab Rats Studio; a name reflective of their work. Like a gym rat that spends hours perfecting their basketball game, the Lab Rats devote their time to perfecting their creative work.

With their work ethic they combined a knowledge of video games. The virtual worlds of Max Payne and Duke Nukem served as major influences on their work, particularly with M.U.S.E. They also saw opportunity with the rise of mobile gaming platforms and the lack of quality mobile shooters. Mobile technology for gaming only improving, they targeted that opportunity by creating console quality shooters for mobile.

With their vision in mind, they said the key was to find opportunities to make their plans real.

Enter us at Joystick Labs. After hearing a presentation at Wake Tech about the Joystick opportunity, they said it was like a light bulb going off for them. They entered an application based on their ideas for Lab Rats and M.U.S.E. Our founders were intrigued by their ideas and the chance to work with them, so they were chosen for the fall 2010 accelerator. They went through the program and decided to stay on at Joystick until their game’s completion.

But the Lab Rats aren’t entirely just about work. It’s known around the lab they enjoy a good prank here and there, and they are quite competitive. Fruit Ninja battles, among other popular games (such as Joystick team wefiends’ Sushi Boy Thunder), are common amongst the Lab Rats.

Their road to Joystick wasn’t straightforward, but their growing team is about to become developers of a finished iOS title. They plan to continue working at the Labs up until the finishing M.U.S.E. and look forward to continuing their future work on mobile platforms.

Here are a few photos of the Lab Rats at Joystick and a promo for M.U.S.E. Keep an eye out for both in the near future!

Four of the studios we have funded – Gale Force Logic, Lab Rats Studios, Mighty Rabbit Studios (who organized the event) and wefiends - were among the 10 studios showing off their games to a crowd of 150.

Congrats to our teams – wefiends’ Sushi Boy Thunder took the top prize, Mighty Rabbits Cylinder finished second, and Lab Rats’ M.U.S.E. finished fourth.

The Escapist and WRAL TechWire both had great coverage – check out the articles.

Wefiends hoists the cup – photo by Greg Tito/The Escapist

Shaddie El-Haddad, co-founder of Lab Rats Studio plays M.U.S.E. – photo courtesy of Kevin Barrios

If you’re interested in learning more about Joystick Labs, have a look.