Traveller's Tales
 Logo of Traveller's Tales since 2005 | |
Formerly called |
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|---|---|
| Subsidiary | |
| Industry | Video game industry |
| Founded | 1989 |
| Headquarters | London, England |
Key people |
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| Owner |
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| Parent | TT Games (2005–present) |
| Website |
ttgames |
Travellers Tales (UK) Ltd., doing business as Traveller's Tales, is a British video game developer and a subsidiary of TT Games.
Traveller's Tales was founded in 1989 by Jon Burton. Initially a small company focused on its own content, it grew in profile through developing games with larger companies such as Sega and Disney Interactive Studios. In 1996, the company incorporated under the name Currentclass, but changed its name to Travellers Tales (UK), doing business as Traveller's Tales, two months later. In 2004, development on Lego Star Wars: The Video Game started with publisher Giant Interactive Entertainment, and, the following year Traveller's Tales purchased and merged with Giant Interactive Entertainment, forming TT Games. From that point, Traveller's Tales served as the company's development branch, while Giant Interactive Entertainment became TT Games Publishing, the publishing branch.[1][2] In 2007, the company acquired another developer and an animation studio, which became TT Fusion and TT Animation.[3][4]
On 8 November 2007, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment announced that they had purchased TT Games for an undisclosed amount as part of their expansion into the video game industry.[5]
History
Traveller's Tales started developing games with Psygnosis, which were most notable for creating 3D effects, possibly in order to add minor realism. Their first game was Leander, also known as The Legend of Galahad. With Psygnosis they also did a video game adaption of Bram Stoker's Dracula, as well as other original productions like Puggsy. And thanks to an agreement between Psygnosis, Sony Imagesoft and Disney Interactive Studios, Traveller's Tales could produce several games based on Disney's properties, such as the Mickey Mouse game Mickey Mania: The Timeless Adventures of Mickey Mouse and other games based on Pixar movies like Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2: Buzz Lightyear to the Rescue and Finding Nemo (the latter two thanks to agreements with Activision and THQ).
However, Traveller's Tales was best known in the 1990s for their second-party collaboration with Sega to develop games based on the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, resulting in Sonic 3D Blast and Sonic R, which were produced in close effort with Sega's Sonic Team. Both games were regarded as technical achievements in the Mega Drive (Sonic 3D Blast) and the Sega Saturn (Sonic R), adding to the high-tech development status they already had with games like Puggsy, Mickey Mania and Toy Story.
In recent years, they have achieved recognition based on their work on the hugely successful Lego Star Wars: The Video Game as well as its many follow-ups. Outside of the Lego games, their work includes the popular franchise Crash Bandicoot, The Chronicles of Narnia, Super Monkey Ball Adventure, and World Rally Championship and F1 Grand Prix for the PlayStation Portable.
The company was purchased by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment at the end of 8 November 2007,[6] but continued to operate independently with the development of Lego Batman: The Videogame, which was released in September 2008. Thereafter they continued their work on licensed titles such as Lego Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues, Lego Harry Potter: Years 5–7, Lego The Lord of the Rings, Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes, and Lego Marvel Super Heroes. It was also announced during the Star Wars Celebration VI that a Lego Star Wars IV was in production, though no in-game image or released date were shown.
The company has also produced games based on existing and new Lego properties such as a trilogy of Lego games based on the Chima universe and Lego City Undercover, the first Lego game to be published by Nintendo for Wii U. A Lego game entitled The Lego Movie Videogame was released on 7 February 2014, together with a Lego movie entitled The Lego Movie.
Traveller's Tales has won two BAFTAs, one for Gameplay with Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy, and one for Children's Videogame of the Year for Lego Batman: The Videogame.[7][8] The company was originally located in a small office in Southport, Lancashire, but later moved to larger offices in Knutsford, in Cheshire.
Games developed
References
- ↑ Wallis, Alistair (9 November 2006). "Playing Catch Up: Traveller's Tales' Jon Burton". Gamasutra. UBM TechWeb. Retrieved 12 February 2016.
- ↑ Feddy, Kevin (18 January 2013). "The £100m 'geek'". Manchester Evening News. M.E.N Media. Retrieved 12 February 2016.
- ↑ Boyes, Emma (4 January 2007). "Traveller's Tales acquires Embryonic". GameSpot. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 12 February 2016.
- ↑ Boyer, Brandon (31 May 2007). "TT Games Acquires Motion Capture Studio Centroid". Gamasutra. UBM TechWeb. Retrieved 12 February 2016.
- ↑ Webster, Andrew (4 September 2014). "How Lego is using Doctor Who and The Simpsons to create the next big video game". The Verge. Vox Media. Retrieved 12 February 2016.
- ↑ Martin, Matt (8 November 2007). "Warner Bros. swoops for Traveller's Tales". GamesIndustry.biz. Gamer Network. Retrieved 17 February 2016.
- ↑ "LEGO Batman: The Videogame". gamesindustry.biz. December 1, 2008. Retrieved October 30, 2016.
- ↑ "GRAW grabs BAFTA top award". Eurogamer. Gamer Network. October 6, 2006. Retrieved October 30, 2016.