Kids’ software maker Humongous Entertainment axed more than 80 workers yesterday — more than 40 percent of its staff. The remaining workers will focus their attention on the company’s sports games.
Humongous is a division of international game publisher Infogrames, and specializes in titles that appeal to pre-adolescents, like the Putt-Putt, Freddi Fish, Spy Fox and Pajama Sam series of adventure games and a series of games licensed from the popular Nick Jr. show Blue’s Clues. Each title features brightly colored and animated graphics, and helps kids develop basic skills in a “soft learning” format that emphasizes entertainment and fun over education.
Humongous has also seen success with its line of Junior Sports titles — the company makes several games based on soccer, football, baseball, and soon, basketball. All of them feature statistical tracking of players, the ability to create your own teams, choose team outfits and logos, and various other features. Windows versions of some of the sports programs can even be played by more than one gamer online — Humongous has long promised this feature for Macintosh versions, but is still yet to deliver it.
Just yesterday Humongous announced the release of Freddi Fish 5: The Case of the Creature of Coral Cove, the company’s latest Junior Adventure game.