Game Companies: Barrel of Donkeys

Company Info: Barrel of Donkeys are Sam Baird and Julian Frost, two friends that have been making games together since they were teenagers in Christchurch, New Zealand. They are now based in Melbourne, Australia, making touchscreen games with novel gameplay and lots of polish. Toybox started out as what seemed like an offhand idea of combining a shooter and match-3 game together. Sam and Julian both love "The World Ends With You" an action-RPG for the DS with split-level gameplay, and the dev-duo have also already produced a Breakout-Pinball hybrid of their own. They appear poised to be the indie remix-masters of gaming mashups. Like the game itself, the development process of Toybox has been a juggling act, with Sam and Julian in Melbourne and London respectively. Their individual passions and ideas have created challenges along the way, but ultimately resulted in a game-making machine that works better than the sum of its parts.