A curious thing happened this spring here at the Dragon Flower Farm. All manner of daffodils sprouted up and rung their little bells to signal the change of season. It was curious because this is our second spring here at the farmhouse, and last year, we didn't get this kind of show. We think the latency might be because the year we bought our house, the developer who flipped it had basically razed the grounds down to nothing but short grass and nubs. Since bulbs won't flower again if you cut their leaves too early, they might have gone into a bit of shock from that defoliation and needed time to recover. The neighbors told us the yard used to be full of flowers every spring, and now we can see it for ourselves! Continue reading

Our house turns 115 this year, and that's something to celebrate. Built in the year of the iconic St. Louis World's Fair, she's a solid, sturdy old gal with a few frills and flounces that tell you her history. Let me give you a tour. Continue reading

Whoa?! My stepson, Zander, must have been practicing yoga since birth to have such an advanced Reverse Prayer Pose, right? He should totally be an Instagram yogi star. #yogapose #yogafit #yogabody #yogafitness #yogaaddict #yogagram #yogaholic Continue reading

It seems to be a truism here at Brunette Games that the only thing that's constant is change. In that spirit, I bring you another announcement: Anthony Valterra is joining the Brunette Games team. Continue reading

Last spring, I flew to Copenhagen for a whirlwind week of concept brainstorming with the awesome team at Tactile Entertainment. The seeds of that work have now come to full fruition: Lily's Garden. Continue reading

This time I'm here to share the last chapter of the fence-install story, and it's a shocker. Continue reading

Perhaps you noticed. We have a new logo. Continue reading

Stephens' biggest argument against set sequences is "the potential strain caused by doing repetitive actions." The example he gives is from the primary series in Ashtanga Vinyasa style, which leads yogis through Chaturanga Dandasana more than 50 times. Continue reading

Making games involves a lot of hard work, sweat, and yes, some tears. So when the opportunity comes along to take a step back from the computer and celebrate, we take it. Continue reading

My yoga practice began 25 years ago - with a yoga video tape I played on a VCR at home. Continue reading

Lisa Brunette is an award-winning novelist, journalist, game designer, and longtime blogger. Originally from the Midwest, she spent 20 years in "outer space," otherwise known as Miami and the Pacific Northwest, but now she's returned to her roots... to dig in the soil and define good living for herself. Continue reading

As a (no longer closeted as of right now) HGTV addict, I said "yes" immediately when a producer with Firecraft Studios approached me about working with him on this game. It was a great opportunity to craft a robust narrative for the Match-3 genre. Continue reading

My latest game project was more like writing poetry than anything else. GSN Games asked me to create a love story for their popular game series, Bingo Bash. Here's the catch: The entire story had to fit into the tiny space inside a bingo room, and that meant each line had to be only 27 characters or less. Continue reading

"Suction" hits it for me. Just watch a person's eyes light up when you say, "Let me tell you a story..." Continue reading

Is 60 seconds enough time to prepare for a nuclear apocalypse? Polish indie developer Robot Gentleman tries to give players the tools to answer that question—but you'll have to choose between saving your daughter and saving three cans of soup. Continue reading

One of the selling points of participating in Arcade Jam 2018 was that our games would all be on display at GameXPloration, a new exhibit at the Science Center. Continue reading

Lifeline: Crisis Line is a well-woven tale of mystery and suspense. Continue reading

Woman on the Bridge is my third interactive novel and sixth book-length work, all of them in the mystery genre. I'm really excited to bring new levels of character options to players, in terms of truly co-creating who you want your character to be based on the choices she makes both for herself and in relation to others. I'm also trying to push the boundaries of the interactive format, crafting meaningful choices without sacrificing plot cohesion. As a game writer/designer, it's a delicate balance between freedom and control, and I'm always thinking about the player as a character with will and agency, a very different kind of writing than when working on linear novels. Continue reading

We need stories like we need air. They tell us who we are every minute, they help us make sense of the world, they connect us with our own emotions, and they foster empathy for our fellow humans. Continue reading

Among other projects, Elisa will be pitching in on Survivors: The Quest, ensuring that we don't go stale on a title I've been designing and writing for two years and seven locations, including an alien crash-landing, jungle insurgents, a case of parallel dimension twins, and a volcanic vortex. I can't wait to see where she goes from there! Continue reading

But now we're at that flex point where the original blog, Cat in the Flock, can no longer contain Brunette Games. So it's time to split the sites. Continue reading

We are the narrative team behind the chart-topping games Matchington Mansion and My Beauty Spa: Stars & Stories, as well as hundreds of other best-in-class casual games and interactive novels. Continue reading

Last week I wrote about my dramatic transition from professor to CEO over the course of 2018, so by now you've got a sense of how epic the year was. But in addition to working on nine different games for six different clients, we also managed to bang out a blog post each week. You might be surprised which ones rose to the top. We were! I'm particularly excited to see one of my team members' game reviews rise to the #3 spot, as it shows there's readerly interest in the full range of voices that make up Brunette Games. Continue reading

Not many people would give up the chance for a college teaching post, especially after moving clear across the country to take the job. When my husband and I pulled up stakes in Washington in 2017 and set down roots in Missouri, it was with the full intention that I would stay on with Webster University after the one-year "visiting" post ended. But the fit just was not there, for a whole bunch of reasons, and I'm still grieving that realization. At the same time, I had some major successes in the game space that garnered an avalanche of attention. Continue reading