Boomzap Entertainment

Lore & Background

Boomzap was founded in 2005 by Christopher Natsuume and Allan Simonsen. Natsuume, the company's Creative Director, was formerly lead producer for Far Cry at Crytek. Simonsen, Technical Director, worked on the Spider-Man game for the Nokia N-Gage. The company operates as two legal entities: Boomzap Inc. in Washington, USA, and Boomzap Pte. Ltd. in Singapore, both private corporations owned by the founders. As of October 2017, the company employed 30 game developers working from Japan, Singapore, Russia, Ukraine, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines.

Boomzap's first game, Jelly Boom, was released on February 14, 2006. The company has since developed numerous titles including the Awakening series (eight titles as of November 2014), the Dana Knightstone series, the Otherworld series, and Antique Road Trip series. In October 2014, Boomzap announced a new brand called Boomzap Fight Club to house its free-to-play, mobile-first strategy games. The company's games are available on portals such as Big Fish Games, Yahoo!, WildTangent, GameHouse, Google Play, Amazon, iTunes, Steam, and others.

Reader's Guide

Boomzap Entertainment is significant in the game industry for pioneering a pure virtual office environment, a model that allowed the company to employ developers across multiple countries without a physical headquarters. This approach was documented in industry publications and highlighted in a Gamasutra feature article on April 1, 2010, which elaborated on their 'quick and dirty' production process for making games. The company's output of 50 games across numerous platforms demonstrates the viability of distributed development in the casual games sector. Boomzap also maintained an active presence in the independent game development community, with founders and staff speaking at conferences such as Game Connection, Casual Connect, Game Developers Conference, and Global Mobile Game Developers Conference, and helping coordinate chapters of the International Game Developers Association. Their participation in the Manila site of the Global Game Jam further underscores their engagement with the global indie scene. The Awakening series alone had been downloaded over 17 million times as of August 2014, indicating significant commercial reach.

Did You Know?

• Boomzap was founded in 2005 by Christopher Natsuume, former lead producer for Far Cry at Crytek, and Allan Simonsen, who worked on the Spider-Man game for the Nokia N-Gage.
• The company's first game, Jelly Boom, was released on February 14, 2006, and reached #1 on Boonty's Top Games chart.
• As of August 2014, games from the Awakening series had been downloaded over 17 million times on PC, Mac, and mobile devices.

Founding & The Virtual Office Experiment

Boomzap Entertainment was established in 2005 by Christopher Natsuume and Allan Simonsen, two veterans stepping down from the AAA game industry. Natsuume, who would serve as Creative Director, had previously led production on Far Cry at Crytek, while Simonsen, taking the Technical Director role, had contributed to the Spider-Man title on Nokia's N-Gage platform. Rather than leasing a traditional office space, the duo built the studio around a pure virtual office environment—a model so unusual that it attracted sustained industry attention. Articles in the Casual Games Association Magazine and Gamasutra examined their prototyping methods, and a feature piece published on Gamasutra on April 1, 2010, delved deeper into what the team called their "quick and dirty" production pipeline. The company operates through two private legal entities: Boomzap Inc. in Washington state and Boomzap Pte. Ltd. in Singapore, both wholly owned by the two founders. This lean, location-independent structure became the backbone of everything Boomzap would go on to build.

A Catalogue Built for Casual Players

Since releasing its debut title Jelly Boom on February 14, 2006—a block-puzzle game that climbed to the top of Boonty's chart—Boomzap has shipped roughly fifty games across an impressive spread of platforms including Windows, Mac OS X, Nintendo DS, Wii, iOS, and Android. The studio's catalogue spans genres and publishers: Hoyle Enchanted Puzzles (2007) peaked at number three on iWin's Top 100 and held a Top 10 spot for 21 days; the Jewels of Cleopatra match-three series earned 3.5-star reviews from Gamezebo for both its 2007 original and the 2008 Aztec Mysteries sequel; Orchard, funded by Singapore's Media Development Authority and signed by Majesco, hit number one on Amazon, Arcade Town, and PlayFirst upon its January 2009 launch. The Awakening hidden-object adventure franchise, published exclusively by Big Fish Games, grew to eight titles by late 2014, spanning PC, Mac, iPhone, and iPad. Distribution partners have included Big Fish Games, Yahoo!, WildTangent, GameHouse, Google Play, Amazon, iTunes, and Steam, cementing Boomzap as a consistent presence in the casual gaming space.

Speaking at the Front of the Indie Scene

Beyond shipping titles, Boomzap has cultivated a visible footprint in the global independent game development community. Founders Natsuume and Simonsen, along with other studio members, regularly take stages at major industry gatherings including Game Connection, Casual Connect, the Game Developers Conference, and the Global Mobile Game Developers Conference. The team also helps coordinate the various regional chapters of the International Game Developers Association, lending organizational muscle to a community that often lacks centralized structure. More recently, the studio participated in the Manila site of the Global Game Jam, a collaborative design sprint that brings together developers from around the world. In October 2014, Boomzap further diversified its public-facing identity by launching Boomzap Fight Club, a dedicated brand for free-to-play, mobile-first strategy titles. These combined efforts—conference talks, IGDA coordination, game jam participation, and a new sub-brand—position the studio not merely as a developer but as an active node in the broader casual and indie ecosystem.

A Distributed Team Across Eight Countries

What began as a two-person venture in 2005 had grown, by October 2017, into a team of thirty game developers spread across Japan, Singapore, Russia, Ukraine, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines. This geographic dispersion is not an accident but a deliberate extension of the pure virtual office philosophy the founders adopted from day one. The dual-entity structure—Boomzap Inc. in Washington and Boomzap Pte. Ltd. in Singapore—gives the studio a legal and operational footprint on two continents while keeping ownership entirely in the hands of Natsuume and Simonsen. The Singapore arm also benefited from institutional support: the Media Development Authority of Singapore provided funding for the Orchard game demo, which was subsequently picked up by publisher Majesco and released in January 2009. This blend of government-backed development support, a fully remote workforce, and a streamlined two-founder ownership model illustrates how Boomzap scaled its output to fifty titles across six major platforms without ever needing a single physical office.