Press Kit

Description

ASTROGUN™ (Astrogun LLC) is the independent video games design, development, and publishing company of triple-A games industry veteran Xander Davis, creating adventurous characters and magical experiences for all ages. The studio is self-funded and deliberately lean, hiring compartmentalized contractors worldwide as needs arise on various projects, assembling it all within. Astrogun’s debut game is VAST™, available now on Steam (Wishlist), on the macOS App Store as ‘VAST – Cosmic Treasure Hunters’, on the tvOS App Store as ‘VAST – Cosmic Treasure Hunters’, and on the iOS App Store as ‘VAST – Pocket Edition’. VAST™ is in continued production for ongoing refinement and episodic expansion.  Astrogun’s official website is www.astrogun.com, which also features Astrogun Ultra™, an online features magazine covering all things Astrogun at www.astrogun.com/ultra.

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(Astrogun™ Brand Assets, Studio Photos, & Headshots)

Astrogun™ Brand

Astrogun™ colors are Astrogun Sherbet & Cream™.  The Hex for Orange Sherbet is #ffa800 and the Hex for Cream is #f7f7f7.  Whenever possible, Astrogun™ is written with the Trademark (™) symbol.

About Xander Davis
(Founder & Studio Head)

Xander Davis is the Founder / CEO / CCO (Chief Creative Officer) and Projects Lead of Astrogun LLC, assuming the summary title ‘Studio Head’, a triple-A games industry veteran, and now consulting worldwide in the games industry through his agency XD&A (www.xanderdavis.studio).

Xander is known for his UI Design work on 9.0-rated titles such as Transformers: War for Cybertron at High Moon Studios (Activision | Blizzard), Darksiders 2 at Vigil Games (THQ), Warhammer 40k: Regicide at Plastic Wax (Hammerfall), End of Nations / Victory / Grey Goo at Petroglyph Games (creators of the Command & Conquer Series), and others. In working for the games industry, he has lived in San Diego, Atlanta, Austin, and Las Vegas, before relocating permanently back to his home city in Ohio.  He was a guest speaker at BWG Strategy’s Conference on Virtual Reality among industry leadership, a consulting Creative Director for an Augmented Reality startup, was thanked for his support in the credits of Indie Game: The Movie and other films, and has worked for clients all over the world, often on multiple continents simultaneously. Xander is also a proud husband and father.

www.xanderdavis.studio | @XanderDavisLive | LinkedIn
Recommendations | Unity Connect | Astrogun Unity Connect | IMDb

macOS, iOS, tvOS 2019 Trailer:

VAST – Pocket Edition works with the Gamevice:

Xander & Liz (XL) Let’s Play VAST!:

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(VAST™ Brand Assets, Screenshots, Key Images, + Astrogun Presskit)

History (Concise)

Era I – Establishment

• August 22, 2010 — Bombcrash™ — Bombcrash™ (LD18) is created by Xander Davis and shipped on Kongregate as part of the Ludum Dare 18 48-hour challenge.  This was Xander’s first original shipped game.  This game would later be retconned and adopted into the Astrogun Universe™, the previously-unnamed Player Character of Bombcrash™ becoming a younger Enzo from VAST™.

• July 5, 2012 — Early Founding — Astrogun Studios LLC is founded by Xander Davis while living in Las Vegas, Nevada.  Various prototypes are created.  By Fall 2013, the Nintendo Wii-U license is secured.

• July 5, 2014 — Refounding — After going indie from a career in the triple-A games industry, Xander Davis reforms the Company as Astrogun LLC in Ohio while freelancing, and the old LLC is dissolved.  Early planning, prototyping, and fundraising from freelancing begins.  By 2015, Nintendo, PlayStation, Xbox, Oculus, and Apple developer licenses were secured, Astrogun’s new business plan was completed, and the Astrogun Starbase™ SMC (standard metaconsole) was first designed.

• June 28, 2017 — VAST™ Development Begins — After various prototypes, Project ENDURANCE begins (Xander Davis as Project Lead) during the Summer of 2017, which would become VAST™, slated to ship for Holiday 2017 on Apple TV 4K with its first Episode in an episodic model.

Era II – Liftoff

• December 13, 2017 — VAST™ Soft-Launches as a tvOS Timed-Exclusive — VAST™ soft-launches on tvOS as ‘VAST™ – Cosmic Treasure Hunters’, designed for Apple TV 4K with the Nimbus gamepad.  It includes its first campaign ‘The Frozen Star’, with its first Episode ‘The Star On No Map’ only, new episodes added as free updates over time.  VAST wins ‘BEST FPS 2017’ on Apple TV by ATVG and ‘TOP 3 SHOOTERS ON APPLE TV EVER’ by SiniScope Gaming.

• March 19, 2018 — Astrogun™ PrintPals™ — Astrogun™ PrintPals™ is established as the Company’s first toy line, with its first product: Enzo™ from VAST™.  PrintPals™ for the entire stable of characters from VAST™ are created soon after and all are put up for sale to help support Astrogun on the Astrogun.com shop.

• March 28, 2018 — New Astrogun™ Site Relaunched — The new Astrogun.com site is completed and relaunched.  Ongoing plans for the site include Astrogun Ultra!™, an online features magazine covering all things Astrogun at www.astrogun.com/ultra.

• January 9, 2019 — VAST™ Soft-Launches on iOS — VAST™ soft-launches on iOS as VAST – Pocket Edition for iPhone only at the time, for iPhone 6s and up.

• February 26, 2019 — VAST™ Soft-Launches on macOS — VAST™ soft-launches on macOS as VAST – Cosmic Treasure Hunters, completing the internal mission ‘Apple Trident’ to soft-launch and establish a market foothold across all three major Apple platforms: macOS, iOS, tvOS.

• February 28, 2019 — Astrogun Becomes a Steamworks Developer — Astrogun completes the application process to become a Steamworks Developer and is approved. Astrogun can now publish games on Steam, the most popular, de facto PC (Windows, macOS, Linux) games online digital distribution platform in the world, and begins preparations for publishing VAST there by 2019Q2.

• March 8, 2019 — VAST Steam Page Published — VAST’s Steam Page is published on Steam (as Coming Soon Early Access status). This establishes Astrogun’s foothold on the platform, with VAST set to launch on Windows / Mac there in 2019Q2.

• March 28, 2019 — VAST Shown at GamesIndustry.biz Investment Summit at PAX East — Astrogun’s Xander and Liz flew to Boston to show VAST to various publishers at the GameIndustry.biz Investment Summit at PAX East, including Sold Out, Team17, Xsolla, and Yacht Club. Limited Run made themselves available to us for physical editions, in addition Xsolla offering their game developer services. Talks continued afterwards for a couple of months, but ultimately the project wasn’t a fit for them. They were however happy to have us pitch new projects in the future, so positive relationships were established between them and Astrogun. VAST continues fully self-owned and self-funded.