Studio History
Lantana Games was founded in 2009 at the height of the indie boom. Since our founding we have focused on games that straddle the line between education and entertainment, focusing on topics such as American History and Art History. Our goal as a studio is to return to the glory days of educational entertainment, with games from The Learning Company, MECC, Humongous Entertainment, and Broderbund Software acting as inspiration.
We have been featured in several major publications, such as VentureBeat, Mashable, Rock Paper Shotgun, The Boston Globe, Polygon, and PC Gamer. We have also won several awards including the 2016 Indie Revolution “Audience Choice Award” and inclusion in the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s 2016 “Indie Arcade” exhibit.
Our Games
Children of Liberty was released in Early Access on April 18, 2014. Children of Liberty is a kid’s stealth adventure about Paul Revere’s Ride featuring hand-drawn cartoon aesthetics in a fully realized, historically accurate 3D world. This is our longterm passion project. Though it has not received an update in a couple years, we have been working diligently to upgrade both the game’s front and backend, reimagining gameplay systems for a more robust experience, and upgrading the game into Unity 2018. Children of Liberty has been featured in Venturebeat, Mashable, PC Gamer, Rock Paper Shotgun, Polygon, and many, many more publications, as well as being a Kickstarter featured project and winning a GameDev.Net “Image of the Day.”
Mondrian – Abstraction in Beauty was released on September 21, 2015. The original Mondrian combined Neoplastic modernist aesthetics and orbital brickbreaking gameplay into a dynamically generated exploration of videogame art history. Abstraction in Beauty was featured as the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s “Indie Arcade” exhibit and won the 2016 Indie Revolution Expo’s “Audience Choice Award.” It was featured in Kill Screen among a few other publications, and currently holds a 90% rating on Steam.
Mondrian – Plastic Reality is the followup to Abstraction in Beauty. Released in Early Access on January 5, 2018, this new Mondrian features 5 playable characters – Piet Mondrian, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Hale Woodruff, Andy Warhol, and Loïs Mailou-Jones – and explores their lives and works in an all new Campaign game mode. The game is focused on user-generated content, built using the all new Mondrian Maker level editor, which we are also using to build the game. Our goal is to have this new Mondrian be a home for artistic gamers to express themselves and share their art with the world.
The Team
Lantana Games is not your traditional game development studio. We focus on mentoring college-level developers and giving them their first opportunities in the industry. We have worked with students from Becker College, the Savannah College of Art and Design, Northeastern University, Berklee College of Music, Lesley University, MassArt, and Mt. Ida. Students get the chance to work on commercial products in their areas of expertise while getting the chance to also learn new skills that will push their careers even further. In just over three years, we have worked with over 25 students who have gone onto exciting careers at companies like Harmonix, Riot, Microsoft, Wayfair, Vicarious Visions, and National Geographic, among others.
Core Members
Danny Silvers is CEO and founder of Lantana Games. He is a 2009 graduate of the Savannah College of Art and Design. He has served multiple roles throughout the company, including game designer, creative director, business developer, level designer, and in some cases programmer. He has served as Creative Director on Children of Liberty since 2014; and Project Lead, Game Designer, and Programmer on the entire Mondrian series. He also co-founded the Boston Festival of Indie Games in 2012.
Brian Wang is a 2009 graduate of Framingham State University. He has been Project Lead, Technology Lead, Game and Systems Designer on Children of Liberty since 2014, and has overseen Lantana Games’ technical workflow, from Slack through Unity. His Project Management talents have helped to solidify the roles of Lantana Games’ student teams, keeping development on or ahead of schedule with each semester’s new crew. He has also served as technology and design adviser on the entire Mondrian series.
Christine Amato is a 2015 graduate of the Savannah College of Art and Design, having graduated with honors. She has been Lantana Games’ lead animator for 2 and a half years, and has made major contributions to Children of Liberty and the Mondrian series in both animated and static art assets. Check out her work at https://www.christineamato.com/
Hannah Hoyt is a 2014 graduate of Berklee College of Music. She has been Lantana Games’ lead composer since around the time of her graduation, and composed the soundtrack for Children of Liberty as well as contributed to both Mondrian games’ soundtracks. She is the Artist in Residence at Opera Carolina and has composed several films and web series as well. A sampling of her work on Children of Liberty can be found on Youtube.
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