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22-398: The Genie engine was developed as the basis for Ensemble Studios ' first game, Age of Empires which had the development name of "Dawn of Man". The designers received much of their inspiration from the game Civilization , with its proven historical setting; this was noted among reviewers as something positive. Age of Empires was designed by Bruce Shelley , Tony Goodman (in charge of

44-516: A compromise which could be released for Christmas 1998. To help meet the next year's deadline, additional programmers , artists, and designers were employed. The original Age of Empires had been criticized for its artificial intelligence (AI). Because the original AI did not " cheat " by attributing itself extra resources or using other techniques the human player could not, it was easier to defeat than in many other real-time strategy games. For The Age of Kings , Ensemble Studios attempted to develop

66-457: A fourth studio, Windstorm Studios, was founded by ex-staffer Dusty Monk as a one-man company. Dusty Monk later closed this studio on March 21, 2012 and joined Robot Entertainment with his former co-workers. In June 2013, a fifth studio emerged, Boss Fight Entertainment , founded by previous employees of Ensemble Studios and Zynga Dallas. Boss Fight Entertainment is located in McKinney, Texas and

88-552: A modern re-implementation of the original Genie Engine using C++ and Python . Ensemble Studios Ensemble Studios was an American video game developer . It was founded by Tony Goodman in 1994 and incorporated the following year. It borrowed the name of Ensemble Corporation, a consulting firm founded by Goodman in 1990. It was acquired by Microsoft in 2001 and operated as an internal studio until 2009, when its development capabilities were officially disbanded. Ensemble developed many real-time strategy games, including

110-405: A more powerful AI system that did not compromise by cheating. Industry veteran Mario Grimani led Ensemble Studios in the creation of the new system. To overcome another significant objection to Age of Empires —that of path finding—the team completely redesigned the game engine 's movement system. The team was less successful in resolving other issues; programmer Matt Pritchard complained following

132-477: A new independent studio, Robot Entertainment , and a number of the existing employees have been offered a position in this company. Following the announcement of Robot Entertainment, former Ensemble Studios producer David Rippy started a new independent studio, Bonfire Studios , composed entirely of former Ensemble staff members. Bonfire was later renamed Zynga Dallas through its acquisition by Zynga and released only one game as an independent company. In 2008,

154-427: A scenario editor, campaigns, LAN, serial and TCP/IP multiplayer, background music amongst others. The engine uses an isometric tile set, unlike other real-time strategy engines such as the one used for Warcraft . The games based on the engine have usually been rated highly with Age of Empires having sold over three million copies by 2000 and having an average score of 87% from GameRankings . The Age of Kings

176-458: A spin-off from the original series. Expansion packs were also released for all their games including two for Age of Empires III . Their last release was the real-time strategy game called Halo Wars for Xbox 360. In 1998, Rick Goodman left Ensemble Studios and started a new independent studio, Stainless Steel Studios . In 2000, Brian Sullivan left Ensemble Studios and started a new independent studio, Iron Lore Entertainment , to develop

198-500: A third studio called Newtoy, Inc. was created by several developers from Ensemble, which released Chess With Friends for the iPhone in November 2008, and Words With Friends in August 2009. Newtoy was also acquired by Zynga and renamed Zynga With Friends , a moniker off of Newtoy's successful 'with friends' series. Newtoy released two games while they were independent. In March 2009,

220-509: Is developing games for mobile platforms. The studio was acquired by Netflix Inc. in 2022. Garry M. Gaber Garry M. Gaber is a game designer, director, project leader, artist, writer and programmer who worked on a number of notable LucasArts Video Games from 1994 through 2003. He is probably best known for his work as Project Leader and Designer on the Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds franchise. He received

242-686: The Age of Empires game series, Age of Mythology , and Halo Wars . In addition to game development, Ensemble Studios also made the Genie Game Engine used in Age of Empires , Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings , and Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds . The studio sold 20 million games and was worth an estimated $ 500 million. Ensemble Studios developed the Age of Empires game series of real-time strategy titles, comprising Age of Empires , Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings and Age of Empires III . They also released Age of Mythology ,

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264-455: The Crown , and Rise of Nations . Most of these games have also been critically successful. The in-development free software real time strategy game 0 A.D. by Wildfire Games started out as an Age of Empires II modification and boasts many similarities to Age of Empires in its current design on top of its new engine Pyrogenesis. Openage is another free software project trying to create

286-592: The action role-playing game Titan Quest . In 2001, Microsoft acquired Ensemble Studios for $ 100 million. Ensemble remained at their original location in a high-rise office in Dallas, Texas, until April 2008 when Microsoft moved them to the Shops at Legacy in Plano, the same location as GearBox Software . Their office was 50,000 square feet and designed to house 120 employees. In 2008, Ensemble announced that it would close after

308-428: The game's artwork), Dave Pottinger (in charge of the game's artificial intelligence ), and Matt Pritchard (in charge of the game's graphics). The game was described as " Civilization II meets Warcraft II " and this shows in the game's engine design. Like Warcraft it is real time strategy but unlike Warcraft and like Civilization II it is historical and has an isometric perspective. The design team for

330-458: The lack of an art asset management tool, while other departments gained new tools and automated procedures to assist in design and play testing . The Age of Kings saw the introduction of a triggers system for its scenario editor. The triggers allow messages to be displayed, or actions to take place, based on pre-set criteria or "events". The scenario editor was also improved by the new AI system. The AI and trigger systems interacted regularly in

352-523: The release of Halo Wars in 2009. According to multiple independent reports, all non-essential staff were laid off and remaining staff were given incentives to remain until the completion of the project. Microsoft issued an internal statement on September 10, 2008 which was then leaked to the public. The company shut down on January 29, 2009. It was also stated at the time that at least two new studios were being formed by ES employees. In February 2009, former Ensemble Studios head Tony Goodman started

374-460: The release of Age of Empires that there was still no process by which patches could be issued. Extensive cheating in multiplayer games of Age of Empires came as a result of several bugs in the game, which resulted in Microsoft promising Ensemble Studios there would be a patch process for The Age of Kings . On release, there were several bugs that needed immediate attention, but the patch process

396-450: The sequel, The Age of Kings , intended to complete the game within a year by using code from the original and reusing the game engine . Several months into the process they found they would not be able to complete a game of the quality they sought in that time. Ensemble Studios informed Microsoft they would need another year and instead created Age of Empires: The Rise of Rome , an easily developed expansion pack of Age of Empires , as

418-631: The single player campaigns. Numerous upgrades were added in The Conquerors but this was mostly in terms of gameplay and not engine advancements. Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds was developed by LucasArts by licensing the Genie game engine from Ensemble Studios . The game, as well as the Clone Campaigns expansion pack, was designed and directed by Garry M. Gaber . The Genie Engine has several features that are common across all its games, including

440-463: Was a bigger critical success than the first game, with Game Rankings and Metacritic scores of 92%. The Age of Empires expansions for both games received slightly less praise but were still very well received. Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds received generally positive reviews, both from critics and fans. GameRankings gave the game a score of 77%, based on 38 media outlets. However, Galactic Battlegrounds did have vocal critics. The Genie engine

462-453: Was not yet ready. The first patch was released 11 months later. Ensemble Studios developed a new terrain system for The Age of Kings , with 3D presentation capabilities that were vastly superior to those of Age of Empires . Pritchard noted an improvement in the team's artistic abilities following their work on the past two games, and he is noted as saying that " AoK became a showcase for their improved talent". However, he complained about

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484-560: Was succeeded by the Age of Mythology engine used by the games in that series as well as Age of Empires III and its expansions. The most significant changes are the updated graphics engine and the inclusion of the Havok physics middleware engine, as well as the introduction of home cities . The design of the Genie engine has been mirrored in later game titles such as Empire Earth , Cossacks: European Wars , Theocracy , Tzar: Burden of

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