Brianna Wu Biography

American video game developer Brianna Wu was raised in Mississippi by adoptive parents in a business minded environment where her mother ran a series of small businesses and her father was a retired US Navy doctor who opened his own clinic. She co-created an independent video game development studio with Amanda Stenquist Warner known as Giant Spacekat in Boston, Massachusetts in 2010 and made Maria Enderton the lead programmer. She is also a podcaster and blogger on issues relating to the video game industry. Super Mario Bros. 2 was the first video game she was passionate about and seeing Princess Peach's being a playable character in the game, influenced her greatly. She attended the University of Mississippi in 2003 where she studied journalism and political science. She created a small animation studio to develop an animated pilot episode at age 19. The business didn’t work out as expected and she withdrew from college to move to Washington, DC where she worked for several years in political fundraising. She returned to college to complete her investigative journalism degree, then worked as a journalist until she was motivated by the release of the iPhone to work as a graphics designer in developing a videogame. She married Frank Wu in 2008. He’s a four-time winner of the Hugo Award for Best Fan Artist. In March 2013, Giant Spacekat presented its first iOS game Revolution 60 at Pax East and the game was listed as one of the 10 best indie games at the conference. The company ran a Kickstarter campaign to fund a PC release of the game in addition to the iOS version in July 2013 and fundraiser brought in $12,728 which was over 250% of the original $5,000 goal. In July 2014, the game which was developed with the Unreal Engine for a total budget of a few hundred thousand dollars, was released for iOS devices only. Describing the sci-fi themed action-adventure as “Heavy Rain mixed with Mass Effect,” Wu was acknowledged as head of development. The game features female lead, said to imitate the founders of the game studio. According to The Guardian, it is expressed as “a cartoonish science fiction adventure for smartphones, notable for its all-female cast and cinematic story, a rarity on mobile platforms.” A reviewer cited “some issues with pacing and a heavily linear storyline, but overall found it enjoyable and compelling’ and another reviewer on Pocket Gamer called it “intelligent and hugely entertaining.” Wu co-hosts the weekly Isometric podcast on Relay FM. The podcast covers the video game industry and was launched in May 2014. Wu also writes opinion pieces and essay on feminism and hostile point of views towards women in game development.

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