Idol Minds was founded 18 years ago by Mark Lyons. Previously, Mark was a lead programmer for Sony where he created games for the launch of the PlayStation 1.
The studio is located in Westminster, Colorado, which is near Denver and Boulder.
The first major game for the studio was the breakout hit Cool Boarders 3, which was a snowboarding game on the PlayStation 1.
Another hit game was PAIN for the PlayStation 3. PAIN is comedy and chaos for the modern age. Load your character into a gigantic slingshot, fling him into a busy downtown metropolis and earn a high score based on how much destruction you cause and how much pain you endure. A wide range of celebrities signed up to be characters in PAIN, including David Hasselhoff, George Takei and others.
Idol Minds has always been a smaller game development company, averaging 20-30 people and preferring to focus on technically challenging work and crafting fun games.
The last two titles released by Idol Minds were mobile games and both were featured or promoted by Apple and Google multiple times (Tales of Honor and Qube Kingdom).
Their recent publishing partners are DeNA, Capcom and the Chinese company ZQGame. Historically, Idol Minds has worked with Sony, Activision and THQ.
In early August, 2015, Idol Minds will be launching their first Kickstarter campaign for Shutterbug, a nature photography game.