Aeiowu

aeiowu (real name Greg Wohlwend) is an American artist and independent video game developer who collaborated with Jacob Grahn on several Flash games.
==Career==
Wohlwend studied graphic design at Iowa State University and graduated in 2008."ISU grads make a career out of games". Iowa State Daily. April 4, 2010. He has described his aesthetic as "simple and elegant", and has said about his practice that he is not good at character design and prefers to work with vector file formats in Adobe Illustrator so the images can scale at all resolutions."Hundreds' metamorphosis from late night dream to addictive iOS puzzle game". Polygon. January 3, 2013."Solipskier through the Ages". Mikengreg. February 11, 2011. Wohlwend also feels creativity is a skill that is cultivated and not inborn."Interview: Greg Wohlwend and Mike Boxleiter (Intuition Games)". IndieGames.com. September 10, 2009.
He has been influenced by his lifelong experience of playing video games, with his favorite game being Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn."The Collective: About Us". Intuition Games. His writings on the indie developer lifestyle have been noted by journalists."Greg Wohlwend cautions indies: 'Don't quit your day job'". Polygon. June 20, 2013. Wohlwend was named among Forbes' 2014 "30 under 30" in the games industry."30 Under 30: The Brightest Young Stars In Video Games". Forbes. January 6, 2014.
===Intuition and Mikengreg===
Main article: Mikengreg
Wohlwend met Mike Boxleiter in an experimental video game development class at Iowa State University."Mike Boxleiter". Iowa State University. Wohlwend had attempted to help Boxleiter with a project, but quit after drawing a few aliens. They met again as coworkers at the university's Virtual Reality Application Center during Boxleiter's final year. 
Upon discovering their close interests, they began to work on a Flash game named Dinowaurs while they were finishing college. To make money while developing it, they founded Intuition Games at the university's Research Park around May 2007 with two other classmates."Industry Entry: Flash Games". IGN. November 13, 2007. Boxleiter and Wohlwend decided to stay in Ames, Iowa due to its financial feasibility and local connections, while the other team members lived farther away. They saw Flash games as an easy entry point into full-time self-employment, but planned to eventually work on console platforms such as WiiWare.
In their development process, Boxleiter and Wohlwend proposed and worked on each other's ideas, and would drop ones they found unexciting. Wohlwend said they often argued over aspects of their games, which he found normal and natural. Their labor was divided in that Wohlwend always did the art and Boxleiter the programming, as reflective of their skills at the time. The pair agreed to an assessment of their partnership as "left-brain right-brain", and saw the majority of their joint work as "editing". 
Aside from the business aspects, they were grateful to have the "creative freedom" to do their own ideas. Wohlwend appreciated the benefits of not doing contract work, but struggled with the relative "isolation" of having few colleagues, a low salary and job instability. He disagreed with the "cinematic action games" he saw as popular at the time and hoped to contribute more compelling ideas to the gaming industry. Boxleiter and Wohlwend worked long hours when making Flash games, which they found exciting but unsustainable."On Success, Expectations, And Brilliance: How 'Solipskier' Is Informing The Direction Of Mikengreg's Next Game". TouchArcade. March 23, 2012. At Intuition, they made titles such as Dinowaurs, Gray, Fig. 8, and Lifecraft and participated in at least six game jams. By April 2010 they had created 10 games together.
Intuition's first game, Dinowaurs, is a Flash strategy and action game where two players compete as dinosaurs to seize the most cavemen settlements so they can upgrade their capacity and eventually kill the other player. It features online matchmaking."Freeware Game Pick: Dinowaurs (Intuition Games)". IndieGames.com. February 24, 2009. The concept came from one of Boxleiter's unfinished projects and another Intuition member's drawing of a stegosaurus with a jet pack. The team was funded by the then-new Kongregate in 2007 as one of the first five games for their platform."News Flash: Free Web Games Are Growing Up". IGN. November 13, 2007. It was released two years later in 2009. IndieGames.com reported mixed reviews from players.
Their later games would only take a few months each in comparison. They abandoned the use of design documents after Dinowaurs, and instead chose to refine and experiment in process. 
Intuition released Gray around April 2009, in which players control a single character and try to end a riot by influencing other individuals in the crowd."Trailer: Gray (Intuition Games)". IndieGames.com. April 18, 2009. The game was featured at IndieCade in 2009. 
In the case of Fig. 8., Wohlwend thought of the idea based on a college art project. He followed a bike trail in the snow and metaphorically related it to the tribulations of a romantic relationship. He then made an art installation involving a bike spray-painted black with two errant red and blue tracks painted on the floor. The concept went unused on their whiteboard for 4 months until they needed an idea, whereupon Boxleiter added game mechanics to the visuals. 
In their next game, Liferaft, the player is a young woman set to escape "a post-apocalyptic sci-fi ... test chamber", with core gameplay that revolves around a "Bionic Commando-style grappling hook"."Fig. 8 Devs Look To Kickstarter Funding For Episodic Platformer". GameSetWatch. September 7, 2009. Wohlwend used a 16-bit era graphics style. They sought crowdfunding from Kickstarter, but later canceled and put the project on hiatus in October 2009."Is Hiatus the Correct Word Here?". Intuition Games. October 19, 2009.
Under the moniker Mikengreg, Boxleiter and Wohlwend's 4fourths was selected for Kokoromi's Gamma IV showcase in March 2010. Based on the showcase's "one button game" theme, 4 players control two spaceships using one button each to cooperatively destroy enemy ships."In-Depth: Gamma IV Winners at GDC". IndieGames.com. March 12, 2010. It was Michael Rose of IndieGame.com's favorite game of the selections, and it was later displayed at the 2010 Game Developers Conference along with Brandon Boyer's 2011 Wild Rumpus event."Gamma IV Games Announced, Playable at GDC 2010". IndieGames.com. March 8, 2010."The Wild Rumpus Announced". GameSetWatch. August 1, 2011.
Mikengreg announced Liferaft: Zero and Solipskier in November 2010. The former is a "prequel teaser" to Liferaft, which they made as a shorter version to limit the scope creep of the overall project."Hibernation Complete. Now for a Big Stretch and an Update". Mikengreg. August 10, 2010."Browser Game Pick: Liferaft: Zero (Mikengreg)". IndieGames.com. August 19, 2010. IndieGames.com named it their third best browser platformer of the year."Feature: Top Browser Platformers 2010". IndieGames.com. January 10, 2011. Their other game, 4fourths, was put on hiatus for lack of resources while their interest in moving outside the Flash market grew.
===Solipskier===
Main article: Solipskier
Their first game as Mikengreg was the sport-inspired Solipskier, where the player's finger draws the ground for the on-screen skier to pass through a level filled with gates, tunnels and walls."Going broke with success: how an app with 200,000 downloads led to developer homelessness". The Penny Arcade Report. August 15, 2012."Solipskier Review". IGN. September 24, 2010.
It was designed as a Flash game, which set the limitations for its mechanics. The concept came from a brainstorming session about parallax scrolling, and was revised in fits of creativity. They paired the parallax scrolling with speed and began to prototype. Wohlwend saved the skier's character design for last since he felt it was his weakest area. Mikengreg then decided to develop a version for iOS in addition to Flash, which were released simultaneously in August 2010. 
Solipskier became their first game to receive public recognition. The iOS version made around $70,000 in its first two months compared to $15,000 from the Flash release, which gave them enough stability to branch out into non-Flash platforms.
===Gasketball===
Main article: Gasketball
Riding the earnings from Solipskier, Mikengreg continued paying themselves their same salary but now had the means to try new ideas. Wohlwend estimated they discarded about six "fairly polished prototypes" over the development of their next game, Gasketball. 
They were able to live on $20–25,000 a year each in Iowa for the next two years while working on the new game. Wohlwend made somewhat more income due to other collaborations, such as Puzzlejuice with Asher Vollmer, but shared his revenue with Boxleiter. Even though Solipskier was successful, the duo did not have a following comparable to indie developers like Team Meat and thus felt their external pressure was low. Instead, their pressure was internal. Wohlwend said he worked 100-hour weeks with no weekends or vacations while living off of the Solipskier funds.
In making Gasketball, Boxleiter and Wohlwend felt their game quality had improved continually, but found the idea of a million-person audience "daunting". Wohlwend questioned whether he could even recreate Solipskier's success. When they ran out of money, Boxleiter borrowed from his parents, and eventually they both went homeless, living off the couches of friends.
Gasketball was released for iPad in August 2012."Gasketball Critic Reviews for iPhone/iPad". Metacritic. They decided to publish it as a free-to-play game, with a free base experience and in-app purchases for extended content. Not as many players paid for the content as expected. This was due, in part, to difficulty finding the purchase function."So, This is What You Get If You Buy That 'Gasketball' IAP". TouchArcade. August 15, 2012. The game was downloaded 200,000 times in its launch week and was briefly ranked near the top of an iTunes top downloads ranking, though it did not break the top 200 grossing chart.
===Puzzlejuice===
Main article: Puzzlejuice
Wohlwend began to collaborate with Asher Vollmer when Vollmer reached out to him for aesthetic advice on a game he was designing, Puzzlejuice."365 PUZZLEJUICE EMAILS [PT.1".] aeiowu. February 9, 2012. 
The game has been described as a cross between Boggle, Tetris, and tile-matching, where tetromino blocks fall from the top of the screen that players turn into letters and rearrange into words."Puzzlejuice review". Edge. January 25, 2012. Wohlwend and Vollmer communicated nonverbally through the entire development process via a 365-message email chain. Vollmer served as the game's programmer, Wohlwend as the artist, and Jimmy Hinson as the composer."Mobile puzzle game Threes is a design marvel worth your time". CNET. February 6, 2014. 
Puzzlejuice was selected for the PAX 10, a spotlighted group of indie games, in July 2012."This year's PAX 10: JS Joust, Offspring Fling!, Puzzlejuice and more". Joystiq. July 13, 2012. It was released as a universal app for iPhone and iPad in January 2012."'Puzzlejuice' Review – A Mashup of Tetris, Match-3 and Boggle". TouchArcade. January 20, 2012."Puzzlejuice summoned to App Store tomorrow". Joystiq. January 18, 2012.
===Hundreds===
Main article: Hundreds
Upon finishing his role as artist on Solipskier, Wohlwend wanted to experiment with programming by designing his own game, receiving some assistance with the physics. 
He developed Hundreds from an idea he had while staring at a ceiling, where he imagined a circle growing without overlapping another one. He found this to be a good core game concept and based it around "patience and persistence". 
Its style inadvertently borrowed from his first year in art school, where Wohlwend composed in black, white and red so as to focus on composition rather than color."Betting on style with Saltsman and Wohlwend's Hundreds". Gamasutra. January 4, 2013. While his design style is "simple and elegant", the game's minimalism was also functional due to his inexperience with programming. 
The code was "brute forced" and written in a single file. He finished Hundreds as a Flash game in 2010, but when sites were not interested in purchasing it, Wohlwend chose to open source the code (partly with the intent to spur "non-coders" to try coding, as he had)."From Flash to Touch: How Hundreds Came to the iPad". Paste. January 22, 2013. This version is available online at Newgrounds.
At a lull in-between projects, programmer Eric Johnson of Semi Secret Software found the code and ported the game to iPad in a weekend before notifying Wohlwend. At the time, Wohlwend did not have an iOS device to test the port, and had to purchase one. Johnson's version spurred him to consider how Hundreds would work with multitouch and cooperative play, and Semi Secret's Adam Saltsman to consider a Hundreds collaborative iOS release. The project was intended to be a quick level expansion, but swiftly surpassed its several month estimate. 
Wohlwend and Saltsman extended the game's mechanics with new circles and puzzles, and many of their implemented ideas were later removed. Wohlwend was happy with the final result and credited its "emergent interaction" qualities to Saltsman. They built on each other's level designs, though Wohlwend admitted Saltsman made "basically all the levels". The new team enjoyed working with each other and the game was released in January 2013 for iOS and Android later that year."Semi Secret Software's Hundreds comes to Android". Polygon. June 28, 2013.
In Hundreds, players touch circles to make them grow without overlapping."Hundreds - An Experience Custom Made For Mobile". Game Informer. January 8, 2013. There are 100 puzzles that increase in complexity."'Hundreds' Review – Counting On Only the Best". TouchArcade. January 7, 2013. The Flash version was much simpler in design, and added circles onscreen as the game progressed."Hands-on with Hundreds, the addictive new iOS game from Canabalt's creators". Polygon. October 7, 2012. The iOS version added a new gameplay mode and a narrative element based on ciphers and codes, which derived from email conversations between Wohlwend and Saltsman about a "really obtuse and weird" subgame that functioned as a story. Wohlwend credited Saltsman with the idea of a Brave New World-style fiction within the game that used ciphers, though the concept was also influenced by a similar plot element in Dash Shaw's Bottomless Belly Button. They hoped the game's presentation conveyed "honest and confident rather than overly mysterious and weird". 
It was nominated for several Independent Games Festival awards and The Atlantic wrote the game functioned like a design object, a feat unique for the medium."Here are your winners of the 2012 Independent Games Festival". Polygon. March 7, 2012."2013 Independent Games Festival announces Main Competition finalists". Gamasutra. January 7, 2013."'Hundreds' Is the Haute Couture of Video Games". The Atlantic. January 29, 2013.
===Ridiculous Fishing===
Main article: Ridiculous Fishing
Wohlwend produced the art for Vlambeer's Ridiculous Fishing."Cloned at Birth: The Story of Ridiculous Fishing". Polygon. April 24, 2013. The four-person team—Vlambeer designer Jan Willem Nijman and marketer Rami Ismail alongside iOS developer Zach Gage—was described by game journalists as an "indie supergroup" and a "dream team"."Ridiculous Fishing review". Edge. March 14, 2013."Ridiculous Fishing review". Eurogamer. March 14, 2013."'Ridiculous Fishing' Review – Ridiculous Fishing? More Like Ridiculous Amounts of Fun". TouchArcade. March 13, 2013.
In Ridiculous Fishing, the player uses motion and touch controls to catch fish and consequently shoot them out of the sky for cash."Ridiculous Fishing Review". IGN. March 14, 2013. The game is known for its developers' battle against a cloned version released by another company. The team worked separately and sporadically with little progress from feeling disheartened by their cloned game predicament, until an August 2012 road trip home across the United States from Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle to New York City convinced them to set a deadline."Ridiculous Fishing: The Game that Nearly Ended Vlambeer". Gamasutra. March 8, 2013. They scrapped "90 percent" of their work, and Wohlwend moved to New York City to live with Gage and work 14-hour days during the final weeks.
The last parts of Ridiculous Fishing assembled smoothly and it was released in 2013 for iOS and Android."'Ridiculous Fishing' debuts on Android as part of latest Humble Bundle". The Verge. November 19, 2013. It was well received at launch with "near-universal perfect scores", winning a 2013 Apple Design Award and Apple's iPhone game of the year."Ridiculous Fishing, Letterpress and more take home Apple Design Awards". Polygon. June 12, 2013."Apple names Ridiculous Fishing, Badland its 2013 games of the year". Polygon. December 17, 2013. While IGN's Justin Davis thought the game's levels could have been more differentiated in theme and art style, he found the "almost cubist design ... absolutely gorgeous". Welsh of Eurogamer agreed that Wohlwend's art was "achingly cool" and reflected a "retro and minimalist" indie gaming trend without overpowering the gameplay.
===Threes!===
Main article: Threes!
Wohlwend, Vollmer, and Hinson of Puzzlejuice collaborated again on Threes!, a game where players slide numbered tiles on a four-by-four grid to combine addends and multiples of three."Threes! Review". Gamezebo. February 10, 2014."Why it took a year to make, and then break down, an amazing puzzle game". Polygon. February 6, 2014."By the numbers: 'Threes' is your new iPhone addiction". The Verge. February 6, 2014.
Its development began before Ridiculous Fishing's 2013 release."Addictive iOS puzzling comes in 'Threes'". Joystiq. January 30, 2014. Vollmer presented an idea similar to the final product in its simplicity: pair tiles as multiples of three. The first prototype was written in a single night. Vollmer and Wohlwend spent at least half a year of the 14-month development iterating on this main idea."Hit iOS Puzzle Game Threes Almost Had Monsters and Sushi". Re/code. February 21, 2014.
Early Threes designs had no inclination towards minimalism: the pair felt that it needed to appear more complex so as to interest players. Wohlwend sent Vollmer designs with themes such as sushi, chess, broccoli and cheese soup, and hydrogen atoms, which confused their test audiences."How a Game About Broccoli and Cheese Soup Turned into Threes!". Gamezebo. March 12, 2014. They received a "wake-up call" from fellow game designer Zach Gage, who encouraged them to step back from their foray into complexity. The final game returned to its original theme of numbers. Speaking in retrospect, Wohlwend said the game "always wanted to be simple". He noted that players "think math" upon seeing the game's numbers, though the game is more about "spatial relationships" and just happens to have a "number theme".
When returning to the fundamental and original concept—pairing tiles as multiples of three—the developers felt their experiments informed their final development decisions. The theme of individual tile personalities extended to the completed version, as tiles have faces and express emotions when paired. For example, the 384 tile has a pirate personality with a large tooth and eyepatch. Of the development process, Wohlwend called it "tough and frustrating and sometimes hard to see if it was worth it". 
It was released for iOS in February 2014 and later ported to Android and Xbox One."Threes! Overview". Polygon."Live from Microsoft's E3 2014 press briefing". Polygon. June 9, 2014. The game received what review score aggregator Metacritic described as "universal acclaim"."Threes! Critic Reviews for iPhone/iPad". Metacritic. Eurogamer and TouchArcade awarded it perfect scores, with the latter calling Threes "about as close as it gets to a perfect mobile game"."Threes! review". Eurogamer. March 5, 2014."'Threes!' Review - Checking the Boxes of a Perfect Mobile Game". TouchArcade. February 6, 2014. Re/code reported that it "dominated" the chart in the following weeks and became one of the 25 highest grossing apps on the App Store. It later won a 2014 Apple Design Award."Threes!, Monument Valley and more games win Apple Design Awards". Polygon. June 3, 2014.
===TouchTone===
Main article: TouchTone
After Gasketball's 2012 release, Boxleiter and Wohlwend planned a celebratory road trip to a game jam in Victoria, British Columbia. The game did not fare as expected, so Boxleiter used the two-day jam to create the core mirror reflection mechanics of what became TouchTone, though it would take two years of sporadic work to finalize the remainder of the game."'TouchTone' Developers Mikengreg on How a 48-Hour Game Jam Game Took Two Years to Become a Politically-Charged Puzzler". TouchArcade. March 24, 2015. 
In TouchTone, the player monitors phone calls as part of a government surveillance program to find public threats. The story is told through a series of reflection puzzles wherein the player swipes the screen to reflect a beam around a room to its intended destination."'TouchTone' Review - Tricky Puzzles, Touchy Tone". TouchArcade. March 18, 2015.
Mikengreg felt that their first theme of light, prisms, and audio signal too closely mimicked "a hacking minigame from a bigger AAA game like BioShock or System Shock", but eventually paired the concept with a satirical Edward Snowden theme following the 2013 global surveillance disclosures. 
Their original efforts were jocular, but their concept became more serious as the story and "political message" grew deeper. Boxleiter wrote most of the script, and together with Wohlwend, would conference after each chapter for coherency. Mikengreg decided against including an option to skip puzzles, which they felt spoiled the game and the player's capacity to adapt to increasing difficulty. They called this philosophy the "Derek Yu (of Spelunky) school of game design"."The $3 game that wants to create a totalitarian surveillance state with puzzles". Polygon. March 20, 2015. 
TouchTone was released in March 2015 for iOS."TouchTone is a game about future technology, big brother, and the power of the individual in society". Pocket Gamer. March 18, 2015. Review aggregator Metacritic characterized its reviews as generally favorable."TouchTone Critic Reviews for iPhone/iPad". Metacritic.
===TumbleSeed===
Main article: TumbleSeed
Wohlwend's friend Benedict Fritz developed a prototype of a mechanical arcade game from a bar that they frequented in Chicago. When Wohlwend saw a video of Ice Cold Beer online, they began work on an open world, dungeon crawl version of the game, which became TumbleSeed. 
They also worked through a Cards Against Humanity game incubation program in 2015, and several other indie developers based in Chicago joined the production."From Cards Against Humanity, a game incubator emerges". Chicago Tribune. July 3, 2015."Interview: Greg Wohlwend on TumbleSeed and What Makes Nintendo Switch Special". Nintendo Life. February 14, 2017. Based on the project's loose, collaboratory nature, Metro called the game's pedigree "as indie as indie gaming gets"."TumbleSeed review from little acorns". Metro. May 5, 2017.
With the announcement of the Nintendo Switch, the development team sought to become a "flagship" demonstration of the console's HD Rumble feature, in which the player proprioceptively "feels" in-game textures through the controller's fine-tuned vibrations."Meet the minds behind Nintendo Switch's HD Rumble tech". TechRadar. February 7, 2017. They cold-called Nintendo and began work together in June 2016 prior to the Switch's announcement."How indie game 'TumbleSeed' made it to the Nintendo Switch". Engadget. February 7, 2017. 
TumbleSeed was released in May 2017, on Nintendo Switch, macOS, PlayStation 4, and Windows platforms."Nintendo Switch gets rolly roguelike TumbleSeed in May". Polygon. April 14, 2017. The developers credited the game's tepid critical reception and associated stigma of intense difficulty for its slow sales. While Wohlwend hoped a post-release patch would resolve some of these issues, he did not expect the game to recoup its costs, though the team was proud of their product."TumbleSeed may never recoup its costs, team says". Polygon. June 23, 2017. (See also Wohlwend's postmortem of the development process)
==Jiggmin Collaborations==
In January 2009, Wohlwend teamed up with Jacob Grahn and created a self-imposed challenge to develop a Flash game for every day of the month, with Wohlwend working on art while Grahn programmed them."An Interview with Jiggmin". Casual Game Informer. April 15, 2009."Jiggmin/aeiowu flash game collaboration 2009!". Intuition Games. January 5, 2009. The two quickly abandoned the idea due to its infeasibility, though they were able to produce several games by the month's end, including The Great Red Herring Chase, Effing Hail, Inkclipse and A Murder in Crowland​​​."More from the collaboration front lines with Jiggmin/aeiowu". Intuition Games. January 8, 2009."Inkclipse - jiggmin/aeiowu collaboration". Intuition Games. January 13, 2009."Crow game (working title) - jiggmin/aeiowu collab". Intuition Games. January 16, 2009."ZigZagZak - jiggmin/aeiowu collab (the final frontier)". Intuition Games. January 22, 2009. Only The Great Red Herring Chase and Effing Hail were ever released however, as the others could not find sponsors."The Great Red Herring Chase is finally released!". Intuition Games. July 10, 2009. Another game titled ZigZagZak was cancelled mid-way through development.
The pair later reunited in 2010 to develop Effing Hail's sequel, Effing Meteors."Effing Meteors". Jiggmin. May 25, 2010."aeiowu on Twitter: Jiggmin is here. He showed me this to after we played 4fourths: ". May 19, 2010. As Grahn was occupied with Platform Racing 3 at the time, development was spread out over the year before finishing that December."aeiowu on Twitter: @PetriPurho haha, yea... That's nearly done but it's in limbo. You'll have to talk to Jiggmin (jiggmin.com) about that one. :)". August 12, 2010."aeiowu on Twitter: Just put a new collab game with Jiggmin up on FGL. Wonder what it could be called? Hint: It's slang for "fucking."". October 28, 2010. It was revealed by Wohlwend in 2015 that they worked on a third game in the series at some point for 8 months, but it was ultimately cancelled after they couldn't come up with a fresh and interesting concept.https://twitter.com/AdhesiveMadMan/status/658789706075918336
Wohlwend was one of the handful of developers Grahn collaborated with, and Grahn also blogged about several of Wohlwend's games."Grey". Jiggmin. May 1, 2009."Jiggmin on Facebook: A friend of mine worked on this game: http://playhundreds.com/". January 8, 2013.forums.freegoo.se/t/2048-is-open-source (lost post)
==References==
Category:People