After working together on a project for one of their Game Design classes, Mercer County Community College students Matt Guido and John-Paul Yunque have taken their game, Lunch War, and independently published it through their newly-founded company, The Automatic Gentlemen, LLC.
Guido is a graduate of Bordentown Regional High School and Yunque attended Princeton Regional Schools. The two met in their Game Theory and Culture. They teamed up together to work on the final project for the class and decided they should take their game the extra mile.
In the game, players control the lunch lady, whose job is to keep the unhealthy fudgesicles from an army of hungry nerds, bullies, jocks, and teachers. She does this with an unending supply of apples, her slushie machine, which gives students a temporary “brain freeze,” and a janitor she can call in for back up.
“It’s an arcade game with a weird twist,” Yunque said in a statement, “we just thought, ‘what if the game player is a lunch lady throwing food at kids?’ It was such a funny idea we decided to go with it.”
After they completed the class assignment, Guido and Yunque decided to continue with the project on their own time.
The duo plan to offer their app for $1 through Apple and Android App Stores.
In May, they went to the Two5Six gaming conference in Brooklyn.During the conference, Guido and Yunque were able to catch the interest of game reviewer Mike Futter, who writes for Game Informer.
Futter reviewed their game on his site, directing readers to check out the students’ Automatic Gentlemen website to learn more.
For the two students, this is the beginning of what they hope to be a long term endeavor. After becoming an official LLC last year, they say they are in it for the long haul.
To begin marketing their launch, in June Yunque and Guido had a booth at the TooManyGames convention in Philadelphia.
Guido, who has an IT internship at Purdue Pharma, L.P., this summer, will be continuing at Mercer this fall, with plans to earn his associate degree in Game Design. Yunque will be transferring to Drexel University, studying for a degree in Interactive Digital Media.
This summer they will focus their efforts on marketing Lunch War to the public in various ways, including social media.
More information is online at theautomaticgentlemen.com.
