The Game Band

The Game Band is an independent game development studio founded in Los Angeles in 2015 by designer Sam Rosenthal. Its work spans narrative puzzles, community-driven online simulations, social deduction games and daily word games. The studio develops original intellectual property alongside commissioned and licensed interactive projects, with releases across mobile, web browsers, PC, consoles and television-based gaming platforms.

Rosenthal established the company after studying interactive entertainment at the University of Southern California and working at Disney Interactive, Toys for Bob and Giant Sparrow. The studio's early direction focused on unconventional games that could engage people beyond traditional gaming audiences, combining interactive storytelling with distinctive ways for players to participate.

From spatial puzzles to shared stories

Its first major release, Where Cards Fall, was created in collaboration with publisher Snowman. The coming-of-age spatial puzzle game joined Apple Arcade's launch lineup in September 2019 and later reached PC and Nintendo Switch. Architectural puzzles form the basis of its approach to telling a personal story through play.

In July 2020, the studio launched Blaseball, a text-based baseball simulation and horror metagame. Players voted on surreal rules, weather anomalies and narrative events, helping shape an evolving fictional sporting universe. Created during the pandemic shutdown of live sports, the game attracted hundreds of thousands of active players. The studio ended the project in June 2023 after live-service maintenance became unsustainable and reduced its team while preserving resources for future development.

Subsequent releases

The Game Band continued developing new projects after Blaseball. In December 2025, it released Dead Man's Party: A Knives Out Game with Netflix Games, bringing an official franchise-based social deduction party game to television screens and web browsers.

In August 2026, the studio launched Dartwords, a daily conversational word-guessing game for browsers and mobile devices. Its adaptive AI mascot, Darty, extends the studio's exploration of interactive systems into a daily puzzle format.