Beyond Madness and Genius, headquartered in Somerville, Massachusetts, is simply about making distinctive and unique games with their own vision.
This could mean simply tweaking something everyone takes for granted in a genre and making it work in ways nobody ever thought possible. It could be a story that isn’t often told in video games. Or it could just be bringing a style seldom seen in a digital format.
Overall, we find that video gaming, when done well, can be a form of art. And we all love video gaming, which gives rise to our slogan – “Creating art through the joy of gaming.” Not only can a well-made game be a work of art, but the act of playing a game well can also be a work of art. With that in mind, Beyond Madness and Genius invites you to use our art to help create yours.
As for the name of the company? There’s an old cliché that says that there’s a fine line between madness and genius. Some, like humorist Oscar Levant, sought to erase that line. Even before starting development, all three of us seemingly veered across the line multiple times on a daily basis. But just as we weren’t content to simply talk about what kinds of game we’d like to make, we weren’t content with merely dabbling in a bit of oddity or a bit of brilliance. We want to reach beyond that, and see what we’ll find. We hope everyone enjoys what results.
Rick Healey is the Executive Producer for Beyond Madness & Genius. He has spent many years on a diverse set of projects, from learning French, writing video game reviews for Netjak.com, to being a one-time Category Lead for Epinions.com. His work on BM&G’s first game is his first in a production capacity for a video game. He’s an avid cook that enjoys working with citrus, and he plays enough duplicate bridge to have a favorite opening bid – three diamonds.
Chris LoBue is the secretary of Beyond Madness & Genius and quality assurance lead for their first project. He got his start with video games in front of an Atari 2600 and Apple IIc and carried that through his life. He studied computer science at Boston University and has worked as a configuration management analyst at Union Switch & Signal. He considers himself a Renaissance geek, playing fantasy football or roller hockey on the same day as Dungeons & Dragons or Final Fantasy.
John Zeitler is the lead programmer for Beyond Madness & Genius. After earning his Bachelor of Science in Software Engineering at Gannon University, he has done technical development work for companies such as FedEx Ground, GE Transportation, and Vocollect, Inc. Additionally he has served as a Fan Fiction Editor for RPGamer.com and has contributed reviews to Netjak. BM&G’s game is his first offense project as a development lead.
I wanted to contact you about promoting your works at the Gaming @ Wizard World areas we are building up starting in Anaheim this week and growing at every event after. Please contact me when you are free.
(I tried sending this to the emails on your business cards but they got bounced back)
Hi John and Rick! I met you two at Too Many Games Con this past Saturday. I’m the one who had the Moogle shirt that John really liked. Anyway, it was great to meet people with a passion for games making actual games themselves. Like I mentioned, I’m an artist (I hope you got to look through my promo packet) and I’m really interested in getting into the games industry. If you guys are game for some another team member I’m totally up for it myself. Good look on finishing out Point of Descent and thanks for really digging my work. (I’d love to check it out when it goes live, sadly I don’t have a 360.)