"Every moment is a new beginning."
– T.S. Eliot
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In This Edition: New Year, New Look!
- Novy Team Update: Wedding bells, college courses, motivational music, and urban wildlife
- Studio Spotlight: Trese Brothers Games
- Social Media Showcase: Kung Fu Jesus (Celestial Gold Studios)
- Featured Franchise: Sydney Hunter (CollectorVision Games)
- Service Spotlight: Production & Testing
- Do-It-Yourself Developer: Guide to Producing Memorable Game Trailers
- Event Recaps: PAX East, E3, and TwitchCon (with Yacht Club Games, FriendTimes, Brace Yourself Games)
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Novy is kicking off 2020 with a new outlook, new features, and even a new logo :)
We're welcoming the arrival of 2020 – talk about a futuristic year! – with a whole host of innovative services, concepts, and cool freebies like a helpful series of PR and marketing tutorials. We look forward to sharing what we've learned helping clients all over the world successfully launch their games with our Do-It-Yourself Developer series.
We're also taking the opportunity to look back at a momentous year for Novy clients – whether they're seasoned studios with a track record or those who followed their dreams and braved the unknown. It was a year that featured themes such as pushing your limits, growing franchises new and old, having fun with other developers, and dancing to whole new beat. From teasing Cyber Shadow and doing PR and marketing for the Shovel Knight franchise to working with Brace Yourself Games at TwitchCon and seeing clients like Trese Brothers Games garner multiple awards, 2019 sure was a wild ride!
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2019 was a productive year for the Novy team. Here are just a few highlights:
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Big news for Aaron Goldman (production manager), who got married in November! Aaron is fluent in Mandarin and has been learning how to write in Simplified Chinese. He's also thrilled to have gotten a brand-new 20 YZF-R1 for Christmas 🏍️
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We're proud of Julie Morley (marketing manager), who has taken the time to go back to school to pursue her marketing degree! Her favorite subjects (in addition to marketing, of course) are statistics and human resources. She'll be graduating early next year. Julie also recently learned how to create and animate pixel art 👾
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A lot has been going on with Steven Kasparek (content manager), who's learning Japanese and re-learning Unreal/C++! His son graduated from high school and his daughter plans to attend college soon to become a music teacher 🎼
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Co-founder Luis Levy has dusted off a few short stories for publication and has brushed up on bird intelligence to improve his relationship with the murder of crows that frequents Novy HQ ... 🦅
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It all started when Jeannie and Luis helped rescue a nest of California Scrub Jay eggs last spring and watched the baby birds grow up and leave the nest while befriending their parents (who have remained in the neighborhood). The urban wildlife scene at Novy headquarters then grew to include squirrels, doves, sparrows – and crows, who will periodically escort a hawk out of the territory before it decides to make a meal out of an avian inhabitant!
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≈ STUDIO SPOTLIGHT: TRESE BROTHERS GAMES ≈
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We're super-proud of Trese Brothers Games, whose Star Traders: Frontiers (Steam, App Store, and Google Play) continues to make waves in the industry. Brothers Andrew and Cory have created an open-world/sandbox style sci-fi RPG that continues to amass incredibly positive, enthusiastic press coverage, an ever-growing fan base – and countless accolades. Here's just a taste:
- Pocket Tactics: Reader's Choice Game of the Year & Best iOS/Android Games of 2019
- WhatToPlay: 10 best iPhone/iPad games (#4) & 10 best Android games (#6) of 2019
- Steam: Popular New Releases (#9) & New & Trending (#4)
- Rock, Paper, Shotgun: Greatest PC Games of the 2010s
- Macworld: 10 best iPhone/iPad games of 2019
- Metacritic: Highest rated iOS game for 2019
- App Store: Game of the Day & Top Paid (#4)
- Metro: Best mobile games of 2019
- 148Apps: Game of the Year 2019
- Google Play: Top Paid (#1)
We're thrilled to be working with the team again on a new project for 2020: Cyber Knights: Flashpoint. Details coming soon!
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≈ SOCIAL MEDIA SHOWCASE: KUNG FU JESUS ≈
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We recently began working with Craig Snape of Celestial Gold Studios – musician and mastermind behind Kung Fu Jesus, which will be released later this year. We're proud to put KFJ in this month's social media spotlight. Here are just a few assets we've created for the campaign:
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≈ FEATURED FRANCHISE: SYDNEY HUNTER ≈
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We've been fans of retro YouTuber Gamester81 (John Lester) for years, so we were pleasantly surprised when he became a client last year – providing PR support for the Sydney Hunter franchise – including Sydney Hunter and the Curse of the Mayan (Steam/PC and Nintendo Switch) and Sydney Hunter and the Caverns of Death (SNES). John Lester's indie postmortem was also featured on the home page of Gamasutra.
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Gear Up for Game On Expo
In addition to running CollectorVision Games, John Lester is also the co-founder of the fastest-growing game expo in Arizona: Game On Expo – which takes place
August 7-9, 2020 at the Phoenix Convention Center.
"Early Bird" tickets are now on sale at ShowClix for the discounted rate of $35.
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≈ SERVICE SPOTLIGHT: PRODUCTION & TESTING ≈
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Did you know that Novy has been providing production and testing services since we got started in 2011? In fact, co-founders Jeannie Novak and Luis Levy wrote a book about it (Game QA & Testing - part of the Game Development Essentials series). Luis cut his teeth as a QA/production tester at Activision and Treyarch – and our production manager, Aaron Goldman, worked as a tester at Blizzard before joining the Novy team in 2014.
Novy provides a number of production and testing services – including:
- Playthrough Reports
- Bug Tracking, Logging & Verification
- Ad-hoc, Production & Compatibility Testing
- Quality Control Checks
- Unity & Unreal Development Support
- In-Game Art, Animation, Audio & UI
- Story & Character Analysis
- Text Edits
- Localization (Spanish, French, Italian, Korean, Japanese, Indonesian, Thai, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Swedish, Norwegian, Dutch, Finnish/Suomi, Tagalog/Filipino, and Chinese [Traditional & Simplified])
Send us a message or book a meeting to find out more!
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≈ DO-IT-YOURSELF DEVELOPER ≈
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So you're nearing launch and now need to start thinking about a trailer. You know the drill: Without video, there's a good chance the press will ignore the game. (Most websites and blogs lead with video, which they can also share on their YouTube channels.) Check out the infographic below for 10 tips for great game trailers – also available as a download from this newsletter :)
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≈ PAX EAST: YACHT CLUB GAMES ≈
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We had a great time working with Yacht Club Games on PR for PAX East – pre-announcing Cyber Shadow and booking meetings for the team, who also showcased Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove at the conference. We continued to work with YCG on social media and community management for several months afterwards. Yes, we've become fans for life!
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In 2018, we ran demos, promotions, and PR at the Wish Interactive booth at E3 – and we got to do it again in 2019 ... this time, under the FriendTimes brand (Yokai Kitchen, WizardLord, and Fate of the Empress). Our cosplayers, Tasu and Axceleration (who played the roles of Sunbird and Cyanbird from Yokai Kitchen), were included in TheGamer's Top 10 Best Cosplay at E3 – along with characters from Assassin's Creed, Fortnite, and Apex Legends! Thanks to everyone from Novy who helped out – including Aaron Goldman (booth lead), Marcos Montanez, Nile Koegel, Tara Taylor, Brennan Fahselt, Ula Beaudoin, Samantha Ko, and photographer Mark Esguerra.
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≈ TWITCHCON: BRACE YOURSELF GAMES ≈
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Aaron Goldman and Marcos Montanez had a blast at TwitchCon last year providing demo support at the Brace Yourself Games booth. BYG showcased Industries of Titan, Phantom Brigade, and Cadence of Hyrule: Crypt of the NecroDancer Featuring The Legend of Zelda.
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Next Stop: PAX East 2020! Stay tuned :)
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Novy Unlimited, Inc. and its divisions (including Novy PR and Novy Music) is a product of co-conspirators Jeannie NOvak and Luis LeVY. Launched in 2011, Novy PR is the first marketing and public relations firm to focus on indie games.
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