Sure, we all know that toothbrushes and floss are good for keeping your teeth a sparkly gleaming white, and for avoiding the bi-annual lecture about the importance of oral hygeine at your friendly neighbourhood dental office.  But, to the resourceful, a backpack full of oral care products can be the key to unlocking an age old mystery.

Such a resourceful gent is Mr. Reach - the man with the flip-top head from the Reach television commercials of the early 90s - and that’s why he’s the star of our latest advergame release “Mr. Reach: In the Mouth of Mystery.”  We’ve sent him around the world in search of his missing friend, Jerry the Narrator, armed only with ingenuity and a collection of Reach toothbrushes and floss.

The gameplay is classic quest-style, but what I love about this game is the detail in the illustration and matte paintings.  This is a great example of creating a graphically rich gaming experience without relying on 3d modelling, and a great example of why I love working with such talented people. 

If you’re not convinced from the exceedingly dramatic trailer, check out the game for yourself.  If you happen to be Canadian, you can win a trip for two to Aruba.  If you’re not, it’s still a fun game, and you’re probably warmer right now, so consider it a trade-off.

I mentioned earlier that we’d scored a shutout in the nominations for Billboard Magazine’s DEMMX Advergame of the Year, so when the awards were announced yesterday, we knew we were winning something.

What we were NOT expecting was to win for all three.

Apparently due to the quality of all three projects, and the fact that they were all done by one company, the jury opted to award Fuel Industries a three-way tie for first place in the Advergame of the Year category. 

These games won because they’re innovative, and a lot of the thanks for that has to go to our clients, who weren’t afraid to take a bit of a chance on new technologies and on wacky ideas (like making cartoon characters vomit on each other and cut each other with swords…).  If any of our clients at BSSP and Sprite, HBO or FOX are reading - thanks to all of you.  This award belongs to you.

A bit of a distraction for you today.  Our latest game for Wrigley’s Candystand is live today, and contractually obligated bias aside, this game plays and looks fantastic.  This has been quite some time in development, but I think the wait paid off. 

Each of the eighteen holes was inspired by a particular LifeSavers flavour, and modelled in glorious 3d.  You can check out the game on Candystand, and you can watch the trailer below.

Happy putting!

I’m not sure how to respond to an introduction by song - there’s just no way I can top that. Instead I’ll just say that it’s great to be back here with Fuel. A lot has changed since I left - there’s quite a few new faces, and the entire company is getting ready to move into the new office in just a couple months.

One thing that hasn’t changed though is the quality of work that Fuel continues to create. We’re still working with great clients who let us push the limits on everything we do. That’s the best part of working here, getting to come up with the wildest and most crazy ideas, and then bringing them to fruition for our clients.

As for this blog, I’ll start posting here again somewhat regularly about the games industry, advergames, and anything else that I think is worth your time reading.

In the meantime, if there’s anything in particular that you want to know, either about me, about Fuel, or about anything else, just post it in the comments and I’ll follow up from there.

For those of you who have been reading this blog for any amount of time, you will no doubt remember that before me and before Sean, there was a much more regular author on the site.  Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to re-introduce to you the Sultan of Shockwave, the the Admiral of Advergames - your friend and mine… Mr. Brian Robbins.

Brian has just returned home to the Fuel team to represent our New York clients as Executive Producer and Gaming Evangelist.  He’ll be speaking at a number of game-related events in the upcoming months, as well as posting his thoughts here. 

So, please help me in welcoming Brian back to the team - and what better way to make him feel welcome than through song?

Welcome back, your dreams were your ticket out.
Welcome back to that same old place that you laughed about.
Well the names have all changed since you hung around,
But those dreams have remained and they’re turned around.

Who’d have thought they’d lead ya  (Who’d have thought they’d lead ya)
Back here where we need ya  (Here where we need ya)

Yeah we tease him a lot cause we’ve got him on the spot, 
Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back, welcome back.

Welcome Back by John Sebastian