Refract Studios

Description

Refract Studios is a Seattle-based independent game studio made up of Jordan Hemenway, Kyle Holdwick, and Jason Nollan. They were a few of the developers behind several award-winning games like Solstice, Nitronic Rush, Solace, and several others. The team has a burning passion for creating impactful, engaging experiences that really push the boundaries of what it means to be a game.

History

While at DigiPen

The team met while attending DigiPen Institute of Technology. During their time there they worked with various teams to create experimental indie games. Kyle worked on AI systems for the ASCII game Sowlar (finalist in IndieCade) and functioned as a visual engineer and world designer on Solstice (presented at Tokyo Game Show for Sense of Wonder Night). Jason did the art and graphics programming for the 2D stealth game Subsonic (finalist in IGC) and most of the work on a Tetris prototype which won $20,000 and Grand Prize in the Tetris Design Challenge. Jordan was a game logic programmer and lead composer for Solace (winner in IGF, PAX10) and Solstice. He also contributed music to The Fourth Wall (finalist in IGC, Freeplay).

Nitronic Rush

For their final project, the team worked with 8 others to create an over-the-top arcade racing game called Nitronic Rush (http://nitronic-rush.com). Since its release in 2011, the game has been played over 1.1 million times, and it's picked up several award nominations/wins in competitions like Indie Game Challenge, Independent Propeller Awards, IGF, and the Inside Gaming Awards.

After graduating

After graduating from DigiPen, several of the other developers on Nitronic Rush took jobs in the AAA game industry or went to work on other projects. When looking at what the Refract team wanted to do next, they realized that they're too passionate about making smaller independent games to stop now. That's when they turned down AAA job offers, started their own studio, and focused on games that they're incredibly passionate about.

Distance

Distance is Refract's debut title. It's a spiritual successor to Nitronic Rush, taking what people loved in that game and amping it up to the next level. In short, it's Trials Evolution + Rush 2049 + Halo + Tron. The game takes the intense action of arcade racing and fuses it with the exploration of an atmospheric world.

Projects

• Distance