The Odd Gentlemen is an American independent studio founded in 2008 by Matt Korba and Paul Bellezza. From the start it has been known for a quirky, handcrafted art style and a love of clever puzzle design. Its debut, The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom, began as Korba's graduate thesis at the University of Southern California. 2K Play then published it as a full release: a puzzle platformer whose storybook look became the studio's calling card. The team followed it with Slap Happy Sam for PlayStation Home, Sony's social space on PlayStation 3, and moved into mobile in 2012 with its first iPhone game, Flea Symphony. In June 2013, author Neil Gaiman announced that his first video game, Wayward Manor, would be made with The Odd Gentlemen, and it was released in 2014. That same year the studio was briefly attached to Hiveswap, Andrew Hussie's Homestuck adventure game. Its involvement was made public in June 2014 and was winding down by that October, when What Pumpkin Games took the project in-house.
The studio's defining moment came on August 12, 2014. That day Activision announced that The Odd Gentlemen would make a new King's Quest as part of its revival of the Sierra label, handing a small, imaginative team one of the most storied names in adventure gaming. Built on Unreal Engine 3 and released in episodes, the game arrived in five chapters. The first, "A Knight to Remember," came out on July 28, 2015, and the fifth followed in October 2016, with a playable epilogue closing the story in December 2016. The result keeps the humor, puzzles and fairy-tale charm of the classic series while adding the warmth and visual personality the studio built its name on. King's Quest: The Complete Collection gathers all five chapters plus the exclusive epilogue in one package. It is the complete way to play The Odd Gentlemen's most ambitious work and a strong entry point for anyone discovering the studio today.
