Ultimate Walrus Presskit

Factsheet

Developer:
Ultimate Walrus
Based in Los Angeles, California

Founding date:
2003

Website:
ultimatewalrus.com

Press / Business Contact:
admin@ultimatewalrus.com

Social:
twitter.com/UltimateWalrus
facebook.com/UltimateWalrus

Releases:
Beat Bros

Phone:
(720)891-7027

Description

Ultimate Walrus is the handle under which Sebastian Janisz makes indie games. I've been making games for the past 18 years or so. Many of them are freeware available on my website. Sometimes my friends help out, most often my wonderful artist girlfriend Liana Sposto. I've had industry jobs but would like to make a living off of my own games some day. Until then, I'm available for all your freelance programming needs.

History

Early history

I started Ultimate Walrus approximately 12 years ago as a way to make my freeware games available. Since then over a dozen games have been released on the site. Many, including Beat Bros, Isopark, Dehumanizer, Trike, Snake 2, and Lackadaisium, enjoyed positive feedback and press.

Work

Among other things I worked as a programmer/designer for Disney Mobile's "Where's My Water" series. However I left to freelance because it was preventing me from continuing to make indie games. Nowadays I do part-time (at my request) programming work for Disney Consumer Products.

Current projects

After becoming a finalist in the CREATE gamejam for our entry, Beat Bros, it snowballed into a huge project that is now available to purchase on OUYA. Unfortunately the OUYA kinda flopped, so I ported it to PC and posted a Steam Greenlight campaign. Thankfully, the campaign succeeded, so you can look forward to seeing Beat Bros version 1.0 on Steam as soon as I get a chance to work on it! Trike was Greenlit as well, so my immediate priority is to finish that since it's smaller.

Projects

Beat Bros

Videos

Beat Bros PC Gameplay YouTube

Isopark playthrough YouTube

Dehumanizer gameplay YouTube

Trike trailer YouTube

Snake 2: The Global Game Jam Experience YouTube

Lackadaisium playthrough YouTube

Images

download all screenshots & photos as .zip (1MB)

There are far more images available for Ultimate Walrus, but these are the ones we felt would be most useful to you. If you have specific requests, please do contact us!

Logo & Icon

Awards & Recognition

"Kill Screen CREATE "Best Couch With Friends" Finalist" - Jan 25, 2013. www.killscreendaily.com/create/

Selected Articles

"Finally, a Video Game with Machine-Gun-Wielding Flying Snakes."
- Kirk Hamilton, Kotaku
"This is the only way a sequel to Snake could work."
- Tony Ponce, Destructoid
"...having played through more than a hundred [Global Game Jam games], I couldn’t help but urge you to take a look at just one for now. The short but excellent Mango Blue is well worth your time."
- Konstantinos Dimopoulos, Rock Paper Shotgun
"Worm-based indie games have been a little thin on the ground since 2007's Death Worm, but the invertebrates are back with a vengeance in Sebastian Janisz's Trike."
- Tom Sykes, PC Gamer
"Dehumanizer is a masterpiece of minimalism and an elegant game design to boot."
- Paul Hack, Indiegames.com
"Another fantastic Ludum Dare 29 entry... Playing on an isometric field while vertically scrolling the coral reef was a really different feeling for me..."
- John Polson, Indiegames.com
"lackadaisium is everything i want to see in games: it's personal, has a concise vocabulary of rules that it stretches in many clever directions, and tells its story entirely through play. "
- Anna Anthropy, Auntie Pixelante
"Somehow, this picture of serene and natural beauty was conjured up in just 48 hours, and that just seems so impressive to me."
- Chris Priestman, Indie Statik
"Trike's gameplay is brisk and claustrophobic..."
- Danny Cowan, Indiegames.com
"Lovely, peaceful and definitely isometric..."
- Konstantinos Dimopoulos, Indiegames.com
"Freeware Game Pick: Lackadaisium (Sebastian Janisz)"
- Tim W., Indiegames.com
"[Featured games: sᴀɴᴛᴀ, ｓｋｕｌｌ, Vertico]"
- Chris Priestman, Tim, Warpdoor