Jiggmin

Jiggmin (real name Jacob Grahn) is an American independent video game developer who is most well known for creating the Platform Racing series.
==Career==
===Web Design===
Grahn's first experience with programming was through a Java class in high school."Ask a coder". Jiggmin's Village. November 12, 2012. This sparked his interest in the field and he began working as a freelance web designer in October 2004 during his senior year, opening jacobgrahn.com the following February to serve as a portfolio for potential employers."U Serious?". Brackenwood. January 7, 2005."Finished.". Brackenwood. March 21, 2005."my portfolio" - jacobgrahn.com (April 2005 archive)
Grahn's designs were created with Adobe Flash rather than usual web-based languages, and ranged from basic headers to entire websites."A Portfolio Website". Brackenwood. May 3, 2005. He received offers from several companies over the year, including cdatasolutions, Fiber Patrol, Net Noose and Appol Contracting."Center Panel" - jacobgrahn.com"Fiber Patrol" - jacobgrahn.com"Net Noose" - jacobgrahn.com"Jobs". Brackenwood. August 1, 2005.
===Video Game Development===
====Early Years (2005-2006)====
After learning of a Lord of the Rings competition on Games of Gondor (now called Armor Games), Grahn developed his first game Red Earth in March 2005 as a side project and submitted it."Game". Brackenwood. March 13, 2005.
Ultimately finishing in the top 15, its unexpected success prompted Grahn to develop a sequel and enter it in the same contest the following month."Gondor Gaming Challenge" - Games of Gondor (May 25, 2005 archive)"Local game designer wins award". News and Tribune. April 4, 2009."Red Earth Ii". Brackenwood. April 28, 2005.
The Red Earth series impressed Armor Games, leading the site to offer Grahn funding for a larger, more expansive project."Red Earth Ii, post #8". Brackenwood. May 1, 2005. He settled on an action RPG called Kimblis the Blue, which he worked on for the next several months. The game quickly became a success upon release, peaking at being among the top 3,000 most played games on the popular website Newgrounds."Kimblis the Blue" - Newgrounds (July 16, 2006 archive)
Grahn increasingly devoted more of his time towards game development after Kimblis, completing several within the next few months; including the popular Uber Breakout series and Cooties. 
He became briefly employed at the sports gaming site Mousebreaker in March 2006, where he produced Mines and Uber Pool."MINES". Brackenwood. March 1, 2006. Recognizing his dwindling interest in web design, Grahn moved to a new website in April 2006 dedicated solely to his games, naming it mrjiggmin.com after his online alias."Apr 13". Jiggmin. 2006.
He afterwards began work on Destroyers of Planets, which was intended to be a more traditional RPG in comparison to Kimblis."Stuff. Lots of it.". Jiggmin. November 11, 2006."Destroyers of Planets preview" - mrjiggmin.com It was in development for most of the year before ultimately being quietly shelved for unknown reasons. Grahn did however make The Game of Disorientation during a week-long break in September, which was met with acclaim and became his most successful project at the time.
He also completed Rolley-Ball before the end of the year, which tied for 3rd place in a Mousebreaker competition."Rolley-ball". Jiggmin. December 12, 2006.
====Platform Racing (2007-2008)====
2007 marked Grahn's expansion to online multiplayer games with the release of Click Upon Dots, Kongregate Racing, Platform Racing and Volly-Bounce. Most were met with moderate success, while Platform Racing proved popular enough for Grahn to consider a sequel. 
He also developed Beat Master 3000 and Orbit in February, the latter of which was made in a single day as a personal challenge."An Interview with Jiggmin". Casual Game Informer. April 15, 2009. Work then began on Uber Space Shooter that July, which eventually saw a November release following multiple delays.
After Musical Evenizer was finished 3 weeks later, Grahn focused his efforts on Platform Racing 2 for the next half year. A playable beta was published on his website the following February before the full game was released 3 months afterwards."Jiggmin.com" (February 20, 2008 archive) The game quickly rose in popularity, receiving nearly 10,000 plays on Kongregate within the first 24 hours of release."Platform Racing 2 on Kongregate" (May 3, 2008 archive) It eventually became their most played game in December 2009, a title it held until 2012 when Tyrant surpassed it."Kongregate: Most Played Games" (December 9, 2009 archive)"Kongregate: Most Played Games" (March 21, 2012 archive) Platform Racing 2 went on to win the "People's Choice" award at Mochi Media's 2009 Flash Gaming Summit along with being runner-up for "Best Multiplayer Game"."The Flash Gaming Summit Re-Cap and Round-Up!". MochiLand. March 23, 2009."The Mochis Award Finalists:". Flashgamingsummit.com (March 8, 2009 archive).
Grahn's next project began development in August 2008 as a story-driven adventure game named Neverending Light. He had first thought of its concept a year earlier and it was the first of his games to feature mature themes."Aug 21 - long forgotten". Jiggmin. August 21, 2008. Grahn chose unusually to use professional voice actors, such as Lani Minella, a rarity for Flash games. Originally called Neverending Night, he changed the name during development based on a fan's suggestion."Sept 22 - Never Ending... Light?". Jiggmin. September 22, 2008. The game was completed the following February. While not as successful as PR2, Neverending Light received acclaim for its plot and production values, being selected as making Flash Portal History by Newgrounds' staff."Newgrounds Wiki: Flash Portal History 2009"
====Collaborations (2009-2010)====
Grahn met with fellow indie developer Greg Wohlwend from Intuition Games in December 2008, where they challenged themselves to develop one game a day for a month."Jiggmin/aeiowu flash game collaboration 2009!". Intuition Games. January 5, 2009. Grahn worked on programming while Wohlwend drew the graphics. This plan soon proved infeasible and was quickly dropped in favor of a more operable schedule.
The pair ended up making several small games by the end of January, including The Great Red Herring Chase, Effing Hail, Inkclipse, A Murder in Crowland and ZigZagZak."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 Effing Hail and The Great Red Herring Chase were ever released, however, as the remainder couldn't find sponsors."The Great Red Herring Chase is finally released!". Intuition Games. July 10, 2009.
Meanwhile, Grahn began work on programming an open source server for online multiplayer games. Released in May 2009 under the name Blossom Server, he wanted to help other Flash developers enter the market by making the process far easier."Blossom Server". Jiggmin. May 22, 2009. Krin (most well-known for the Sonny series) notably used it for the multiplayer mode in his acclaimed strategy game Colony. Grahn even provided assistance by customizing the server specifically for the game to maximize performance."Colony: New Strategy Game". Armor Games. July 23, 2009."June". Jiggmin. July 1, 2009.
Blossom was also used as the server for Platform Racing 3, which had begun development in October 2008."Oct 27 – pr3". Jiggmin. 2008. Grahn spent much of the remainder of the year working on the game behind the scenes in silence. This was a contrast compared to his previous projects where he typically posted relatively frequent updates for them. He later noted this, saying to quell rumors: "I have been working on [PR3] all this time despite my silence. There is a reason I don't talk about it very much or ever divulge any details.""vBulletin 4". Jiggmin. March 5, 2010. He briefly took a break in November to make Competitive Line Waiting alone for an endurance themed Kongregate contest."Competitive Line Waiting". Jiggmin. November 20, 2009.
Later in March 2010, inXile Entertainment announced they had been collaborating with Grahn on PR3."inXile's Sparkworkz™ announces the next installment in the hit Flash series Platform Racing™!". inXile Entertainment. March 22, 2010. The company had tasked their Sparkworkz web-division (known for Line Rider and other indie games) with designing the graphics and bringing the installment to mobile platforms. Grahn confirmed the news the next day on his blog and a beta was made public that summer exclusively on Sparkworkz to positive reception."hmmmm". Jiggmin. March 23, 2010. Although it received major updates throughout the year, a full release never occurred due to inXile experiencing extensive layoffs in 2011 that shrunk the company to a skeleton crew, preventing Grahn from publishing further updates."Un*varnished: Episode 3 with Gavin Rich". Cura Studios. July 5, 2018.
While PR3's beta was nearing release, Grahn reunited with Wohlwend to create a sequel to Effing Hail known as Effing Meteors, which was announced in May 2010."Effing Meteors". Jiggmin. May 25, 2010. Development was spread throughout the year due to his obligations with PR3, and the game was released on Christmas Eve to acclaim, ultimately surpassing the original in popularity.
Effing Meteors went on to become the final single-player game Grahn created and collaboration he took part in.
====War of the Web and Semi-Retirement====
Following a redesign of his website in January 2011, Grahn announced his next project War of the Web would serve as a spiritual successor to Conquest; a former real-time strategy game on his forum."Announcing things". Jiggmin. January 21, 2011.
 
It was placed on hiatus a couple months later in favor of updating PR2 and PR3. He also released Creation that summer, a smaller-scale game intended to simply replace his forum's default chat."Creation". Jiggmin. June 18, 2011. Creation turned into its own game over time and was published on other websites in 2012.
Development on War of the Web resumed that autumn, with Grahn hosting livestreams throughout the next few months showing the game's progress. An alpha was released on New Year's Eve to allow fans to test it before it came to other sites in March 2012."War of the Web alpha released". Jiggmin. January 1, 2012.
By the end of 2011, Grahn's forum on his website had nearly ten thousand members."Jiggmin's Village" (December 2011 archive) He described his community's growing size as "awesome and also tiring at the same time", as he found he had less time to develop games as a result of managing it."That Jiggmin Guy – Interview". CasualGamr. December 22, 2011.
Grahn revealed shortly after its release that War of the Web would be his last game developed in Flash, citing the format's declining popularity and Adobe terminating development for mobile devices."Announcing: Luna". Jiggmin. March 31, 2012. Instead his next project Luna would be made in JavaScript to test the format for a potential fourth Platform Racing installment. 
Despite this announcement, Grahn has not completed another game as of yet. Luna was placed on-hold once Motley Monday began (a series where he made weekly updates to PR2) before being quietly cancelled the following year."Luna is missing...". Jiggmin's Village. June 30, 2013."luna release date?". Jiggmin's Village. August 21, 2013."Is Lux gained on pr2 is worthless for luna?". Jiggmin's Village. July 25, 2013. 
2 websites were set up for Platform Racing 4 in December 2013."PR Fewar". Jiggmin. December 1, 2013. Plans were to release updates to beta testers on his forum in the future, though these never happened and both closed in 2014."Futurism shutdown?". Jiggmin's Village. June 21, 2014. 
Futurism was also announced in October 2013, an online trading card game which was the first of Grahn's games to be open sourced. It was originally planned to be completed in a week, though similarly to his situation with Wohlwend, this proved impractical and was dropped after 2 days."Futurism new jiggmin game". Jiggmin's Village. October 3, 2013. Development instead lasted several months, with a public beta opening in May 2014."Futurism.io". Jiggmin. May 2, 2014. The site abruptly closed a month later however.
Following Futurism's cancellation, fans assumed Grahn retired from game development after jiggmin.com suddenly closed in 2015 and learning he found another full-time job from forum moderators."Mod Hut" Jiggmin's Village. March 7, 2015. This was eventually confirmed a year later on his replacement website Freegoose, where it was revealed he primarily retired because of a series of recurring DDoS attacks on jiggmin.com and his games that had been on-going since at least 2013."Jacob Grahn aka Jiggmin". Freegoose. May 17, 2016."DDoS". Jiggmin. August 22, 2013. Grahn later said he would like to develop more games eventually, specifically another Platform Racing installment.forums.freegoo.se/t/reply-jiggoman-insert-random-crap-here/148/6 (lost post)
==Recognition==
Grahn's games have been praised for their simplicity and ability of finding new spins on old concepts."Eduardo's Take on Platform Racing 2". IGN. April 21, 2009."Rolley-Ball". WIRED. January 22, 2007."Interesting on the web". Igromania. January 2007."Kongregate Racing Review". Jayisgames. May 17, 2007"Daemon's Take on Effing Hail". IGN. June 26, 2009."PC Freebies Round-Up – 21/07/09". Resolution Magazine."Effing Meteors is a cataclysmic world-destroying physics Time Waster". Download Squad. January 31, 2011."Link Dump Friday №13". Jayisgames. April 13, 2007."Link Dump Friday №100". Jayisgames. February 6, 2009. When making him their featured developer in 2007, Kongregate said:
"Jiggmin is the master of making things fun. Just look at his games. We have a game where the entire goal is walking from one room to another without running into a wall of spikes, yet another DDR-style game, yet another Breakout game, and a game in which the entire goal is to madly click on dots — or, rather, to click upon dots, faster than your opponent. There's even a Flash version of that old marble game.
And yet, they're all so much fun. The crazy disorienting effect of The Game of Disorientation won Jiggmin the "most innovative" award in Kongregate's very first cash contest, and each of his other games has a unique, imaginative twist that demonstrates not only Jiggmin's understanding of classic gaming, but also of his ability to expand and add to concepts, leading a lot of us to start wondering, "Why didn't I think of that?"""Featured Developer - Jiggmin". Kongregate. June 14, 2007.
Several of Grahn's games have been named among the best Flash games of all time by publications, including The Game of Disorientation, Platform Racing and Platform Racing 2."The 150 Best Online Flash Games". TechCult. October 6, 2008."The 20 best internet Flash games, from Doom to Stick Cricket". Telegraph. October 29, 2009."Top Flash games (no registration or download required)". Expert Reviews. January 11, 2013. Platform Racing 2 won the "People's Choice" award at the 2009 Flash Gaming Summit and was a finalist for "Best Multiplayer game" as well. The majority of his games submitted to Kongregate and Newgrounds were featured on their frontpages or received some other award from their communities."Jiggmin's Trophies" - Newgrounds Neverending Light specifically was selected by Newgrounds' staff as making Flash Portal history.
Grahn was also featured in the Adobe-sponsored "Flash Mindmeld", a book for Flash developers that offered advice from "60 of the greatest minds behind Flash games"."Flash Mindmeld eBooks". flashmindmeld.com. July 7, 2011. He was notably one of the few independent developers in it not associated with a large company or website.
==Trivia == 
*Jiggmin's alias originally began as "Mr. Jagman" when he was a teenager, with "Jag" representing his initials and him adding "Mr." to feel important."Where Do You Get Your Name From?". Brackenwood. March 5, 2005."PR2 Awesometin's Campaign" (27:17)"Ask a Moderator". Kongregate. May 19, 2010. After a couple years he added an extra g, then later swapped the a's with i's one day out of random and decided to stick with it. He lastly dropped "Mr." in 2006 as he came to feel "putting "Mr." in front of your name makes you look stupid". 
** He also originally planned to have his alias and his real identity separate to shift attention away from himself directly, intending to turn "Jiggmin" into a mysterious person he worked for."pintogames.com". Jiggmin. December 17, 2010. His avatar is a remnant of this, with him once describing it as "the only known picture of the elusive Mr. Jiggmin"."I Finally Got My Avitar". Brackenwood. April 15, 2005. In reality his avatar comes from an ad for the hair loss drug Propecia."How I beat Hair Loss" - Hair Solution
* Regarding game production, Jiggmin noted he likes working on game design most, coding second and art/sound the least."Jiggmin" - Mochi Community He prefers to go the opposite of the norm in terms of his game concepts, and came to prefer multiplayer games over single-player ones as he found them more challenging to make."War of the Web - Dec 2, 2011" (1:32:55)
*Jiggmin's favorite level in Platform Racing 2 is "Its New York!", with "Soul Temple" being his second."PR2 Jason From Platform Racin's Campaign" (2:04) 
**Likewise, his favorite songs in the game are Paradise on E and Instrumental #4.http://livestre.am/47rzI (11:10)
*He's mentioned he frequently moved around the United States growing up, including living in Germany at one point."Linslade Bypass Protest". Brackenwood. January 21, 2005.
*He knows how to speak at least some Korean, which he used to translate Futurism.
*Snorlax and Ditto are some of his favorite Pokémon."PR2 Jason From Platform Racin's Campaign" (56:06)
*When asked in 2011, Jiggmin said his favorite console game was Ocarina of Time."Facebook Soldier Run Time" (48:29)
*He once appeared on a Strawberry Lime bottle of Jones Soda in 2006."Jones Soda". Brackenwood. June 7, 2006.
 
*He revealed in the Mod Hut on his forum in 2015 that one of the reasons for his inactivity was he "met the girl he was going to marry". He later publicly posted he was engaged that December and married a couple months afterwards.
*Game development was the only job Jiggmin ever had prior to 2014. He once applied for a position at a newly opened Burger King, but "they chose to continue not having employees rather than hire me".
*Jiggmin is 1/16th Swedish."PR2 Super Fun Time Levels" (7:50)
==References==
Category:People
Category:Platform Racing 1 Articles
Category:Platform Racing 2 Articles
Category:Platform Racing 3 Articles
Category:Neverending Light Articles