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Northway Games

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Northway Games
Information
Industry Video games, Virtual reality
Founded 8 March 2011
Founder Sarah Northway, Colin Northway
Headquarters Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Products Fantastic Contraption (VR, with Radial Games), Fantastic Contraption Classic, Rebuild series, Incredipede, I Was a Teenage Exocolonist
Website https://northwaygames.com


Northway Games is an independent video game studio based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, run by the married developers Sarah Northway and Colin Northway. Its press kit gives a founding date of 8 March 2011.[1] In virtual reality the studio is known for the room-scale VR version of Fantastic Contraption, which it made with Radial Games and which shipped as a launch title for the HTC Vive on 5 April 2016.[2][3]

The Northways also used a green screen and a camera tracked by a third Vive controller to film players inside the game, an early form of what is now called mixed reality capture.[4] Colin Northway's VR art gallery, the Museum of Other Realities, began as a Northway Games project in October 2016 and became a separate company in January 2018.[5] Most of the studio's other games, including the Rebuild series and I Was a Teenage Exocolonist, are not VR titles.[1]

Reviewed 15 October 2026. Founding, VR history, mixed-reality work, platform release dates, prices, awards and current status checked against Northway Games posts and press kit, Game Developer, UploadVR, Tom's Hardware, Voices of VR, CGW and Steam. About review dates.

History

Origins

Colin Northway released the original Fantastic Contraption, a 2D physics puzzle game for Adobe Flash, in 2008. By 2020 the studio counted 14 million players and 13 million shared contraptions for it. A Flash sequel, Fantastic Contraption 2, was made with Sparkworkz, the Flash division of inXile Entertainment.[6] According to the studio's press kit, the couple went indie in 2008 on the success of the Flash game, sold everything and traveled for five years, living in places including Costa Rica, the Philippines, Panama, Honduras, Mexico, Malta and Japan. Their early games, such as Sarah's Rebuild and Word Up Dog, were browser Flash games.[1] They later returned to Vancouver.[7] In the press kit's description, Colin makes physics-based puzzle games (Fantastic Contraption, Incredipede, Deep Under the Sky), while Sarah makes simulation and strategy games with a heavy narrative, such as the Rebuild series, and the studio hires a different artist for each project.[1] The studio's about page says that Deep Under the Sky was made by Colin with Rich Edwards and that Incredipede was a joint project of the couple.[7]

Fantastic Contraption VR (2015-2017)

Sarah Northway wrote that a private demo of Tilt Brush persuaded both Northways to switch to VR, and that they then teamed up with Radial Games to make a VR version of Fantastic Contraption.[8] Radial Games was run by Andy Moore, who handled the Unity development, with Lindsay Jorgensen working on art, graphics and code.[3] In a September 2015 interview with Kent Bye's Voices of VR podcast, Colin Northway said he had so far spent "a solid just month" writing the two-handed grabbing and stretching code, and that the VR game had all of the Flash original's pieces except one, because a single wheel could be turned around to spin in either direction.[9] UploadVR later reported that the project was first planned as a four-month job meant to deliver the game by the end of 2015.[10]

In late 2015 the studio was featured in a Made with Unity short film by Breakwater Studios. For some shots the team taped a third Vive controller to a portable camera so the in-game camera could follow it. In the same post Sarah Northway wrote that she had now joined the project and that Radial Games made up the other half of "Team Fantastic Contraption".[11] The Northways then began weekly mixed-reality streams on Twitch, compositing a green-screen camera feed with the game.[12] In March 2016 the studio published a guide to the setup, describing a home studio about 15 by 12 feet that cost about 1,000 to 1,200 Canadian dollars to equip.[13] Writing on the day the Vive shipped, Tom's Hardware described Northway Games' green-screen videos, filmed with a moving camera tracked by a third Vive controller. It reported that the Northways had worked with trailer producer Kert Gartner on a more polished studio-shot trailer and had shared their method openly, and that the launch trailer for Owlchemy Labs' Job Simulator was the first result of that openness.[4]

On 2 March 2016 the studio announced that the HTC Vive would ship on 5 April with Fantastic Contraption, Job Simulator and Tilt Brush.[14] The game went live on Steam on launch day.[2] In August 2016 HTC replaced Fantastic Contraption and Job Simulator in the bundle with The Gallery - Episode 1: Call of the Starseed and Zombie Training Simulator. Colin Northway told UploadVR that the bundle had been "a great opportunity for us to reach a wide audience."[15] With the bundle over, Northway Games began selling the game itself and cut its price from 40 to 30 US dollars, saying that many players were unwilling to pay 40 dollars.[16]

Updates added features for smaller play spaces. The November 2016 "Kaiju" update (version 1.5.0) let players scale the world from 50 percent of room scale, playable while standing in one place, down to 10 percent.[17] The game came to Oculus Rift with the release of the Oculus Touch controllers on 6 December 2016.[18] Version 1.6.0, released in January 2017, added a built-in level editor whose levels could be published online and rated. The studio described it as the last update it had originally planned for the game.[19]

After version 1.6.0, Northway Games handed the project to Radial Games, which brought it to PlayStation VR and Windows Mixed Reality later in 2017.[5] Radial Games' PS VR version launched on 11 July 2017 at 19.99 US dollars. It was redesigned for seated play and added PS VR-only levels and a "Resize Island" for scaling the world.[20] In August 2017 the developers told UploadVR that the game had generated more than 1 million US dollars from the Vive bundle deal and individual sales, without giving more detail. Colin Northway said the bundle deal had paid for development.[10]

Museum of Other Realities and later VR work

In October 2016 Sarah Northway created the code repository for a project called "There". Colin wanted a central place where people could see art and experiences made in VR, and the plan was a monthly bundle of VR toys and interactive art joined by a free multiplayer lobby. The lobby gradually became the gallery itself, the Museum of Other Realities (MOR). Designer Robin Stethem joined the MOR team in February 2017, and Colin sent the first multiplayer pre-alpha build to friends and VR artists in April 2017. In January 2018 the MOR was incorporated separately from Northway Games.[5] In August 2017 UploadVR described Colin's gallery as still very early and noted that it used Valve's Steam Audio.[10] The MOR was released in early access on Steam in June 2019, priced at 20 US dollars, with work by 12 artists.[21] The studio's press kit dates Colin's spin-off of the museum to 2018, while its about page gives 2016.[1][7]

Sarah Northway left the MOR team in February 2017 to prototype her own VR games. One prototype became Machete Garden, a VR game about exploration and farming on an alien planet, for which she made the art inside a Vive using Gravity Sketch and Tilt Brush. She shelved it in August 2017, citing the shallow gameplay, the difficulty of 3D physics and graphics optimization, and the cost of the full voice recording she wanted for its story, and set VR aside. In the same month she began a new game, codenamed Princess of Mars, which became I Was a Teenage Exocolonist.[5] In an essay first published on the Oculus blog in March 2019, she wrote that some of the early sample art packaged with Tilt Brush was hers and that the MOR contained "at least a couple" of her Tilt Brush originals; the essay also shows her 2017 Gravity Sketch piece Fruit Tree in the MOR lobby.[8]

Later games and current status

I Was a Teenage Exocolonist launched on 25 August 2022 for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Mac and Linux.[22] Before Adobe ended Flash support at the end of 2020, the studio ported the original Flash game to desktop PC as Fantastic Contraption Classic, released on Steam in August 2020 with Fantastic Contraption 2 included as a bonus.[6]

The studio's about page says that Colin has returned to Northway Games after the MOR and that both Northways are working on unannounced games. It also says they write mainly in Unity C# for PC, consoles and mobile.[7] The studio's most recent post, dated 10 August 2026, marked the fourth anniversary of I Was a Teenage Exocolonist with an update adding Steam Workshop support for mods.[23] As of October 2026 the VR Fantastic Contraption is still listed on Steam, credited to Northway Games and Radial Games Corp as developers and to Northway Games as publisher.[24]

Products

The table lists the studio's VR releases and the Fantastic Contraption releases connected to them. Platform dates are from the developers' announcements.

Title Year Platform Notes
Fantastic Contraption (Flash) 2008 Web browser (Adobe Flash) Original 2D game by Colin Northway[6]
Fantastic Contraption (VR) 2016 SteamVR (HTC Vive) Released 5 April 2016 as a Vive launch title; co-developed with Radial Games[2][24]
Fantastic Contraption (VR) 2016 Oculus Rift with Oculus Touch Released with the Touch controllers on 6 December 2016[18]
Fantastic Contraption (VR) 2017 PlayStation VR Radial Games version; released 11 July 2017 at 19.99 US dollars[20]
Fantastic Contraption (VR) 2017 Windows Mixed Reality Brought over by Radial Games after the January 2017 handoff[5]
Machete Garden Unreleased VR (prototype) Sarah Northway's alien farming prototype, shelved August 2017[5]
Fantastic Contraption Classic 2020 Windows (Steam) Desktop port of the Flash game, with Fantastic Contraption 2[6]
I Was a Teenage Exocolonist 2022 Switch, PS4, PS5, Windows, Mac, Linux Not a VR game; narrative simulation and card game by Sarah Northway[22][1]

Awards and recognition

Year Award Title Result
2016 Independent Games Festival, Nuovo Award Fantastic Contraption (VR) Nominated (finalist)[3][25]
2016 Vision VR/AR Awards, Best VR Experience Fantastic Contraption (VR) Nominated[25]
2016 Tokyo Game Show Sense of Wonder Night Fantastic Contraption (VR) Best Tech award[26]
2017 Game Developers Choice Awards, Best VR/AR Game Fantastic Contraption (Radial Games / Northway Games) Nominated[27][28]
2013 Independent Games Festival, Excellence in Visual Art Incredipede Finalist[1]
2020 IndieCade, Procedural Design I Was a Teenage Exocolonist Winner[1]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 "Northway Games press kit". Northway Games. https://northwaygames.com/presskit/index.php. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 "Vive & Fantastic Contraption launched!". Northway Games. 2016-04-05. https://northwaygames.com/vive-fantastic-contraption-launched/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Bryant Francis (2016-01-22). "Road to the IGF: Northway Games' and Radial Games' Fantastic Contraption". Game Developer (Gamasutra). https://www.gamedeveloper.com/audio/road-to-the-igf-northway-games-and-radial-games-i-fantastic-contraption-i-. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Alex Davies (2016-04-05). "HTC Vive Mixed-Reality Trailers Show What It's Really Like To Be In VR". Tom's Hardware. https://www.tomshardware.com/news/htc-vive-mixed-reality-vr-trailers,31550.html. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 Sarah Northway (2018-11-01). "What the heck have we been working on?". Northway Games. https://northwaygames.com/what-the-heck-have-we-been-working-on/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 "Fantastic Contraption Classic on Steam!". Northway Games. 2020-08-10. https://northwaygames.com/fantastic-contraption-classic/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 "About". Northway Games. https://northwaygames.com/about/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Sarah Northway (2019-09-30). "Sarah Northway - My Time as a VR Artist". Northway Games. https://northwaygames.com/sarah-northway-my-time-as-a-vr-artist/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  9. ↑ Kent Bye (2015-09-01). "#202: Open world building & minimalist game design with Fantastic Contraption". Voices of VR. https://voicesofvr.com/?p=1680. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 Ian Hamilton (2017-08-11). "Exclusive: Here's How Fantastic Contraption VR Devs Generated More Than $1 Million". UploadVR. https://uploadvr.com/fantastic-contraption-fuels-devs-next-projects-generates-1-million/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  11. ↑ "Northway Games and VR". Northway Games. 2015-12-04. https://northwaygames.com/northway-games-and-vr/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  12. ↑ "Mixed-reality VR Twitch streaming". Northway Games. 2016-01-08. https://northwaygames.com/mixed-reality-vr-twitch-streaming/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  13. ↑ "How To Mixed Reality". Northway Games. 2016-03-24. https://northwaygames.com/how-to-mixed-reality/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  14. ↑ "Contraption launching April 5". Northway Games. 2016-03-02. https://northwaygames.com/contraption-launching-april-5/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  15. ↑ Ian Hamilton (2016-08-12). "HTC Swaps Out 'Fantastic Contraption' and 'Job Simulator' From Vive Bundle". UploadVR. https://www.uploadvr.com/htc-new-vive-bundle. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  16. ↑ "Contraption Price Drop". Northway Games. 2016-08-12. https://northwaygames.com/contraption-price-drop/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  17. ↑ "Contraption Kaiju Update 1.5.0". Northway Games. 2016-11-15. https://northwaygames.com/contraption-kaiju-update/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 "Contraption Oculus Touch release!". Northway Games. 2016-12-05. https://northwaygames.com/contraption-oculus-touch-release/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  19. ↑ "Contraption Anti-Oppenheimer Update 1.6.0". Northway Games. 2017-01-12. https://northwaygames.com/contraption-anti-oppenheimer-update-1-6-0/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 Chris Floyd (2017-07-06). "Contraption PS VR Launches July 11th". Northway Games. https://northwaygames.com/contraption-ps-vr-launches-luly-11th/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  21. ↑ Ian Hamilton (2019-06-28). "The Museum Of Other Realities Curates VR Art With Early Access Release". UploadVR. https://uploadvr.com/mor-art-early-access/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 Sarah Northway (2022-07-07). "Exocolonist is coming to the Nintendo Switch!". Northway Games. https://northwaygames.com/exocolonist-on-switch/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  23. ↑ "Exoversary Celebrations". Northway Games. 2026-08-10. https://northwaygames.com/exoversary-celebrations/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 "Fantastic Contraption on Steam". Steam. https://store.steampowered.com/app/386690/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 "Contraption Accolades". Northway Games. 2016-01-22. https://northwaygames.com/contraption-accolades/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  26. ↑ "Tokyo Game Show 2016". Northway Games. 2016-10-28. https://northwaygames.com/tokyo-game-show-2016/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  27. ↑ "2017 Game Developers Choice Award Nominations Released". Computer Graphics World. 2017-01-11. https://www.cgw.com/Press-Center/News/2017/2017-Game-Developers-Choice-Award-Nominations-Re.aspx. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  28. ↑ Jamie Feltham (2017-01-05). "'SUPERHOT VR', 'Pokemon Go' And More In New VR/AR Category At Game Developers Choice Awards". UploadVR. https://uploadvr.com/superhot-pokemon-go-game-developers-choice-awards/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
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