Where else but Huntsville can you combine a barbecue restaurant and gaming technology to create a video game?

HBJLawLersIntro This unusual partnership between LawLers Barbecue and local video game developers, Kiage, has resulted in Huntsville’s first local video game.

“LawLers Super Service,” a mobile video game for smartphones, will be available Aug. 14 in all major app stores. The game is free and includes features where players can acquire coupons to use at the restaurant.

The gameplay, which was showcased recently at the UAH Innovation Center, consists of multiple levels where users play as Tasty the Pig and, by tapping on the screen, pick up food items from LawLers and serve them to customers inside the restaurant. The customers represent different areas of the Huntsville work force including FBI agents, engineers and NASA astronauts.

The game was developed over the course of three months by a team from Huntsville-based developers, Kiage. The company was founded by Shawn Bellina and his two sons, Kage and Kai Bellina.

“LawLers Super Service” is the studio’s first project but Shawn Bellina said they hope to expand to platform games.

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“We created a business model where we want to create games specifically for the people where we live,” he said. “By starting out with a simple mobile game, we want to establish that confidence and trust level with the locals by making games that resonate here in Huntsville and build from there.

HBJLawlersGame “It’s a really good way to break from the predatory patterns that some other gaming companies have.”

Creative Director of Zellus Marketing Carl Holden said Huntsville is a natural fit for video game development due to its concentration of technology based professionals in the city.

“We’re a city full of nerds. This is a great place for video games to be developed because that culture is already engrained,” said Holden. “We’re a perfect, quirky place for a quirky culture that video games can be built around.

“If we can make spaceships, we can make video games.”

LawLers Barbecue started in 1998 in Tennessee and has since grown to 13 locations across Northern Alabama. Area Director April Southers was present at the event and said LawLers is happy to embrace a different style of marketing.

“We think this is going to be a great situation for us and for Huntsville,” she said. “Marketing now is different than it has ever been. The fact that I can have my phone at a doctor’s office or PTA meeting, play for a few minutes and earn points to use toward dinner that night; I just think it’s an exceptional idea.”

Pre-release gameplay footage can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6YJH8Gc_uU.