Brunette Games Founder Lisa Brunette is a member of the Professional Women's Alliance, a group of civic-minded entrepreneurs and corporate leaders who aspire to grow personally and professionally through relationships. As a woman-owned company with a majority female staff, Brunette Games receives camaraderie and support from affiliation with PWA. We also enjoy the chance to give a hand up to others by promoting the PWA Scholarship Fund. Continue reading

Brunette Games is proud to announce the release of the story-driven puzzle game City Escape Garden Blast Story. It has been a true team effort to create the Filburn family and their world in collaboration with client Sparkling Society. Lisa Brunette, Dexter Woltman, and I all had a hand in writing and designing this game, with Lisa providing the initial concept and Dexter and I designing the chapter narratives and task flows as well as writing all dialogue. In City Escape, the Filburn family—Melanie, David, Chloe, and Ben—flee the hustle and bustle of city life to create a home on a farm in the countryside. But do the Filburns have what it takes to run their own homestead? Their grumpy neighbor Owen certainly doesn’t think so! Continue reading

Here in St. Louis, folks often quote Mark Twain as having once opined: If you don't like the weather in Missouri, just wait a few minutes. Continue reading

Last fall we were treated to a long 'Indian summer,' with temps in the 70s to low 80s (that's balmy and beautiful for those of you on celsius) throughout September and October. Weather like that is perfect for painting projects because the paint goes on smoothly and dries quickly, and you're not miserable working in the heat or cold. Besides that cool blue dining room redo, we also tackled the front and back entrance door exteriors, in addition to a row of gingerbread ball finials lining the top of our front porch. Continue reading

While our studio focus is designing and writing for games, we have made noted forays into traditional book publishing. This includes Anthony Valterra's publication of a roleplaying guide governing the romantic lives of characters from the bestselling fantasy RPG (The Book of Erotic Fantasy) and our founder Lisa Brunette's mystery series, The Dreamslippers. While the former is now sadly out of print, the latter is alive and well, and it's the subject of a big sale on ebooks. During 'Read an Ebook Week' from March 6-12, you can download copies at deep discounts from Smashwords. Continue reading

Smashwords, a global ebook distributor, offers book lovers an opportunity to discover thousands of independently published ebooks. On any given day, the site offers affordably priced ebooks for immediate sampling, purchase, and download. During 'Read an Ebook Week' from March 6-12, those already affordably priced books are further discounted anywhere from 25 to 100 percent! Continue reading

Last spring I shared with you one sexy idea that yielded something even sexier: measurable cost savings on our utility bill during last year's snowpocalypse. Simply wrapping your pipes with something like mini pool noodles could help you fight climate change without breaking your bank or requiring major dietary changes. Now I'm back with another hot plan to save the world, and this time I mean jeans. Continue reading

We're pleased to announce that Jenna Hume and Dexter Woltman will represent Brunette Games at the Game Development Conference this year. Continue reading

We're excited to share that Brunette Games CCO Lisa Brunette's latest piece for ironSource LevelUp is live! The Top 5 Mistakes Game Mystery Writers Make - and How to Avoid Them covers everything from how to develop your characters with a light hand to how to keep from revealing too much too soon, or too little too late. With hundreds of mystery game titles to her credit, not to mention a bestselling novel series in the genre, Brunette's expertise is tried-and-true: Continue reading

I've been reading mysteries since I cracked open my first Nancy Drew novel back when I first learned to read. I'm the author of the Dreamslippers amateur sleuth series, and I've personally steered the storylines on hundreds of mystery-themed story games over a 14-year career in the game industry. I've had the opportunity to analyze when, why, and how mysteries work, and I make a living through a skilled understanding of how to fix them when they don't. Continue reading

American pop culture has long been dominated by the stories of its two most notorious cities: New York and Los Angeles. With the book-publishing industry set in one and the movie industry in the other, the narratives of the great flyover heartland have never really had their due. My hometown in particular is wildly underrated as fodder for entertainment, so it was with great interest that I picked up St. Louis Noir, a collection of short stories (and poetry) set in the River City, written by local writers. Continue reading

In October the weather finally cooled off enough to open up the windows and tackle a huge painting project that had been on our to-do list for a while: the dining room. Continue reading

I've enrolled the entire Dreamslippers Series - all 3 books plus the boxed set - in the Smashwords end-of-year sale, with discounts of 25-75% off the ebook price across the series. If you already own copies of the novels, consider giving the ebooks as gifts. The sale lasts through Jan. 1. Continue reading

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We're pleased to announce Jenna Hume's promotion from writer | designer I to II. She joined us a year ago at the writer | editor level, quickly proving she has what it takes to succeed as a game writer as well as designer. She earned her first promotion after her initial six weeks on the job. Now, a year later, she's earned yet another promotion. It's been an eventful year for Jenna, having worked on six released games already, with many more new titles now in development. During this time, she also managed to execute a gamer-themed, pandemic-era wedding (you might have known her as Jenna 'Faulkner'), a honeymoon, and a move to a new apartment. Whew! Continue reading

Many of the games we write feature a garden as a key renovation space. In Merge Mansion and Lily's Garden, the garden is the main game-play focus - at least at the game's outset. Lily's great aunt was a somewhat eccentric gardener and beekeeper, and in Merge Mansion, Grandma Ursula seems mysteriously reluctant to set foot back inside the mansion she's kept hidden away all these years. That's quite all right, as Maddie's pretty content to putter around outside. While the grounds are secondary to the interior decorating in Matchington Mansion, it's an exciting moment when you move out to tackle the overgrown yard, especially when your neighbor-the-gardener shows up. The first thing the protagonist in Ava's Manor does is spruce up the garden, before she's even set foot inside the old British manor. And while we love decorating the many shops in Sweet Escapes, it's the outside areas that often pique our greatest interest: Who can forget the moment when Duncan jumps through the giant donut hole? Continue reading

If you've ever thought to yourself, "There are just so many books, and so little time," you're not alone. That's the BooksShelf.com motto. A look through their wide range of offerings - everything from mystery to manatees - proves that we could all definitely could use more time to read books. The BooksShelf.com team is a group of seven book lovers who work to promote authors and their books. And they've chosen Cat in the Flock as their Editor's Choice Book of the Week! Continue reading

One of my favorite seasonal tasks when autumn arrives is to rake leaves. In mid-November, thanks to a wild windstorm here in the Pacific Northwest that left us without power for 30 hours, the final batches of leaves descended from the two giant maple trees holding court in our front yard. Continue reading

This year marked the first time we've reached for three full harvests throughout the growing season: early spring, peak summer, and late fall. Continue reading

If you're like me, you've been checking out of the whole black-Friday-mad-rush thing since waaaay before COVID. While I do like to make sure I buy local from independent retailers, and I'm lucky enough to have a whole quaint downtown suite of them within walking distance, on the day after Thanksgiving, I do all of my shopping online. Continue reading

This is a rhubarb custard pie, baking inside our Sun Oven. So yes. The answer is yes, you can bake a pie in a solar oven! Here's how. Continue reading

I fell hard for the bees last year when I joined a citizen-science program called Shutterbee. So I signed up again this year, and... I think my crush has grown into a full-blown obsession! Continue reading

We received our third conservation award this summer - this time from the organization Wild Ones, which promotes native plant gardening. They've designated our yard a Native Plant Butterfly Garden. We're now part of a network of gardens providing needed habitat for butterflies across the United States. Continue reading

Last time we mentioned solar cooking, we introduced you to the sun-sational (that pun can't help itself) Sun Oven and showed you how we used it to cook a pot of rice. This time I'm all about the meat, which turns out to be a great thing to cook the solar way. Continue reading