Factsheet

Developer:

Hexabyte!

Based in Oakville, Canada

Founding date:

September 2018

Website:

hexabytegames.wixsite.com/hexabyte

Press / Business contact:

hexabytegames@outlook.com

Social:

twitter.com/hexabytegames

Releases:

Booyo Park

Appeeling Personality

Description

Hexabyte! is a small team made up of six game designers from Sheridan College. They are currently working on a Mixed Reality experience called Booyo Park in partnership with Shadow Factory and HP.

History

Early History

Booyo Park originated as a venture between Sheridan College, HP, and Shadow Factory. Shadow Factory issued a design challenge to Sheridan asking them what were some potential applications of the HP VR Backpack in making location-based games. The members of Hexabyte! were interested in the prospect of working with a high-profile company such as Shadow Factory and took up the challenge.

Relationship with HP

Booyo Park is a continuation of HP Canada’s partnership with Sheridan College as a sponsor of the Honours Bachelor of Game Design program. HP provided much of the equipment used for Booyo Park, including the HP VR Backpack, HP MR Headset, as well as the workstations that Booyo Park was developed on. As partners with HP, Booyo Park and Hexabyte! are advertising the capabilities of HP’s products. In addition, the game was featured as a part of HP’s internal sponsorship video, and members from Hexabyte! spent time helping HP’s video team by doing interviews and showing them around the Sheridan Trafalgar campus.

Relationship with Shadow Factory

Shadow Factory is a business-to-business production company based in Hong Kong that creates VR, AR, and MR games and experiences. The team's contact at Shadow Factory was Keiran Lovett, a game and visual designer. Their relationship with Shadow Factory was very much one of a mentor and mentee. They had online meetings with Keiran every week when possible, where they would review the progress on Booyo Park. Keiran gave valuable advice on all aspects of the project, and would often bring in a colleague from a different discipline. Through Booyo Park, Shadow Factory forged a relationship with Sheridan College.