Partyboat, the brainchild of two young entrepreneurs who started the project from their parents' homes, and managed it into a 90+ person production.Partyboat is... a party on a boat! In what the developers describe as “Love Boat meets Family Guy meets Sim Tower,” the player takes on the persona of The Skipper, a retired womanizer who must sail, manage, design, gamble, hire, fire, and event coordinate his way from a sailboat to a cruise ship. Partyboat is a comedy-bound sandbox simulator, loaded with a crazy cast of characters, retro atmosphere, original gameplay, and of course – casinos, showtunes, and sloppy-drunk passengers. It's presented as a unique blend of 2D animation, 3D renders, and live action. With lots of hilarious dialogue and over 80 minutes of music, the game is a big product in a tiny package; it sells for US $5.
Partyboat is digitally distributed over Xbox Live, the online service used by 17 million gamers worldwide. Specifically, it is found on the Indie Games channel (XBLI), a marketplace where independent, self-financed developers sell professional products to a mainstream audience.
“For its size and scope and genuine laughs, we know Partyboat is a big fish for an indie game,” says Writer & Director Andrew Matlock. “No one's done this on XBLI before – to the extent of the amount of content we’ve crammed in, all supported by an enormous business model. The question is, what kind of reaction can we achieve from a year’s worth of development?”
Partyboat released on December 17, 2009. It’s spelled as one word because it’s its own thing – indescribable by two separate nouns.
Questions for the developers:
- How was Partyboat conceived?
- Of all things, why partying on a boat?
- How did two young guys finance the large budget?
- Why is your studio's name The Industry?
- Why is Waterloo, Ontario attracting video gaming attention?
- What's next for Partyboat