Pitch

Studio of Greg Lobanov and his rotating collaborators, creators of acclaimed indie titles such as Chicory: A Colorful Tale and Wandersong.

Description

Wishes Ultd. is Greg Lobanov's corporate vehicle for video game collaborations. Up until its announcement in May 2023 Greg simply would credit the individual names of team members on each project, including his own, but this was 1. Not very memorable/marketable and 2. Increasingly complicated as the team sizes expanded amorphously, involving a larger number of people playing smaller roles. His only choice was to become a Brand, and so here we are.

Wishes Ultd. games are characterized by bold and colorful art direction and whimsical stories. They're also all made in Game Maker.

History

Greg got his start releasing freeware games on the Game Maker forums in the mid-late 2000s.

In 2011, he landed a deal developing a mobile game called Pollushot which was published by Yoyogames, the creators of GameMaker, as part of an effort to test and promote the engine's new mobile support. It was his first commercial game and it allowed him to become self sustaining.

In 2012, he released his first self-published commercial title, an Earthbound-inspired JRPG about teens fighting ghosts called Phantasmaburbia with the help of an additional artist (Mack Charnecki) and a musician (Jason Covenant (who has since vanished(?))). Although lesser known it attracted cult acclaim for its charming story. It was supported by a Kickstarter to help cover Greg's last couple months of rent while he finished the game.

He spent the rest of 2012 and 2013 developing mobile games & living check to check. He has a surprise success in Perfection (with music by Omni-Psyence), a shape-cutting mobile game which won a couple of awards and thereby earned a then-very-lucrative opportunity to publish on Steam.

Near the end of 2013 he released an early access title called Coin Crypt, which was the first roguelike deckbuilding game ever published - although the genre didn't actually exist yet and the game was therefore quite hard to describe and market at the time. The project was joined by a musician (dloot) and later an additional artist (Tyler Myers). The game established a cult following, and one time at a party one of the Slay the Spire designers told Greg they were pretty sure they might have played it.

Coin Crypt released from early access in 2014 while Greg was on a 5,000 mile bike trip across America for some reason.

After a few tenuously-profitable small game releases & projects in 2015, Greg managed to score his second successful Kickstarter. The funds allowed him to pay A Shell in the Pit to create audio and music for what would become the musical platforming extravaganza called Wandersong. Wandersong was published by Humble Games to gaming consoles (Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4, and Xbox One). It released in September 2018 to widespread acclaim, commercial success, an IGF nomination and a devoted cult following.

He was joined by a few more friends for his next project, called Chicory: A Colorful Tale, in which you play as a dog wielding a magical paintbrush capable of coloring a black and white world. It was also supported by a Kickstarter and published by Finji. Chicory proved to be Greg's greatest success yet when in came out in June 2021 to overwhelmingly positive critical reviews, and many "game of the year" nods and award nominations.

In May 2023 he formally announced Wishes Ultd. as his "studio" to represent the shared connection between his projects alongside rotating collaborators.