Doak awarded £50k for Facebook game Gangsta Pets
East Midlands Dev Agency finances cross between Mafia Wars and Pet Society
ZinkyZonk, a new studio set up by former Free Radical bosses David Doak and Steve Ellis, has been awarded a £50,000 grant for its new Facebook game Gangsta Pets.
The game is one of nine digital media projects awarded funding by EM Media in conjunction with the East Midlands Development Agency.
According to the studio, Gangsta Pets combines elements of the two highly popular Facebook applications Mafia Wars and Pet Society, while enhancing the level of participation.
Players can create customised animal characters and form gangs made up of friends and other Facebook users while building up their credentials via a series of tasks and challenges.
The addition of Gangsta Pets to EM Media's portfolio brings the number of games it has been involved with up to 15, alongside 37 feature films and 75 short films.
Nottingham-based studio ZinkyZonk was formed by Doak and Ellis following the closure of Free Radical - the company they co-founded - in 2008.