What is AdHoc Studio?

AdHoc Studio is an independent game company, founded in 2018 by four former Telltale Games developers who were creative leads on series like The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us, and Tales from the Borderlands. In 2023 we’ll release our first game, Cart Life, in partnership with the game’s developer, Richard Hofmeier.

Cart Life? Why does that name sound familiar?

Cart Life swept the IGF awards in 2013, including the Seumas McNally Grand Prize. Since then it's been listed as one of the greatest games of all time by outlets like Polygon and Slant Magazine.

What kind of game is Cart Life?

Cart Life is a “retail simulator” about three everyday people trying to make it as street vendors: a Ukrainian immigrant recently arrived in the US, a divorced mother trying to maintain custody of her daughter, and a dreamer who never quite manages to make ends meet.

You guide each of these characters through the early days of their new ventures selling newspapers, coffee, and bagels—in some ways it’s like that old game Lemonade Stand, on a larger scale. But Cart Life is also a story game, with characters you’ll care about and an open world with tons of little surprises to discover. Oh, and did we mention it has chunky grayscale pixel art?

Still not sure what kind of game Cart Life is? It’s kind of hard to explain, but here are a few of our favorite articles about the original version:

• Cart Life: How Richard Hofmeier game became a success story

• Chasing the Dollar

• Wot I Think: Cart Life

• Game of the Year

• Lågmäld oas i spelvärlden (A low-key oasis in the gaming world)

How did AdHoc get involved with Cart Life? It seems pretty different from your other credits…

There’s a long story here that involves a 4:00 a.m. phone call, a dead-end job, and a trip to San Francisco. 

The short version is that our team was profoundly influenced by Cart Life, and we were alarmed to discover that it was no longer available. For a game regularly included in “best of all time” lists to be relegated to the Internet Archive seemed unjust. So we reached out to Richard and offered to help.

We’ve now joined forces on a definitive version of Cart Life to give the game the release it deserved ten years ago, when it won the grand prize at the IGF. Learn more in this Wired story.

How will the new version of Cart Life be different from the original?

It’s better to ask how the new version will be the same, because the overall experience will be very close to the original. The graphics, story, and premise are more or less untouched. If they have been touched, it’s to improve on something that Richard was unsatisfied with in the original.

Under the hood, though, a lot is different. One big change is that the game has been moved from the freeware Adventure Game Studio engine to Unity. This gives us a lot more flexibility to fix certain issues from the original game, and it enables us to release Cart Life on consoles as well as PC. We’re also tweaking the controls, so gameplay that previously required keyboard input will work on consoles.

Some new content is being added to ensure that each of the playable characters has a proper ending to their story. The order in which you choose to play the three characters’ stories will matter in the new version, too, with each protagonist’s playthrough affecting the other playable characters in subtle ways. A lot of the new content is stuff Richard always wanted in the game, but he was unable to include originally.

What platforms will Cart Life be on?

We’re planning to release on PC and consoles, but we’re still determining which consoles and when. You can follow us on Twitter or sign up for emails below to stay in the loop.

When will Cart Life be coming out?

Sometime in 2023. We’ll be more specific when the launch window is closer.

Aww, but I don’t want to wait!

You could always wishlist it on Steam. (Seriously, if you’re excited about Cart Life, please wishlist it! Steam’s algorithm is hungry and needs to be fed.)