AUSTIN, Texas — April 23, 2024 — Homeworld: Vast Reaches will launch on the Meta Quest 2 and Quest 3 on May 2, 2024 according to FarBridge, Inc., a leading game development studio. Homeworld: Vast Reaches is a virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality (MR) take on the classic Homeworld franchise and was done in partnership with Gearbox Entertainment. The game will also launch for SteamVR-supported headsets later this year, and players can wishlist the game for Meta Quest and Steam today.

Homeworld: Vast Reaches introduces a bold new story in the beloved Homeworld saga that reimagines strategic space battles for VR and MR. Players assume the role of Fleet Command, a human commander directing a fleet of spaceships to attack, defend, and capture strategic resources. Players will build up their armada of ships and face off against a mysterious new foe in dynamic outer space combat throughout a thrilling campaign.

“We can’t wait for players to get their hands on Homeworld: Vast Reaches and step into the role of Fleet Command.” said Patrick Curry, CEO of FarBridge. “Making a new Homeworld game has been a dream project for us at FarBridge, combining our passions for virtual reality, outer space, and of course the rich sci-fi universe of Homeworld.”

The Homeworld universe is famous for its signature three-dimensional combat encounters and environments in deep space. It is perfectly positioned for the world of VR gaming that empowers players to view the action from any angle as they drag, drop, and command their ships into precise formations for combat. Homeworld: Vast Reaches also lets players with passthrough MR to experience this universe with immersive 3D battles in their real-world spaces, from entire rooms to their tabletops.

Fleet Control is in Your Hands.

For more information about Homeworld: Vast Reaches please visit

https://HomeworldVastReaches.com/

About Homeworld:
The original Homeworld was developed by Relic Entertainment and launched in September of 1999 to critical success, winning over 50 awards including Game of the Year and was credited with popularizing the 3D real-time strategy genre. In 2013, the rights to the Homeworld IP were purchased by Gearbox Entertainment. In 2015 Homeworld Remastered Collection, consisting of the original Homeworld and Homeworld 2, was released reviving the franchise for series fans and newcomers alike. A prequel to Homeworld, Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak, was released a year later allowing players the opportunity to walk in Rachel S’jet’s shoes and live the discovery of Khar-Toba, the home to the Guidestone that kicked off the saga in Homeworld. Homeworld 3, which takes place 100 years after the events of Homeworld 2, is set to launch on May 13, 2024, for PC on Steam and Epic Games Store.

About FarBridge:
FarBridge develops new games and intellectual properties for all major game platforms, and has shipped over a dozen games and experiences for VR, AR, PC, mobile, and console. FarBridge’s seasoned team of creative developers is passionate about telling stories and making worlds you can get lost in. For more information about FarBridge, their work, and opportunities to join their team, visit farbridge.com.

About Gearbox Entertainment Company
The Gearbox Entertainment Company, LLC is an award-winning, creator and distributor of transmedia entertainment. Gearbox Entertainment has become widely known for successful game franchises, as well as acquired properties Duke Nukem and Homeworld, which it distributes across the world. Gearbox Entertainment is composed of four subsidiaries: Gearbox Software, Gearbox Publishing, Gearbox Studio, and Gearbox Properties. Gearbox Software, founded in 1999 by a team of industry veterans, is headquartered in Frisco, Texas and is known around the world for developing hit video games and franchises like Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, Brothers in Arms, and Borderlands. Gearbox Publishing was established in 2016 with the goal of helping developers around the world bring their products to market while retaining their unique creative visions. Gearbox Studios was formed in 2022 and creates cutting-edge transmedia opportunities including the upcoming movies based on Borderlands and Duke Nukem, and the series based on Brothers in Arms. Gearbox Properties was founded in 2022 to manage Gearbox’s wide variety of intellectual property across all products, mediums, and merchandise categories.

The Gearbox Entertainment Company is a proud member of the Embracer Group AB family of companies. For more information, visit www.Gearbox.com.

MEDIA CONTACT

Pam Renteria — Marketing and Communications Manager

Phone: +1 512–326–1524 x726

Email: press@farbridge.com

Press Kit: https://farbridge.com/presskit

Wishlist Links:
https://www.meta.com/experiences/quest/7777435315609988

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2949240/Homeworld_Vast_Reaches/

AUSTIN, Texas, April 3, 2024 (Newswire.com) — FarBridge, Inc., a leading game development studio, in partnership with Gearbox Entertainment, is excited to announce Homeworld: Vast Reaches, a bold new story in the beloved Homeworld saga that reimagines strategic space battles for Virtual Reality and Mixed Reality. This new game in the Homeworld universe is launching on the Meta Quest 2 and Meta Quest 3 headsets later this year. Players can now wishlist the game at HomeworldVastReaches.com.

In the award-winning Homeworld games for PC, you play as Fleet Command, a human commander who controls a fleet of spaceships. Players will take on the same role in Homeworld: Vast Reaches in vicious combat against a mysterious new foe.

“We’ve taken care to make a new experience that both Homeworld and strategy game fans will enjoy,” said Richard Rouse III, Studio Creative Director at FarBridge. “It’s been an honor to take the amazing space battles and unique characters of Homeworld and let people play in an entirely new way with virtual and mixed reality.”

Famous for completely three-dimensional combat encounters and environments in deep space, the Homeworld makes for the perfect setting for a VR/MR game, letting players view the action from any angle and drag-and-drop their ships into formations for combat. Homeworld: Vast Reaches also takes it one step further with immersive 3D battles the size of a player’s room or instantly scaled-down to fit on a tabletop.

“Our studio is thrilled to add a new chapter to the Homeworld storyline. Our partners at Gearbox have been an absolute pleasure to work with — their passion for games and especially for Homeworld has been an inspiration to us,” said Patrick Curry, CEO of FarBridge.

FarBridge was founded in 2017 by veteran game and film industry executives with a mission to bring people into one-of-a-kind virtual worlds. Homeworld: Vast Reaches represents a unique collaboration, where FarBridge has partnered with Gearbox Entertainment to bring this beloved universe to players in an all-new way. FarBridge will handle development and publishing responsibilities and collaborate closely with Gearbox Entertainment, who are focused closely on ensuring the game’s story, characters and lore remain true to the beloved franchise.

“We can’t wait for the community to get their hands on Homeworld: Vast Reaches and finally feel what it’s like to become Fleet Command,” said Erica Hollinshead Stead, Sr. Director of Licensing and Business Development at Gearbox Entertainment. “VR brings a new dimension to the strategy gameplay of Homeworld, and I am excited for the community to be literally immersed in the vast universe it offers.”

Homeworld: Vast Reaches is now available for wishlisting on the Meta Store.

Fleet Control Is in Your Hands

https://HomeworldVastReaches.com/

About Homeworld:

The original Homeworld was developed by Relic Entertainment and launched in September of 1999 to critical success, winning over 50 awards including Game of the Year and was credited with popularizing the 3D real-time strategy genre. In 2013, the rights to the Homeworld IP were purchased by Gearbox Entertainment. In 2015 Homeworld Remastered Collection, consisting of the original Homeworld and Homeworld 2, was released reviving the franchise for series fans and newcomers alike. A prequel to Homeworld, Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak, was released a year later allowing players the opportunity to walk in Rachel S’jet’s shoes and live the discovery of Khar-Toba, the home to the Guidestone that kicked off the saga in Homeworld. Homeworld 3, which takes place 100 years after the events of Homeworld 2, is set to launch on May 13, 2024, for PC on Steam and Epic Games Store.

About FarBridge:

FarBridge develops new games and intellectual properties for all major game platforms, and has shipped over a dozen games and experiences for VR, AR, PC, mobile, and console. FarBridge’s seasoned team of creative developers is passionate about telling stories and making worlds you can get lost in. For more information about FarBridge, their work, and opportunities to join their team, visit farbridge.com.

About Gearbox Entertainment Company:

The Gearbox Entertainment Company, LLC is an award-winning, creator and distributor of transmedia entertainment. Gearbox Entertainment has become widely known for successful game franchises, as well as acquired properties Duke Nukem and Homeworld, which it distributes across the world. Gearbox Entertainment is composed of four subsidiaries: Gearbox Software, Gearbox Publishing, Gearbox Studio, and Gearbox Properties. Gearbox Software, founded in 1999 by a team of industry veterans, is headquartered in Frisco, Texas, and is known around the world for developing hit video games and franchises like Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, Brothers in Arms, and Borderlands. Gearbox Publishing was established in 2016 with the goal of helping developers around the world bring their products to market while retaining their unique creative visions. Gearbox Studios was formed in 2022 and creates cutting-edge transmedia opportunities including the upcoming movies based on Borderlands and Duke Nukem, and the series based on Brothers in Arms. Gearbox Properties was founded in 2022 to manage Gearbox’s wide variety of intellectual property across all products, mediums, and merchandise categories.

The Gearbox Entertainment Company is a proud member of the Embracer Group AB family of companies. For more information, visit www.Gearbox.com.

MEDIA CONTACT

Pam Renteria

Marketing and Communications Manager

Phone: +1 512–326–1524 x726

Email: press@farbridge.com

Press Kit: https://farbridge.com/presskit

Building a #GoodCommunity takes a village. The groups we’re featuring this month are led and supported by Black professionals in gaming who want to empower folks new to the industry. We’re excited to see the games industry growing and reflecting the diversity of our players and communities. We invite you to follow and support these organizations for making this possible:

ATX Game Makers

ATX Game Makers is a non-profit community dedicated to helping increase diversity in the games industry. Since 2019 the ATX Game Maker community has grown to include hundreds of working professionals and hobbyist developers, supporting each other in both their professional careers and indie game development.

Learn more about their events and programs here.

Gameheads

Gameheads is a tech training program that equips young people of color with the tech and life skills they need to succeed at school, in their careers, and beyond.

Interested in helping support their program? Learn more here.

Black Girls CODE

Black Girls CODE builds pathways for young women of color to embrace the current tech marketplace as builders and creators by introducing them to skills in computer programming and technology.

Interested in helping support their program? Learn more here.

The Hidden Genius Project

The Hidden Genius Project trains and mentors Black male youth in technology creation, entrepreneurship, and leadership skills to transform their lives and communities.

Interested in helping support their program? Learn more here.

Let’s Make a Difference!

Join us and help build a future for creatives by supporting these organizations or get connected with other local organizations for your area. As we continue our series on Good Community, let us know if there are any groups you want to see us work with, learn more about, or shout out in future posts! You can read our previous #GoodCommunity posts on our blog.

Here at FarBridge, our team is hard at work creating beautiful, fun, and immersive games for nearly every type of device. If you’d like to learn more about our team or join us on future projects, check out our website: farbridge.com.

We’re looking forward to meeting new and old friends at the many upcoming conferences this year. The FarBridge Away Team will be there and we’d love to say hello, catch up, and talk shop if you’re also attending these shows.

Here is a list of some of the cons you can find us at in 2024:

DICE in Las Vegas, February 13–15, 2024

The prestigious DICE Summit (which stands for Design, Innovate, Communicate, Entertain) is a great event early in the year that brings together video game creators and business leaders from around the world to discuss the state of the industry and our shared future. DICE has been a favorite show of ours for years!

SXSW in Austin, March 8–16, 2024

The SXSW Conference & Festivals celebrate the convergence of the tech, film, and music industries — and video games have a bit of all of the above! Having this gathering of creative and passionate discipline-blending folks happen practically in our backyard is one of the many perks of having our original FarBridge headquarters in Austin, TX. (Many of us still live in Texas, but our company is distributed and working remotely from all over the country.)

GDC in San Francisco, March 18–22, 2024

The Game Developers Conference (GDC) brings the development community together to exchange ideas, solve problems, and shape the future of the industry. We love its collegial atmosphere and always find ourselves learning new awesome things.

BONUS: We’re especially excited to catch our Studio Creative Director, Richard Rouse III, in his element during his annual GDC session presentation. Make sure you check it out!

Gamescom in Cologne, Germany, August 21–25, 2024

Later this year we’ll make our way across the pond to Cologne, Germany for Gamescom, the world’s largest event for computer and video games — and Europe’s largest business platform for the games industry. We’ve loved our time at Gamescom in years past, and are looking forward to many great meetings and maybe a Kölch or two.

Let’s set up a time to chat!

If you find yourself at one of these conferences, be sure to reach out to our Executive Producer, Donald Harris, who is always on the lookout to make new connections and friends in our industry. We’ll likely do some additional traveling this year, so stay tuned for more soon.

You can keep up to date with our conference travels here:

Sign up for our email list, check out our blog, and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to be the first to know more about the latest FarBridge news.

The FarBridge Team Continues to Grow

The FarBridge team grew this year, and as of this blog post, we have team members in Texas, where we started, as well as California, Indiana, Kentucky, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, and Washington.

It’s a very strange thing to go from working with a handful of folks who could all share an Uber to events, to maybe needing two elevators to fit everyone, to needing to book out the top floor of a restaurant for a company party. This December Patrick “joked” about a future where we’d have to find even more space to fit everyone for our gatherings.

Jokes aside, growing the FarBridge team has been one of the most rewarding and fulfilling parts of 2023. Getting to work with these great people on amazing projects, and having everyone come together to contribute their fresh ideas and hard-won expertise is a dream come true.

To our team, we want to express our evergreen appreciation. Your hard work, commitment to our shared goals and values, and dedication to taking care of yourselves and each other is truly inspiring. None of this would be possible without you, and it’s an honor to be able to work with such an amazing cadre of humans.

We’re so excited for the new journeys 2024 will take us on, together.

Industry Challenges

2023 also had its share of challenges, with many studios in the industry doing layoffs, restructuring, or closing entirely. While this hasn’t been the case at our studio, we’ve absolutely felt the impacts from our friends and colleagues. Our hearts go out to everyone affected by these changes. Making games is a community effort — and we’re unified by our love of making games, telling stories, and building something new where it didn’t exist before. We hope we can get through these choppy waters to brighter days ahead for everyone.

We traveled and shared our expertise on panels, podcasts, and with our community

The team traveled all over the USA and internationally — from Las Vegas for DICE, to San Francisco for GDC, to Cologne, Germany for Gamescom, to LA to visit partners and friends, and even a whole 20 minutes to downtown Austin for SXSW ;)

At the Game Developers Conference our Studio Creative Director, Richard Rouse III, hosted his annual “Rules of the Game” session. This popular session brings together game designers to talk about rules that are important to them, rules of thumb they use in making games, and other outside-the-box ideas. Richard will be returning to GDC in 2024 to lead the game narrative session “How Interactive Should My Game Story Be?”, make sure you check it out!

After GDC, Richard also participated in the fifth annual LudoNarraCon digital festival. This event celebrates narrative video games and the developers that make them. Richard spoke on the “Game Stories Told in Most Unexpected & Surprising Ways” panel where veteran writers and designers talk about all the unexpected ways game narratives work, from environmental narrative to marketing materials to character animation to stories told in-game mechanics themselves. You can watch the panel here.

In April, our CEO, Patrick Curry, was interviewed by fellow game dev veterans, Alex Seropian and Aaron Marroquin, on their podcast The Fourth Curtain. The podcast takes the audience “on a tour of the minds that create our favorite video games,” and covers the history of video games and the people who make them. Episodes featuring an array of amazing game devs are available on all streaming platforms and at thefourthcurtain.com.

Just before summer, we were ecstatic to join Latinx in Gaming’s CONEXION career fair for another year of networking and meeting other game devs. CONEXION was a week-long virtual career event in May focused on connecting the Latinx community to professionals in the industry with a career fair, panels, webinars, resume reviews, and networking opportunities. A few folks from FarBridge were invited to participate in the career fair alongside companies like Netflix, Blizzard, Niantic, Riot Games, EA, Unity, Iron Galaxy, and Brass Lion Entertainment.

Latinitas, an Austin-based organization that empowers girls to innovate through media and technology, invited folks from the FarBridge team to speak at their annual Game Chica summer camp for girls and nonbinary students ages 9–14. We had a blast presenting the campers with the different career options they can pursue within the industry and hosted an interactive activity using Twine.

Last but certainly not least, we hosted a playtest session in the fall with the students of the Electronic Game Developers Society (EGaDS) at the University of Texas at Austin. We had a great time networking and chatting about the game industry with the next-generation game developers.

#SparkingCreativity, building a #GoodCommunity, and even telling some spooky tales…

Earlier this year we launched our #SparkingCreativity blog series where we share tips and tricks for hosting a game jam at your studio. Jam Days at FarBridge allows our team to have a space for creative and collaborative practice, and each month it brings home how inventive folks at the studio are. You can check out our latest blog post on the subject: Tips For Running Your Own Jam Day.

In our #GoodCommunity series, we highlight all the great organizations and companies we have had the honor of working with over the last five years. We continue to be committed to making a safe, welcoming environment for all humans we work and come into contact with, and the organizations we featured are shining examples of this cause.

We also told our own scary stories, featuring ghostly adventures and real-life encounters our team experienced! If you’re looking for some extra spooky vibes now that October is behind us (or if you want to share in the old tradition of partaking in ghost stories on Christmas Eve), we’ve got some spine-tinglingly scary tales for you on our blog on Medium.

Many get togethers were had!

With FarBridge continuing to be completely remote, making sure we can all gather together has become even more important to us. This year we committed to having an event each quarter where the FarBridge team could get the chance to spend time with one another. It’s important to us to create that sense of community within our team and make sure to play lots and lots of games.

February at Punch Bowl Social in North Austin
The team celebrated FarBridge’s birthday with some tomfoolery at Punch Bowl Social Club. Many games were played, and many songs were Karaoke’d that night!

May Heat Hangout
An early summer gathering nevertheless gave everyone a taste of true Texas summer — and some delicious brisket!

September Horror Trivia Hangout
The team gathered for tacos and trivia, featuring a horror quiz, prepared and administered by none other than our own Richard and Pam! Unsurprisingly, our resident horror expert team, Deathbed: The Bed That Still Eats, won first place.

Winter Holiday Party 2023
And we just had our end-of-year winter holiday party and hilarious White Elephant Gift Exchange.

Amongst the usual fun and/or funny gifts you’d expect at a White Elephant, a couple of truly touching gifts were in circulation. Some folks on the team made some incredibly special and unique mementos, some of which are related to secret projects, but we can share this one that Jen, our Director of Production, made:

“The Chronicles of FarBridge,” a handmade keepsake book, crafted from an upcycled hardcover, with hand lettering and careful re-surfacing to create a secret trinket space.

We’re looking forward to sharing the other handmade artifacts of awesome our team created, once we can ❤

Wrapping Up 2023….

As we count down the days to our studio’s winter break, we can’t help but look back on all the moments big and small that made 2023 so memorable — but more importantly, we can’t help but be immensely grateful to the people with us on this journey.

To our clients and partners, we are so thrilled to be able to work with you to make extraordinary worlds to get lost in.

To our advisors, we are honored and humbled to have your wisdom and guidance on our path forward through this wild reality.

To our team, we are beyond proud to be able to work together to make amazing experiences and community, together.

And finally, to friends and family, we want to extend our deepest love and gratitude. None of this would be possible without y’all.

Happy holidays, and onwards to 2024, together!

We’ve talked a bit about how Jam Day is one of our favorite in-office traditions at FarBridge and why it’s important to us. And because Jam Day is important to us, we put real, concerted effort into Making It A Thing at our studio, keeping it going from our earliest days in our office, through the pandemic, and continuing into our current fully-remote setup as a studio.

Over the years, we’ve learned a lot about how to run our monthly internal jam day, and we want to share some tips for incorporating these jams into your studio culture, be it big or small!

Keep it consistent

When you’re planning out your year, pick a day each month that’s less likely to be disrupted by milestones, travel, or conferences so that as many folks as possible can join in the fun — and then do your best to stick to it!

Yes, sometimes schedules have to reshuffle to make room for project fire fighting or real-life happenings, but getting these jam days onto the calendar and carving out that space for them will make them “real” in a way that vaguely planning to do one “about once a month” will never do. We’ve recently moved our jam days to Fridays, as that’s the day of the week that’s the least meeting-filed for us right now.

Make it sacred

That said, if something does impact Jam Day and force a reschedule, try to finesse the dates so that Jam Day can still happen for as many folks as possible, ideally the entire studio still. Don’t let it fall off the calendar without any attempts to maintain the cadence — establishing this as a ritual will take time and effort, but once it gets baked into the monthly landscape, that will be easier and easier.

Keep talking about it

Once you have your Jam Day date decided, you have to continually remind folks about it and encourage them to participate. We do this by including a quick reminder in our weekly studio-wide meeting, encouraging folks to join brainstorms, collaborate with teams or partners, and share what they’re excited about in a dedicated Slack channel. Brainstorming ideas and hyping each other up helps our remote team members get to know each other better, too — one of those “sneaky bonuses” of having our consistent Jam Days.

So many of us are pre-conditioned to turn away from “the fun thing” and look only at our to-do lists — it takes effort and focus to make sure you’re making room for fun in your day-to-day and month-to-month. It’s important and so worth it to give folks time and space to share in play with each other.

Have a show and tell

An important part of Jam Day for us is the Show & Tell at the end of the day. We use this as the official “pencils down, end of jamming” line in the sand, and it gives folks a concrete time and audience to work towards. Another sneaky bonus of Jam Day is that everyone learns (and then learns again) some hard lessons about scoping, quick decision making, and when to cut features.

Giving folks a space to show what they worked on, joyfully failed at, or otherwise created and learned-from also helps build team culture and cohesion. Creativity and curiosity are contagious, and seeing other folks’ efforts and outcomes often directly inspires and spark new ideas in ourselves. Throughout it all, we all get to cheer each other on, ask questions about process, and share in each other’s “scope humbled me hard” moments. We get to be humans trying things together.

Empower a Jam Host

A key to having Jam Day go smoothly for us is to have someone “host” the jam who champions the theme, reminds folks about brainstorming sessions, gives folks encouragement and time reminders during the jam itself, and leads Show & Tell. If we left this to our studio heads or department leads, the jams may never happen, so we’re very happy we’ve made this responsibility a rotating role in the studio.

As one jam day is wrapping up, the current host asks for a volunteer to host and coordinate the next jam. One natural perk of hosting jam day emerged early on, which is the ability to have a bit of extra sway in deciding what the next jam’s theme will be.

Have a theme, but keep it loose

The freedom to “do whatever you want” can be exhilarating for some, but can also lead to decision paralysis for others. So we like to set a theme for our Jams. Sometimes we’ve given a jam a very specific theme and goal, like trying out a new engine, other times the theme is a silly joke or meme to merely get creative juices flowing.

Seeing how folks interpret and then apply… selectively incorporate… elements of the theme is one of the true joys of attending each Jam Day Show & Tell.

Archive and record as much as possible

Although we have all our Jam Day projects archived, we only started recording our Show & Tells when we switched to a remote work environment, and we really wish we had our first few years of jam day projects recorded to look back on as well.

Learn from our oversight, and make a shared spot where Jam projects can all live and be revisited — and depending on your team’s culture and opinions, even consider posting more “finished” pieces to social media, public forums, or an indie game [storefront] like Itch.io. A lot of the joy in Jam Day is in the sharing of it with a broader circle — be that lessons from the Jam, moments from the Show & Tell afterwards, or the finished projects themselves.

Post-Mort the Jam

How did we learn all this about our Jam Days? How did we get better and better at Jamming? How will we have even better processes in the future? The answer is postmortems. A week or so after each Jam Day we host an optional post-mortem discussion where everyone can reflect on what they jammed on, and share ideas and feedback for the next jam.

Making time and space for folks to talk about what went well, what needs improvement, and what changes to make next time helps keep Jam Day focused on what our team wants and needs out of the creative exercise. Building play and experimentation into your month only works if it’s serving the team in the intended, needed way. If we weren’t doing post-mortems and being flexible about trying out new ideas and processes, Jam Day probably wouldn’t have weathered our move to remote-work and lasted this long.

Conclusion

If a lot of the above tips sound like lessons that fit with “real projects” and work, that’s because it is! Another one of those “sneaky bonuses” Jam Day offers is the ability for folks to engage with and learn new skills that are majorly useful in their normal work days, but without the stress (and often self-limiting behavior) that comes from the harsher consequences of trying something and not getting it perfect the first time.

We really hope these tips for running a Jam Day are helpful for you, and help spread the joy of jamming. If you have tips and tricks that work for you and your jam days, please share them with us! In the meantime, we’ll leave you with this fascinating fact and quote about how people learn new thing:

“Scientists have recently determined that it takes approximately 400 repetitions to create a new synapse in the brain- unless it is done with play, in which case, it takes between 10–20 repetitions.” –Dr. Karyn Purvis

Patrick Curry is the CEO at FarBridge. His pre-FarBridge game credits include Stubbs the Zombie, John Woo’s Stranglehold, Disney’s Guilty Party, and Avengers Initiative. Patrick also serves as an advisor to SXSW and has mentored numerous indie game developers.

Melissa Swanepoel is COO at FarBridge. She brings years of film production, live broadcast television, and product development experience to bear. Melissa is passionate about storytelling, interactive media, and the people behind it all.

October is one of our favorite months of the year. These are our favorite scary stories to share with each other when sitting around a campfire or when traveling together for work.

This year’s final Spooky Tale comes to us from Melissa Swanepoel, FarBridge’s COO. This story is a bit longer than our previous installments, but it’s well worth the read.

This recent tale takes place earlier this year during a visit to the Pacific Northwest where Melissa stayed in a vacation home rental that seemed quaint… until strange noises came in the wee hours of the morning.

Very recently I went to visit my brother and sister in law, who live in the Pacific Northwest. While the majority of the visit was to take place on and about Vashon Island, we decided that a quick two-day-trip to the Hoh Rainforest and surrounding region would be a fantastic addition to the trip.

Local friends advised my brother that while you could slingshot the journey in one day, it would be far better to book lodgings for the night, somewhere close to Olympic National Park. Local towns include the Forks, WA — which Twilight made (in)famous — but we elected to stay in another nearby town called Beaver. We eventually settled on a cottage that was very reasonably priced, and from the photos looked charming, cozy, and relatively small.

It was a long drive from Seattle to truly Western Washington State. We stopped a few times along the route to eat, stretch legs, and bemoan the general lack of cell service, and then enjoyed hiking inside of Hoh Rainforest, where overgrown moss made trees appear almost unearthly in form.

After a few hours of hiking in absolutely perfect summer weather, we made our way back to the car, and continued on our drive to our rental, only stopping briefly in the town of Forks for some food, as Beaver was so small that it had no options for meals or groceries that we could find.

By the time we made it to our lodgings for the night, it was the tipping point of dusk: inside the woods, and wherever shadows from the mountains fell, night was already pooling, pushing out the last vestiges of daylight. Luckily the rental property was situated in a clearing very close to the main road, and so, in the last light of the day, we got a good look at it from the outside.

Right away, we were surprised as to the size of it — instead of the small space we had envisioned, it was more like an entire house situated back and separate from the rest of the sprawling property. Next to it, a farmhouse-chic sign marked it as our destination: Wild Valley Cottage.

Inside, the house was spacious, an almost entirely open floor plan highlighting the tall ceiling and large single-pane windows, and the whole effect was one of charm and delight. “So much space!” we said to ourselves. This structure had started its life as a schoolhouse over a century ago and had lived a couple of different lives since then, before it was purchased and refinished as a rental property. The original un-insulated windows, the hardwood floors, and the full-body slant of the building remained, at least. But the land and woods remained untouched.

“This better not be haunted,” my sister-in-law joked, and we all shared a bit of laugh, all of us more skeptical than not when it came to things like hauntings… at least in the daylight.

In the well-appointed little kitchen, we cobbled together dinner in between conversations and planning and exhaustion. It was decided that I would take the back room, closest to the woods, and my brother and sister-in-law would have the front room with the view of the mountains.

We had planned to get to bed early so we could do a couple of extra little trips the bright and early the next morning, but somehow it was well past 2 AM. Exhausted, we parted ways for the night, and hoped to see each other not-too-late in the morning. The house settled into the night, with only the nearby road offering noise from occasional logging trucks punctuating an otherwise total blanket of silence.

Except, as soon as I had laid my head down on its pillow, had closed my aching eyes and begun to relax — a sort of tapping broke the silence.

I lay there, eyes still closed, but still now, listening — an insect, maybe? A branch against the wall? But no, there weren’t even crickets singing, and the cottage didn’t have any trees or bushes growing within tapping range.

After a long listen with no additional noises, I put it out of my mind once more, and had nearly managed to fall asleep when –

There, again, this time louder, and more clearly: not a tapping noise, but a click-click noise, as if something was pushing against the window. This time I got out of bed, grabbed my phone and walked to the window, yanking back the curtain to reveal –

Nothing. Just the expected, empty darkness one would want outside a strange house in the remote woods. Pressing my phone’s light up against the window glass yielded nothing — I was at a loss for what could be causing the sound.

But as I stepped back, I noticed another curtain I had not fully seen before. When I first walked in the room, I assumed both sets of curtains on the same wall must be part of the window dressing, but now as I stood by the window, I could see that the window only needed the span of one curtain to cover it fully. And the curtain beside it extended down to the floor.

I reached out and gently pulled the curtain back to find a door.

Opening the curtain fully, I could see that the door was likely not part of the renovations, although care had been taken to put in some trim and seal to make it as airtight as possible in an old structure like this. It had a small window, hence the curtain, though why the property developers had chosen to cover the entire door was a mystery.

I reached out a hand, tested the single deadbolt: locked. I tried the door knob, gave it a good rattle: secured — and not the source of the click-click sound I had heard earlier.

Perturbed at the presence of an unexpected door to the outside in the room I was to sleep in, but bone-tired, I decided the door and its lock seemed sturdy enough. After I pulled the curtains all back into place, I scooted my travel bag in front of the door. It would not be able to swing inward, and if someone barged in, they would be bound to make a racket, perhaps even trip.

Back in bed, determined to sleep, I tried to clear my mind of worry, had mostly succeeded when –

Click-click!

Louder again this time, and yes, definitely coming from the door. It still didn’t sound like anything was touching the doorknob or deadbolt — but now, with more instances of the sound to consider, I realised it sounded like something was pushing against the door from the outside, causing either the hinges or the deadbolt and catch plate to click, metal-on-metal.

I lay back after a long listen, and decided, with an exhausted blend of logic and wanting, that nothing bad could be at play here and because I was simply too tired to handle any of that, thank you very much. And besides, better to face whatever might happen with at least a couple of winks of sleep, than none.

I wish I could say that my sleep after that decision was restful, but I was awoken another handful of times by the click-click — never quite exactly the same, and not following any predictable intervals.

Morning came too soon, and it seemed no one in the house had slept much or well — the front room had received the bulk of the logging truck noise, and a full blast of sun far too early to be polite. I shared my story about the door and the clicking more as a complaint than a concern, grumpy and tired but morning-facing and ready to get back on the road.

About an hour before our scheduled check out, we realised that we did not have this rental’s “must do at check out” chores, and so while we waited for our host to text us back, I did some poking around the house and found a binder.

Hoping it might contain the checklist, I opened it, and instead was greeted by an overview of the property’s history, a welcome letter from the host, and some official property survey documents. The binder also contained the National Historic Register for the property and buildings — and a couple of news stories.

I paged through the articles, and read just enough to learn that the house and the land held more than a simple schoolhouse and yard.

Just behind the schoolhouse, in the woods, lie a series of unmarked graves that have earned the name “Tragedy Graveyard.” According to these articles, a total of 13 men and one woman lie buried there, many of whom were the victims of murder or took their own lives. And while all of the graves are unadorned, five of the persons are still unknown, and have never been identified.

While these graves don’t conclusively explain the click-click of the doorway that kept waking me up all night, learning of their nearby existence still had a chilling effect on me.

Melissa runs operations and marketing at FarBridge, bringing years of film production, live broadcast television, and product development experience to bear. Melissa also chairs the VR Austin Jam, an annual event that brings together developers, brands, and enthusiasts to create and collaborate on all new experiences. She is passionate about storytelling, interactive media, and the people behind it all. Melissa can be found on Twitter and LinkedIn.

by Patrick Curry

October is one of our favorite months of the year. These are our favorite scary stories to share with each other when sitting around a campfire or when traveling together for work.

Today’s spooky tale comes from Patrick Curry, FarBridge’s CEO, as he reminisces about a scary prank gone wrong.

Many years ago my wife, Erin, and I lived in a three story townhouse, which is a fancy way of saying “a real narrow apartment with only one or two rooms per floor.” The bottom floor had a garage, the next floor up had the living room and kitchen, and the top floor had our bedroom and bathroom.

I had the habit of using the garage door to come into the apartment, whether I was driving or taking the bus home from work. Erin and I were sharing a car, and the garage was the most convenient route based on how things were situated relative to the nearby streets.

One day I came home from work, opened the garage, and saw it was empty. As I’d done many times before, I clicked the button on the wall to shut the garage door, and I bounded up the stairs to play video games. I flung my backpack on the couch, turned on the TV, and booted up the PlayStation. I was ready for some solid game time… but just as I was sitting down, I heard the garage door start to open downstairs. Erin must be home… and this gave me an idea!

I decided that it would be “fun” to hide from Erin, and then jump out and scare her when she least expected it. After all, other than my backpack, there wasn’t any evidence that I was home! So I turned off the TV, slung my backpack over my shoulder, and started looking for a hiding place. I found a closet at the top of the stairs, climbed in, and shut the door. I was so excited, my trap was set! All I had to do was wait to hear Erin on the stairs.

So I sat there in the dark, listening and waiting. But nothing happened. No one came up the stairs. I waited longer… still nothing. I slowly opened the closet door and peeked out. “Hellooo?” Nothing. I got out of the closet and walked downstairs to the living room. Nothing. I went down the stairs to the garage. The garage door was open… but there was no car. No Erin.

I walked out of the garage, expecting to see Erin conversing with a neighbor. Nothing. I was starting to freak out. Had something happened? My mind raced. Terrible scenarios ran through my head… had Erin been carjacked or abducted just as she got home?! As impossible as that sounded, I was really worried. I tried calling Erin on her mobile, but she didn’t answer. I called my neighbor, and they hadn’t seen anything or anyone.

Who opened the garage? How long had I waited in my hiding spot? Was it a burglar? Did someone sneak into my house? Could they still be inside? I was getting more and more worried, and more than a little scared. I pressed the button to close the garage door, and mustered up the courage to search the house. I checked every nook and cranny of the townhouse, and there was no sign of anyone, no intruders, and no clue as to who or what opened the garage.

Just as I was beginning to lose it, I heard the garage door open again. But this time with very loud rock music booming from a car stereo, which I could hear and feel through the house. I rushed down the stairs and was so relieved to see Erin getting out of her car. “Are you ok?” she asked. “You look white as a ghost.” I gave her a big hug, and explained what had happened thus far.

Erin said she hadn’t been to the house earlier, and that she too had no idea what opened the garage. Maybe it was a ghost? Or maybe just some faulty wiring? I tried to put the fear aside and just be happy and grateful that everyone was alright. For one last time, I pressed the button to close the garage, and Erin and I went upstairs.

We decided to watch some TV, and plopped down on the couch together. You won’t believe it — we both heard the garage door opening again! I jumped up, now fully back in “there is a ghost living in our house!” mode, ready to call Ghostbusters, two priests, and everyone else to rid our home of this evil spirit. Having not already been rattled, Erin had a calm head, and grabbed my backpack, which remained on the couch where I’d sat down.

A strange realization started forming in my head, and a rush of both embarrassment and relief washed over me as Erin pulled one of our garage’s remote control “clickers” out of my backpack. You see, this is how I got into our garage from outside the house, and had used it just an hour earlier to open the garage when I got home. Like I’d done many times before, I had put the clicker back in my backpack without even thinking about it.

Twice now I’d sat down on my backpack just enough that the button on the clicker got depressed, and it sent the signal downstairs to open the garage door. The ghost was none other than me being careless about sitting on my backpack, and not making the connection that there was a device inside responsible for opening the garage.

Erin was a good sport about it, but she did make it very clear that this was entirely my fault. “That’s what you get for trying to scare me!” She was 100% right. And since then, I’ve sworn off scaring pranks — cause you never know when they’re going to completely backfire and scare you out of your mind!

Patrick is a serial entrepreneur, inventor, and game designer. He’s previously started and sold companies to the likes of Disney, Unity Technologies, and frog design. His pre-FarBridge game credits include Stubbs the Zombie, John Woo’s Stranglehold, Disney’s Guilty Party, and Avengers Initiative. Patrick also serves as an advisor to SXSW and has mentored indie game developers like the creators of Octodad, Organ Trail, Intruder, and Job Simulator. Patrick can be found on Twitter, LinkedIn, and the web.

by Colleen Fannin

October is one of our favorite months of the year. These are our favorite scary stories to share with each other when sitting around a campfire or when traveling together for work.

This week’s story comes from our colleague Colleen Fannin about a situation we all fear being in… hearing a knock on the bathroom door when you least expect it.

When I was in college, I became friends with a seamstress named Angela and did modeling work for her designs in photoshoots and on runways. One of the locations where we often took pictures was called Miramont Castle. It’s a small castle in Manitou Springs, Colorado that was built in 1895 and is now a museum.

Angela’s mom is really into history and is friends with the people who run Miramont Castle, so Angela knows the team there very well. For this reason, we were allowed to do photoshoots in the museum and the gardens.

On this particular shoot, we were allowed to store our outfits and equipment in an area that was off-limits to the public. It’s important to note that we did not have an assistant with us — it was just me and Angela at this shoot.

Specifically, we were allowed to store our things in an old servant’s bathroom near the tea room. You see, this castle was built with servant hallways — narrow, cramped spaces in the walls for the servants to traverse through that allowed them to get their work done “out of sight and out of mind”. This was a small bathroom that was connected to the servant’s hallway on one side, and connected to the main floor plan on the other.

Nowadays the servant’s hallways are strictly off-limits, even to the staff of the castle, because they are not safe. They’ve fallen into disrepair, and they’re quite maze-like, so it would be easy for someone to fall and hurt themselves. To make things worse, anyone trying to help would have trouble reaching them in these passages, if they could even find them in the first place. No one uses the servant’s hallways anymore.

We had multiple outfits to shoot that day, and I was in the bathroom changing. Angela waited outside since the bathroom was very small and there wasn’t a lot of room for the two of us. As I was struggling with one of the outfits — probably a corset busk or some buttons on a jacket — I heard faint knocking. I was distracted, so said, “I’m trying, Angela, hold on!”

In response, I heard the knocking again, and that’s when I realized it wasn’t coming from the door to the castle floor. It was coming from the door to the servant’s hallway.

Now, keep in mind, I was half dressed and incapable of fleeing. So my brain did some logic loop-de-loops and came to the conclusion that obviously I had to summon my friend to get this thing to leave me alone.

So I started pounding on the bathroom door that led into the castle, yelling for Angela, and sure enough, when she joined me in the room, the knocking from the servant’s hallway went away. (In addition to warding off the spirit, she also helped me into my outfit.)

When I explained to Angela why I was out of sorts, she just laughed. She already knew the castle was haunted! She then told me a dozen ghost stories about the place that convinced me that the knocks I had just heard were most definitely real. The stories about this castle and the people who lived and worked there are ghastly, but I won’t get into them here. Just know that if you ever visit the castle’s doll room and it feels like someone’s watching you — well, there probably is.

Colleen is a game designer with experience in production, art, and programming. She started her career at WayForward Technologies and worked on projects such as River City Girls 2 and Miraculous Crush: A Ladybug & Cat Noir Match 3. Colleen is passionate about fostering an environment of positivity and growth in any team she’s a part of. She believes people come before projects, because projects cannot exist without people. To really get to know Colleen, ask her about the Resident Evil movies and book series.

by Joy Stephens

October is one of our favorite months of the year. These are our favorite scary stories to share with each other when sitting around a campfire or when traveling together for work.

This week’s story comes from our colleague Joy Stephens as she reflects on a spooky time in her youth. You’ll never guess the twist in this story, so we recommend you check it out for yourself…

When I was in middle school, I had a birthday party and my mom allowed me to have some friends sleep over.

One of my friends suggested we put on The Exorcist, which we were too young to watch at the time. Being the enterprising and dumb kids that we were, we found the videotape, waited for my parents to go to bed, and turned the VCR on to watch it as soon as we felt the coast was clear.

The movie was super scary (as expected) and the one friend who asked to watch was the only one of us “too cool” to be afraid.

BUT! Right at the exact moment when the possessed girl, Regan, spews green vomit at the priest, the VCR snapped off and the screen turned to static; at that EXACT MOMENT!

Everyone started screaming and running away, which made my dad get up, and since the house was creaky, his loud, heavy footsteps down the hall scared us even more.

We were all crying by the time my mom came in, cussed us all out for being awake, and called everyone’s mom to come get them at 12:30 pm, in the middle of the night.

A few years later we learned the twist to the story! It turns out that our VCR had a glitch in it, which caused it to turn off every night when the clock resets at midnight… but we didn’t know that because we’d never stayed up that late before.

After spending 25+ years in Corporate America, Joy decided to strike out on her own to pursue her passion of improving company cultures across the US and abroad. She is an executive coach, master facilitator, and the Chief Consultant of New Heights Academic & Leadership Consulting, LLC. She is an avid gamer, reader, anime fan, and foodie. Joy can be found on LinkedIn and YouTube.