WHITETHORN GAMES
Whitethorn Games is an indie game publisher focused on pleasant, cozy games that can be played in pieces, require no special skills or knowledge, and that anyone can pick up and play. Whitethorn Games believes in accessibility, inclusion, and widening the audience that gets to play. They are the defenders of easy games.
While games published by Whitethorn might challenge you, they’ll respect your time, make sure you can play, and most importantly, never punish you.
This year, Whitethorn Games featured a variety of games at PAX West 2022, including APICO, a laid-back beekeeping sim; Calico, a game about magical girls who run a cat cafe; Onsen Master, a hot spring management sim; Princess Farmer, a game where you play as a magical bunny farmer, RE: Call, a mind-bending puzzle game, and The Forest Cathedral, a first-person psychological thriller.
Sam: This is Sam with Game Raven here at Pax and I'm interviewing Whitethorn Games. Please start with your name and your position with the company.
Brian: I am Brian Wilson, Scout and lead business developer at Whitethorn Games as well as developer of The Forest Cathedral.
Sam: Alright. Coming to PAX, how has your experience been so far?
Brian:Yeah, it’s really amazing. It's good to be back. We're here last year. And obviously, everyone's back and it’s good to see everyone showing up — all the big companies and the smaller companies. We're just happy to be here showing our games.
Sam: As for last year, I believe we spoke late last year — I’m not sure if it was you specifically — but I remember last year playing Lake and really liking it.
Brian: Yeah.
Sam: For this slew of games you have this year, what are some of the most exciting titles that you have here this year?
Brian: Yeah, I mean, we're really excited about Onsen Master that actually just released a few days ago. It's a little crazy to launch a game while you're at PAX but, you know, we’re doing it. We also have some upcoming titles such as The Forest Cathedral, RE:Call, as well as APICO and Calico.
Sam: Alright, alright. Are all of these titles are just on Steam or will they all go to console? Where can we find these games?
Brian: Yeah, almost every game are on Steam and all platforms. You can find them on Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox?
Sam: With the development of all these games, what has been some of the biggest hurdles you guys like, kind of got over?
Brian: Yeah, I mean, game development is hard, everyone knows that. Obviously COVID took a toll on just personal lives and development time; things get shifted around. But we're kind of recovering from that. It's just funny how the industry is always changing, always growing, and we as a publisher have to adapt to that — new platforms and trends — but there's so many good games out there and we're not going to support the ones we have.
Sam: Absolutely, and all those good games Whitethorn does have a good many of those as well. And again, last question: is the one thing you would want our listeners to know about Whitethorn or any of these games coming out?
Brian: We really have games for everyone: accessibility options and usability options in all our games. We have usability and accessibility specialist right in house who is leading the charge on making games playable for everyone. I don't think we're doing enough in that space as an industry at all, but it is the current trend we're seeing. And we're just trying to make games for everyone.
Sam: Brian, thanks for joining me here you have a great rest of your PAX.
Brian: Thank you.