Humongous Entertainment

Humongous Entertainment, Inc.

Logo used since Tommo's purchase of the brand; earlier versions of this logo were purple
Company type	Subsidiary
Industry	Video games
Founded	March 1992 (1992-03) in Woodinville, Washington, US
Founder	Ron Gilbert Shelley Day
Defunct	August 22, 2005 (2005-08-22)
Fate	Closed, assets sold
Headquarters	Bothell, Washington , US
Parent	Atari, Inc. (1996–2005)
Website	humongous.com

Humongous Entertainment, Inc. was an American video game developer based in Bothell, Washington. Founded in 1992, the company developed multiple edutainment franchises, most prominently Putt-Putt, Freddi Fish, Pajama Sam, Spy Fox, and Backyard Sports, which, combined, sold over 15 million copies and earned more than 400 awards of excellence.

Humongous Entertainment was acquired by GT Interactive (later renamed Infogrames, Inc., then Atari, Inc.) in July 1996. By October 2000, sales of Humongous games had surpassed 16 million copies. GT sold the Humongous business to its parent company, Infogrames (later renamed Atari SA), in August 2005 and laid off the studio's employees. Infogrames held the assets under a new subsidiary, Humongous, Inc., until its bankruptcy in 2013, in which the assets were sold to Tommo, who re-released some of its games on digital distribution channels using the Humongous name.

History

Formation (1992–1996)

Humongous Entertainment was formed by Shelley Day and Ron Gilbert in March 1992, then based in Woodinville, Washington. The name Humongous Entertainment was suggested by Gilbert's ex-LucasArts colleague, Tim Schafer. It became known for creating four point-and-click adventure game series intended for young children, branded collectively as "Junior Adventures", with the four series being the Putt-Putt, the Freddi Fish, the Pajama Sam and the Spy Fox series. Characters from one series do not cross over with ones in another (with the exception of Putt-Putt and Fatty Bear's Activity Pack) and instead appear as cameos or Easter eggs in any of the three other series. All of Humongous's games until 2003 were built on the SCUMM game engine, which Gilbert had developed for LucasArts years prior; following his departure from the company, LucasArts agreed to grant Humongous a license to use SCUMM for its games, on the condition that Gilbert continue to develop updates to the engine for both companies' use. By 1995, the company had become the third largest children's educational-software company.

In 1995, Gilbert and Day established a company division, Cavedog Entertainment, in Seattle, set to develop games of alternative genres, and released Total Annihilation, a real-time strategy (RTS) game, in 1997. This was followed by two expansion packs in 1998, as well as a variation called Total Annihilation: Kingdoms plus an expansion pack in 1999.

Acquisitions, decline, dissolution (1996–2006)

In July 1996, Humongous Entertainment was purchased by GT Interactive for US$76 million. In November 1997, Humongous Entertainment signed a five-year worldwide deal with Nickelodeon to develop games based on the Nick Jr. series, Blue's Clues, making it the first and only time that Humongous has developed games based on a licensed character as opposed to its original characters. The same year, Humongous released their first Backyard Sports title, Backyard Baseball. Backyard Sports would go on to become the company's longest-running series. In November 1999, GT Interactive was acquired by Infogrames and renamed to Infogrames, Inc. In 2000, Humongous Entertainment released a One-Stop Fun Shop activity center game for each Junior Adventure series, with the exception of Spy Fox. The co-founders tried to buy Humongous Entertainment back from Infogrames, Inc., using external funding, but the day of the planned purchase was the day of the dot-com collapse, wherefore the funding was pulled. The founders soon left Humongous, alongside many other key employees, and formed a new studio, Hulabee Entertainment, in 2001. In June 2001, Infogrames, Inc. laid off 82 personnel, over 40% of staff from Humongous Entertainment. In May 2003, after Infogrames, Inc. purchased Hasbro Interactive, which owned the rights to the Atari brand, the company was renamed Atari, Inc.

In August 2005, facing financial struggles, Atari, Inc. sold the Humongous Entertainment business to Infogrames for shares worth US$10.3 million. As part of the deal, the assets were transferred to a new Infogrames subsidiary (Humongous, Inc.), while the employees of Humongous Entertainment were laid off. Infogrames expected to sell Humongous, Inc. further. Atari, Inc. signed an agreement with Humongous, Inc. to exclusively distribute the company's games in North America through March 2006.

Post-closure asset handling (2006–present)

In October 2005, Infogrames announced plans to relaunch the Humongous brand, beginning with new entries in the Backyard Sports franchise and followed up with a business strategy for reviving characters from the Junior Adventure series. Atari, Inc.'s distribution deal for Humongous titles was soon extended through March 2007.

In April 2008, Infogrames purchased and merged with Atari, Inc. Following this merger, Infogrames Entertainment's company name was changed to Atari SA, who would go on to publish numerous more Backyard Sports titles. In August, Majesco Entertainment published Wii ports of three Humongous titles: the first installments of each Junior Adventure series, except Putt-Putt. The ports were developed by Mistic Software, but their availability was greatly limited by a legal conflict concerning their development. In November of the same year, Humongous, Inc. released the Nintendo DS game Freddi Fish: ABC Under The Sea.

Beginning in November 2011, in collaboration with Nimbus Games, Atari began releasing Android and iOS ports of several Humongous Entertainment Junior Adventure titles. These releases continued into 2012.

In 2013, Atari SA filed bankruptcy for Atari, Inc., Atari Interactive, and Humongous. As part of the resolution proceedings, the Humongous brand and most game assets were sold to Tommo on July 19. The Backyard Sports series was acquired by The Evergreen Group, and MoonBase Commander by Rebellion Developments.

Beginning in 2014, the relaunched Humongous brand under Tommo began re-releasing the original Junior Adventure and Junior Arcade titles for Windows and Mac; ports for most of these titles were also released for mobile devices. In early 2022, Humongous released Nintendo Switch ports of several of the Junior Adventure titles, followed by ports of these titles for the PlayStation 4 later that year. A digital compilation of these releases, titled Humongous Classic Collection was released in December 2022 for both systems, while a Nintendo Switch exclusive physical compilation was released in 2023.

Games developed

Putt-Putt

Main article: Putt-Putt (series)

• Putt-Putt Joins the Parade (1992)
• Putt-Putt Goes to the Moon (1993)
• Putt-Putt's Fun Pack (1993)
• Putt-Putt and Fatty Bear's Activity Pack (1994)
• Putt-Putt Saves the Zoo (1995)
• Putt-Putt and Pep's Balloon-o-Rama (1996)
• Putt-Putt and Pep's Dog on a Stick (1996)
• Putt-Putt Travels Through Time (1997)
• Putt-Putt Enters the Race (1999)
• Putt-Putt's One-Stop Fun Shop (2000)
• Putt-Putt Joins the Circus (2000)
• Putt-Putt: Pep's Birthday Surprise (2003)

Freddi Fish

Main article: Freddi Fish

• Freddi Fish and the Case of the Missing Kelp Seeds (1994)
• Freddi Fish 2: The Case of the Haunted Schoolhouse (1996)
• Freddi Fish and Luther's Maze Madness (1997)
• Freddi Fish and Luther's Water Worries (1997)
• Freddi Fish 3: The Case of the Stolen Conch Shell (1998)
• Freddi Fish 4: The Case of the Hogfish Rustlers of Briny Gulch (1999)
• Freddi Fish's One-Stop Fun Shop (2000)
• Freddi Fish 5: The Case of the Creature of Coral Cove (2001)

Pajama Sam

Main article: Pajama Sam

• Pajama Sam: No Need to Hide When It's Dark Outside (1996)
• Pajama Sam's Sock Works (1997)
• Pajama Sam 2: Thunder and Lightning Aren't so Frightening (1998)
• Pajama Sam's Lost & Found (1998)
• Pajama Sam 3: You Are What You Eat from Your Head to Your Feet (2000)
• Pajama Sam's One-Stop Fun Shop (2000)
• Pajama Sam: Games to Play On Any Day (2001)
• Pajama Sam: Life Is Rough When You Lose Your Stuff! (2003)

Spy Fox

Main article: Spy Fox

• Spy Fox in "Dry Cereal" (1997)
• Spy Fox in "Cheese Chase" (1998)
• Spy Fox 2: "Some Assembly Required" (1999)
• Spy Fox in "Hold the Mustard" (1999)
• Spy Fox 3: "Operation Ozone" (2001)

Fatty Bear

• Fatty Bear's Birthday Surprise (1993)
• Fatty Bear's Fun Pack (1993)
• Putt-Putt and Fatty Bear's Activity Pack (1994)

Blue's Clues

Main article: Blue's Clues (video game series)

• Blue's Birthday Adventure (1998)
• Blue's ABC Time Activities (1998)
• Blue's 123 Time Activities (1999)
• Blue's Treasure Hunt (1999)
• Blue's Reading Time Activities (2000)
• Blue's Clues: Blue's Art Time Activities (2000)

Big Thinkers

Main article: Big Thinkers (video game series)

• Big Thinkers Kindergarten (1997)
• Big Thinkers 1st Grade (1997)

Junior Field Trips

Main article: Junior Field Trips

• Let's Explore the Farm (1994)
• Let's Explore the Airport (1995)
• Let's Explore the Jungle (1995)

Backyard Sports

For a more comprehensive list, see Backyard Sports.

• Backyard Baseball (1997)
• Backyard Soccer (1998)
• Backyard Football (1999)
• Backyard Basketball (2001)
• Backyard Hockey (2002)
• Backyard Skateboarding (2004)

Other

• MoonBase Commander (2002)

External links

• Official website