Who do we want

• Someone who loves cozy games (i.e. cute, but broadly appealing; not necessarily kiddie)
• Ability to create highly polished animations for 2D puppets and collaborate with other artists on this process

Responsibilities

• Create dozens of expressive character animations in Unity for multiple entities
• Rig 2D puppets
• Work collaboratively to ensure that the final puppets and animations are polished, high quality, and full of personality!

Qualifications

• Fast 2D animation skills and strong portfolio examples
• Experience rigging 2D puppets for a Unity-based game
• Ability to communicate fluently in English, both verbally and written
• Conscientious and self-motivated 
• Can work remotely (i.e. has access to good, reliable internet connection and is a self-starting, self-managed kinda person.) 
• Located in North or South America, or willing to shift working hours to at least partially overlap with those of us in North America.

The following are a big plus but not strictly necessary:

• Experience with Unity’s 2D Animation package
• Experience with character customization
• Experience working with art and animation integration for games

What are we offering?

• Any necessary software licenses
• Interesting, highly original work in a small, supportive, and friendly team that views itself as a family first and a business second

We love to see candidates from under-represented backgrounds. If you think you might fit our needs but aren’t sure, please, don’t hold back! Send us your resume. The absolute worst that could happen is that we’ll receive your email with gratitude and let you know that while this opportunity might not be the best fit for you, others we’ll have in the future could be. Best case, you’ve got yourself a new job with people who are psyched that you took a chance on us.

Please send your full resume, references, and anything else you think we should see to jobs@spryfox.com.

What’s it like working for Spry Fox?

Spry Fox’s motto is “make the world a better place.” We try to do that through the games we make, whether that’s by designing our MMO, Steambirds Alliance, to be a game that encourages the development of friendships and discourages toxicity, or by designing our puzzle game, Alphabear 2, to promote English language learning. We’re always asking ourselves “how does this game improve your life?”

We also strive to be a company that is a pleasure to work for. We hope to be an important but not dominating part of your life. We want you to have friends, family, hobbies, and a life outside of work. We want you to love your colleagues and know that they support you 100%. We want you to be proud of what you do and how you do it.

We make highly original games. Invention is part of our DNA. You’ll be working on designs that often don’t fit in a comfy genre box.

We’re fully remote, which means you have the flexibility to work your 40 hours a week from where ever you like, and in whatever configuration you’d like. Take a mid-afternoon break to spend time with the kids! Start late because you’ve got a few errands to run this morning! As long as you have an overlap with your team almost every day, let people know what you’re up to, and don’t leave the rest of us hanging, almost anything goes.

We currently have Foxes in Europe, South Africa, South America, Canada, and the US. We have a retreat once a year to come together, bond, discuss the long-term future of projects and the company, and stay up way too late chatting around campfires.

We have lives outside of work. Lots of us have children. Different Foxes enjoy playing music, reading books, storytelling RPGs, solving rubiks cubes, talking politics, and/or traveling. Some of us even play games.

Spry Fox recognizes crunch is a negative and counter-productive practice in our industry. While we can’t pretend that we’ve never crunched before, we make a serious effort to limit it, and we consider more than a couple of weeks of crunch to be a failure of management — something to be learned from and avoided in the future. We have never crunched for more than six continuous weeks in the nine year history of our studio (and even that has faded far into distant memory.)

If you’d like to learn more about us, please watch this short documentary video about Spry Fox that was filmed a couple years back!

Who do we want

Spry Fox is looking for an artist to help us set the visual direction for our next big game. The ideal candidate has strong concept art skills as well as art direction experience working with 3D modelers and animators. Huge plusses include:

• A love of nonviolent worlds filled with both awe-inspiring outdoor spaces and intimate village life. 
• Ability to roll up your sleeves and actually do some of the modeling and animation in a pinch (but don’t worry, we’ll have many other artists on this particular project.)

Responsibilities

• Concepting the look of the game in collaboration with design and engineering.
• Draft the art bible defining the look of the game. 
• (As the above work is completed) transition to creating concept art for 3D modelers and animators. 
• Work with external partners to ensure that models and animations are produced to the quality level that we desire. 

Qualifications

• Strong portfolio of both character art and landscapes
• Fast 2D concepting and illustration skills
• Ability to communicate in English, both verbally and written
• Conscientious and self-motivated 
• Can work remotely (i.e. has access to good, reliable internet connection and is a self-starting, self-managed kinda person.) 

The following are a plus but not necessary. 

• Shipped some neat games as a lead artist or art director
• Knowledge of 3D modeling tools and processes
• Knowledge of 3D animation tools and processes
• Knowledge of 3D materials and shaders
• Experience using Unreal

What are we offering?

• 40 hours a week
• Any necessary software licenses
• Interesting, highly original work in a small, supportive, and friendly team that views itself as a family first and a business second

We love to see candidates from under-represented backgrounds. If you think you might fit our needs but aren’t sure, please, don’t hold back! Send us your resume. The absolute worst that could happen is that we’ll receive your email with gratitude and let you know that while this opportunity might not be the best fit for you, others we’ll have in the future could be. Best case, you’ve got yourself a new job with people who are psyched that you took a chance on us.

Please send your full resume, references, and anything else you think we should see to jobs@spryfox.com.

What’s it like working for Spry Fox?

Spry Fox’s motto is “make the world a better place.” We try to do that through the games we make, whether that’s by designing our MMO, Steambirds Alliance, to be a game that encourages the development of friendships and discourages toxicity, or by designing our puzzle game, Alphabear 2, to promote English language learning. We’re always asking ourselves “how does this game improve your life?”

We also strive to be a company that is a pleasure to work for. We hope to be an important but not dominating part of your life. We want you to have friends, family, hobbies, and a life outside of work. We want you to love your colleagues and know that they support you 100%. We want you to be proud of what you do and how you do it.

We make highly original games. Invention is part of our DNA. You’ll be working on designs that often don’t fit in a comfy genre box.

We’re fully remote, which means you have the flexibility to work your 40 hours a week from where ever you like, and in whatever configuration you’d like. Take a mid-afternoon break to spend time with the kids! Start late because you’ve got a few errands to run this morning! As long as you have an overlap with your team almost every day, let people know what you’re up to, and don’t leave the rest of us hanging, almost anything goes.

We currently have Foxes in Europe, South Africa, South America, Canada, and the US. We have a retreat once a year to come together, bond, discuss the long-term future of projects and the company, and stay up way too late chatting around campfires.

We have lives outside of work. Lots of us have children. Different Foxes enjoy playing music, reading books, storytelling RPGs, solving rubiks cubes, talking politics, and/or traveling. Some of us even play games.

Spry Fox recognizes crunch is a negative and counter-productive practice in our industry. While we can’t pretend that we’ve never crunched before, we make a serious effort to limit it, and we consider more than a couple of weeks of crunch to be a failure of management — something to be learned from and avoided in the future. We have never crunched for more than six continuous weeks in the nine year history of our studio (and even that has faded far into distant memory.)

If you’d like to learn more about us, please watch this short documentary video about Spry Fox that was filmed a couple years back!

The first Alphabear – a quirky English word puzzle game, for those of you who haven’t played it – was an award-winning and relatively popular game. It has been downloaded well over five million times. Our new sequel is bigger and better in every way. It has a full narrative, several new modes, a new Avatar system (yes, you can finally *be* a bear, not just play with bears), new dictionary tools (featuring Merriam-Webster), greatly enhanced “bear speech”, and more!

We could say so much more, but we’d rather you just play the game and see all the new goodness for yourself. Please check it out and let us know what you think!

Download Alphabear 2 for iOS!
Download Alphabear 2 for Android!

Who do we want?

You’ll be part of a prototyping project with one designer, one producer and two additional engineers. (The prototype has already been in development for almost a year and is showing lots of potential.) You’ll be working in Unreal Engine 4.

You must:

• Have at least five full years of professional game development experience
• Be very comfortable and experienced with C++
• Be very comfortable working remotely (we’re a virtual studio; everyone works from home!)
• Speak and write in fluent English
• Live in a US-adjacent timezone, or are willing to work funny hours to ensure at least partial overlap with those of us in the US-adjacent timezones (which is the majority of the studio, but not all of it.)
• Want to make the world a better place

While not required, it would be nice if you also:

• Have Unreal Engine 4 experience
• Have some multiplayer development experience
• Have interests outside of game development
• Have shipped several games

What are we offering?

• 40 hours a week
• Any necessary software licenses
• Interesting, highly original work in a small, supportive, and friendly team that views itself as a family first and a business second

We love to see candidates from under-represented backgrounds. If you think you might fit our needs but aren’t sure, please, don’t hold back! Send us your resume. The absolute worst that could happen is that we’ll receive your email with gratitude and let you know that while this opportunity might not be the best fit for you, others we’ll have in the future could be. Best case, you’ve got yourself a new job with people who are psyched that you took a chance on us.

Please send your full resume, references, and anything else you think we should see to jobs@spryfox.com.

What’s it like working for Spry Fox?

Spry Fox’s motto is “make the world a better place.” We try to do that through the games we make, whether that’s by designing our MMO, Steambirds Alliance, to be a game that encourages the development of friendships and discourages toxicity, or by designing our puzzle game, Alphabear 2, to promote English language learning. We’re always asking ourselves “how does this game improve your life?”

We also strive to be a company that is a pleasure to work for. We hope to be an important but not dominating part of your life. We want you to have friends, family, hobbies, and a life outside of work. We want you to love your colleagues and know that they support you 100%. We want you to be proud of what you do and how you do it.

We make highly original games. Invention is part of our DNA. You’ll be working on designs that often don’t fit in a comfy genre box.

We’re fully remote, which means you have the flexibility to work your 40 hours a week from where ever you like, and in whatever configuration you’d like. Take a mid-afternoon break to spend time with the kids! Start late because you’ve got a few errands to run this morning! As long as you have an overlap with your team almost every day, let people know what you’re up to, and don’t leave the rest of us hanging, almost anything goes.

We currently have Foxes in Europe, South Africa, South America, Canada, and the US. We have a retreat once a year to come together, bond, discuss the long-term future of projects and the company, and stay up way too late chatting around campfires.

We have lives outside of work. Lots of us have children. Different Foxes enjoy playing music, reading books, storytelling RPGs, solving rubiks cubes, talking politics, and/or traveling. Some of us even play games.

Spry Fox recognizes crunch is a negative and counter-productive practice in our industry. While we can’t pretend that we’ve never crunched before, we make a constant effort to limit it, and we consider more than a couple of weeks of crunch to be a failure of management — something to be learned from and avoided in the future. We have never crunched for more than six weeks in the nine year history of our studio.

If you’d like to learn more about us, please watch this short documentary video about Spry Fox that was filmed a couple years back!

The original version of Alphabear has been downloaded over four million times and has won numerous awards, including Google’s “Best Indie” award in 2016. This updated version of Alphabear has been enhanced and completely rebalanced. All free-to-play elements have been removed from the game and new features have been added, including:

• An in-game dictionary (so you can discover what your more inventive words actually mean!)
• A new “prestige” system, for people who complete the campaign and want to replay it at a higher difficulty level to continue challenging themselves.
• New random daily boards you can play.

In addition to the Google Play Award, Alphabear is Gamezebo’s best mobile game of 2015, and also received a Game Developers Choice Runner Up award for “Best Mobile Game” in 2015. We’ve been asked by thousands of you for a premium, less-grindy, pay-once version, and we hope this fits the bill!

So what are you waiting for? Visit Steam now to take advantage of our launch discount! Happy bearaphrasing!

By the way, if you like this video, the wonderful person who made it – Russ Pitts – is doing a Kickstarter to fund more videos of this sort! Please consider supporting Russ, he’s a real treasure.

In Bushido Bear, you play as the guardian of a forest that is being invaded by evil creatures, spirits and demons. You can collect additional guardians, each of whom has unique characteristics and abilities.

For example, Lone Cub is a tiny bear who easily dodges enemies but is slower than normal; he rains arrows down on his enemies when he makes a combo. Neo Bear is larger, speedier, and capable of slowing down time as he plans his maneuvers. And Chef Bear… well, let’s just say that he enjoys making sushi.

We could say more, but we’d rather you just played the game!! We really hope you like it.

• Bushido Bear for iPhones & iPads
• Bushido Bear for Android devices

The Spry Foxes

This is the story of one player who is good enough to exceed the score limit and was screwed (twice) by it, and who decided to take extraordinary measures to ensure his place at the top of the leaderboard.

The Story, Part 1

On 2012-06-16, Triple Town player Kim Hyo Jin emailed us to say that his 30M+ score had disappeared from the iOS leaderboard. At the time, we couldn’t figure out what went wrong and hoped it was a temporary glitch in either the leaderboard or the internet.

On 2012-12-09, Kim Hyo Jin emailed us again to report the same problem. This time, we realized that the issue was a 30M score cap on the iOS leaderboards–any score over 30M would get dropped. We emailed him back to let him know what was happening.

On 2012-12-14, in an email acknowledging our explanation of what was going on, Kim Hyo Jin also declared the following:

“P.S. I’m trying to make my score up to exactly 30M haha”

The Story, Part 2

Here at Spry Fox, we didn’t think about this much for the next 6 months. Then, on 2013-06-01, we received another email from Kim Hyo Jin:

“Hi! You remember me? I finally made my score of exact 30M hahahaha!!!!!”

This is epic for two reasons. First, 30M is a really high score–many players are still working on breaking 1M for the first time, and some haven’t even set their sights that high yet. Second, ending on a particular score is not easy, either, because of the random elements of the game.

What follows are the screenshots Kim Hyo Jin sent us detailing the final moments of his 30M-exact game.

The Screenshots

The final moments begin here. Kim Hyo Jin has 3 spaces left on the board and is 60 points away from 30M.

In this picture, the coin balance is 75 lower than it was previously, suggesting that an Undo was purchased.

Purchasing a Bush–one of three remaining in inventory. Notice that Kim Hyo Jin is also already out of Crystals, Imperial Bots, and Trees.

That was smart! Bushes give 20 points. The Grass he had in-hand would have given him only 5.

A second Bush is purchased…

…and placed for another 20 points. One more space, 20 points to go…

Purchasing a third Bush, the last one in his in-game store’s inventory.

The Bush is placed for 20 points, and fills the last empty space on the board. Success! Game Over with 30M points exactly!

Here he is, tied at 30M with a number of other players at the top of the iOS All-Time Standard Map Leaderboard.

Congratulations!

• Out of Bots, Crystals, and Trees, and down to his very last Bush, Kim Hyo Jin pulls off the exact 30M Game Over!
• The final game lasted in excess of 67,000 turns.
• Our heartfelt congratulations to Kim Hyo Jin, whose year-long pursuit of the top of the leaderboard eventually ended in success!

Epilogue

• In September 2013, we increased the upper limit on the iOS leaderboards from 30M to 40M.
• Kim Hyo Jin followed a similar approach to finish a game with a score of exactly 40M and is currently alone at the top of the Standard Map leaderboard on iOS. The screenshots he shared indicate a game that lasted over 117,000 turns.

Using a Road Not Taken mod created by someone else

• Make sure that you’re running v731 or later. You can check your version number in the game’s options menu.
• Browse to the directory where you’ve installed Road Not Taken. (Follow these instructions to find it.)
• Browse to mods/
• In the “mods” folder, paste in a folder containing the mod you want to use. The “mod1” folder is there as an example. Note that you should not overwrite the mod1 folder (this won’t break the game, but if you ever want to get into modding, you’ll probably want to start from the default and/or have a copy of the default to refer back to).
• Launch the game, open the options menu, and choose Select Mod.
• The folder you just added should be listed. Choose it.
• The game will say that you will have to manually restart it. Agree. The game will close. 
• Launch the game again.

Creating a new mod for Road Not Taken

• Browse to the directory where you’ve installed Road Not Taken
• Browse to mods/
• There is one mod installed by default. This is the directory named mod1/.  Each mod is a directory of all the config files and art assets used by that mod.
• To create your own new mod, copy /mod1 to a new directory under the parent mods/ directory. Name it something unique. Example: “/mod/mod2”
• Edit the config files as you desire in a text editor.

To play your mod

• Load the game
• Open the options menu
• Select mods
• Selected your new mod. For example “mod2”
• You’ll be prompted to restart the game.
• On restarting the game, you’ll begin a game using your new mod config settings.

Some important notes on modding the game

• Each mod has its own saved game file. If you switch between mods, you’ll be starting a new game.
• It is possible to change the config files in such a way that the game won’t run. Keep a backup of the original files so you don’t get make a mistake you can’t recover from.
• You can always switch back to the default game mode from the mod menu.

List of important files

In your mod directory will be a list of config files. This is where the majority of the game is defined.

• config_basics: Global properties for the game.
• config_boosts: Properties for charms
• config_crafting: Crafting recipes
• config_objects: Object definitions and properties.
• config_rooms: Custom room definitions and properties
• config_years_version1: Difficulty settings per year for normal difficulty mode. Also timed mode difficulty.
• config_years_version2: Difficulty settings for hard difficulty.
• english.JSON: Complete text for the game.

Exercises

Modify an object

• Load config_objects into a text file.
• Scroll down till you find “big_food”. This is the honey object.
• Edit the energy property to be 20 instead of 10.  All objects are composed of properties and behaviors. The honey now is worth 20 energy when you walk over it.
• You can add new properties to an object just by adding a new properties to the list.

Types of objects

There are several types of objects in the game.

• Lock objects: These objects are used for locks. To specify a lock object include the property:
  • ,”locks”:{ “dist_1_to_999”: {“amount”:[5,6,7],”move_to_other_room”:[0,1,2],”move_to_dist”:[1]} }
  • “dist_1_to_999” means that this lock can be used in any room that is a distance of 1 to 999 away from the starting room with the mayor. To calculate distance, just count the number of doors you need to go through to get to a room.
  • “amount”:[5,6,7]: This means there is a random chance that the lock will need 5,6 or 7 objects to open the door. [a,b,c,d] is how we specify distributions. [0,1] for example means there’s a 50% chance of getting a 1.
  • “move_to_other_room”:[0,1,2] means that of the amount, we’ll move 0,1 or 2 items into another room.  This splits up the lock and makes it harder to solve.
  • “move_to_dist”:[1] means that the objects that are moved will move a distance of 1.  Objects are always moved closer to the origin so we don’t get insolveable rooms. 

• Challenge objects: These objects add difficulty to the game. To specify a Challenge object be sure to add the following:
  • ,”difficulty”:50
    • A difficulty of 10 means the object will spawn in easier rooms.
    • A difficulty of 20 to 30 means the object will spawn in medium difficulty rooms.
    • A difficulty above 30 means the object will spawn in harder rooms.
  • ,”add_as_extra_object”:{“min_dist”:1,”max_dist”:99,”max_amount”:8}
    • This specifies where to add the object.
• Decoration: These objects don’t do anything except look pretty. See “town_dock” as an example in config_objects.
• NPCs: These objects move around the village and the forest and you can talk to them. See “npc_girl_nature” in config_objects

Creating a new object

• Copy an existing object in the config and paste it into a new location in config_objects
• Be sure to give your new object a unique name.
• Modify the the properties as desired.
• In english.JSON, be sure to specify the name of the object in the “object_texts” section. The game may not load if you don’t specify this.
  • If you are running the game in a language other than english, you’ll need to modify the appropriate language file as well.

Common problems

My mod isn’t running on my Mac

We are unfortunately aware of a problem where Macs won’t pick up the mod. We have investigated but still do not know how to fix the problem at this time. If you have access to a Windows computer, your mod should run there–you can create the mod on either Windows or Mac, but it can only run on Windows.

I don’t know what all these properties and behaviors do!

There are tons of properties and behaviors in the game. Ideally we’d like to document them at some point in the future. For now, the best bet is to find an object that uses the property and play with it a bit.  That will generally tell you how it works.  Next make a new object that includes the property and see if it does what you want it to do.  Don’t be afraid to ask other modders questions!

My new object isn’t showing up in the Book of Secrets

Add the name of your object to “secret_objects” in config_basics

I created a new folder for my mod, and now the game doesn’t launch

Remove/replace any spaces from your folder name. Spaces in the folder name will prevent the game from launching.

The Options Menu of my mod doesn’t work

A few files in the mod1 folder are missing some lines. This is what is breaking the Options Menu. Please make the changes described on this page: https://spryfox.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/218503928

Hi folks! We’re pleased to announce the first major FREE update to Road Not Taken! Today’s Steam update includes:

• New “just for fun” Timed Mode: try to rescue all the kids within four minutes! You lose time whenever you take damage, and you add time to the clock whenever you eat food and rescue children. Timed Mode has no impact on your career, so it’s a great way to enjoy Road Not Taken for a few minutes with limited stress.

• New creatures: the Forest Kraken and the Golem (and for those who haven’t yet noticed it in our previous micro-update, the Ninja Bear!) These guys add a little spice to the early years of your career!

• “Easier” mode and hard mode: In our previous micro-update, we split the game into two modes, Normal and Hard. “Hard” is basically our original gameplay mode with a few tweaks; “Normal” is more generous with energy and had less crowded rooms, among other changes. Checkpoints are also less punishing to use now. We’ve done more work in this update and now consider these features “complete!” This should make the game much more accessible to new users.

• Mod support!: Now you can edit everything about the game, including the properties of objects and levels, make your own hand-crafted puzzle rooms and more, and share your work with your friends! Running a mod will prevent your game from uploading scores to the leaderboards (to keep them pure/fair.) Also, please note that using mods is something you do at your own risk! We’re a very small studio and can’t be expected to prevent or to fix every issue that could arise in the zillions of possible mods that can be created. We’re excited to see those zillions of possibilities emerge though. Detailed instructions on how to use and create mods can be found here.

These changes (except mod support, sorry!) are coming to the PS4 for free as well as soon as they clear QA and certification! It’ll be a few weeks, but it’s definitely coming.