Game Design & Creative Consultation
- About Giantsdance
- Design & Creative Services
- Sample Games
- Links & News
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Giantsdance Games is a game design and consultancy company where our experience helps you make better games based on your ideas and intellectual properties. Clients
Why "Giantsdance"? This word is a very old name for Stonehenge, the ancient wonder that presides over the Salisbury plain. But here,"Giantsdance" is evocative of ideas that are at once Big, Fun and Earthshaking. Those concepts serve as the touchstones for every game project we work on. Who ARE you people? Giantsdance is a Sole Proprietorship of Andy Ashcraft, a game industry veteran since 1995. Andy has worked as a game designer and creative manager, 3d artist and animator, production manager and producer, but the majority of his expertise - and his enthusiasm - is as a game designer. See Andy's full resumé here: (updated August 25th, 2009) |
Published Titles (in chronological order): |  |
World of Zoo (Blue Fang/THQ, Wii & PC) - Andy managed the creative aspects with developer Blue Fang on this beautiful game due out this year. |
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Lock's Quest (5th Cell/THQ, NintendoDS) - As a Creative Manager for THQ, Andy worked closely with external developer 5th Cell on this award-winning DS game. | |
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God of War 2 (SCEA, PS2) - Andy jumped in at alpha to help the team place and debug cameras throughout the levels. | |
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Warhawk (SCEA, PS3) - Andy worked closely with other designers on basic gameplay, level designs, character designs and vehicle designs. | |
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War of the Monsters (SCEA, PS2) - Andy joined Sony at the end of the project, but managed to get his hands on some of the character designs. | |
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Floigan Bros. (Visual Concepts/Sega, Dreamcast) - Andy was hired as a game designer, but ended up managing the team and getting the game shipped. | |
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Return to Krondor (7th Level/Sierra, PC) - Originally hired as a game designer, Andy also took over the producing reins for a time. | |
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Muppet Treasure Island (Activision, PC) - Andy was consulted to organize the interactive script. |
Let my experience work for you. Changes are washing over the video game industry. There is enormous potential for games to reach a much broader market than they ever have before. At the same time, there is significantly more competition for our audience's time, interest and dollars. As Giantsdance Game Design, Andy can provide his production experience and passion for great games to your game project. With his expertise, the quality of your game can shine through the storm and find the audience your idea deserves. |
Here are just some of the ways that Giantsdance can help you make your game the best it can be:
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| Download and Enjoy!
Frequently, I have ideas for board games, card games, role-playing game mechanics and other bits and pieces of games. Those ideas that prove out to be fun and entertaining will be posted here for you to download, print and play. |
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Piranha! Could a card game model a school of bloodthirsty fish? Print 6 copies of these cards, and as many copies as you like of these rules to find out. This game resulted from a quick exercise from the excellent Game Design Workshop at the 2007 GDC. |
More to Come! |
| Links
I periodically write about non-game related topics here on Open Salon. My lovely and talented wife, Jackie Kashian! More to Come! |
News
(8/24/'09) Just in! My mom says, "That is a VERY professional looking web page. I like the colors and the light hearted approach. I believe there is such a thing as overkill on the professional part. Good Luck. I hope folks flock to your door. Remember, you need enough money to support both Fran and I in the style to which we want to become accoustomed. Love ya. MOM." (8/19/'09) I've just had the pleasure of reviewing some excellent game design from Recoil Games. It's a great project that I'm proud to have as my first work as Giantsdance Games. (8/14/'09) Besides the ever-increasing professionalism of this website (thank you Ed B. and Andrew S!), I've also posted a little card game - called Piranha - that I mocked up after an excellent Game Design Workshop at GDC in 2007. You can find it under the Sample Games tab. - AndyA |