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Married indies: How to ship a successful game without killing your spouse
- 1. Jake Birkett (@greyalien) Helen Carmichael (@bchezza) Married indies: How to ship a successful game without killing your spouse
- 3. A game about decorating a ballroom?
- 10. Funding Can you really get free money?
- 12. A good pitch • Researched the market • Researched sales data • Sensible budget • Unique but familiar idea • Working demo • Risks and contingencies
- 13. MOAR Money: • Bank loans/overdraft • Other indie businesses • Personal savings • Tax credits • Crowdfunding
- 14. MOAR Money: • Bank loans/overdraft • Other indie businesses • Personal savings • Tax credits • Crowdfunding
- 15. MOAR Money: • Bank loans/overdraft • Other indie businesses • Personal savings • Tax credits • Crowdfunding
- 16. Jake • Producer • Designer • Coder • Project Manager • Sound FX • Art Director • PR • Biz Dev Helen • Researcher • Writer • Designer • Tester • Grant Admin • PR Contractors • Art • Music
- 17. Risks • Time wasted mentoring Helen • Jeopardising science writing career • Putting all our eggs in one basket • Not being a good team
- 32. Our Experience • Employees = admin/legal/financial • Separate office spaces • Design by committee • Sharing PR duties • Visiting nice places
- 33. A learning curve • Mentorship vs reality of shipping • Using photoshop • Making a story fit the game • Project management • Different daily routines
- 34. Having kids = indie hard mode
- 36. The Big Picture
- 43. Photo credit: Jason Alan Dewey
- 44. CONCLUSION 2 > 1
- 45. Questions? • @GreyAlien • @BCHezza • info@greyaliengames.com • www.ShadowhandGame.com
Editor's Notes
- *Helen* When I said I was going to work with my husband my friends said things like: “I couldn’t stand working with my husband I’d kill him” “You’ll be together all the time won’t that drive you mad?” “…Are you nuts?”
- *Jake* Somehow I ended up making my wife’s game idea about decorating a Regency ballroom and playing cards. Wasn’t this going to end in disaster?
- *Helen* No. It turned out to be a winning idea and people really loved the game. We’re going to tell you the story of how we made Regency Solitaire together, what we learned and how it improved our business.
- *Jake* I went full-time indie in 2005. I’ve shipped over 10 games including most recently, Regency Solitaire.
- *Helen* New to game design (2½ years) Shipped 1 game – Regency Solitaire 20 Years in scientific editing Parent to two teenage boys
- *Jake* Back in 2013 I was just finishing a game when Helen came up with the idea for a romantic card game set in Georgian England aimed at people who like costume dramas. I knew immediately that it was a good fit for the casual market which I knew very well
- *Jake* In fact back in 2007 I made Fairway Solitaire as a contractor for Big Fish Games. It was a hit casual game. So I already knew how to make a good card game. Plus we are both into costume dramas and British history, and Helen is an experienced writer and researcher, so we decided to work together to make it.
- *Helen* However, we needed funding not just for art/music/coding but also to create a part time job for me so that I could do research and writing and learn something about the process of making games.
- *Helen* Fortunately because the south west of England is a tech wasteland we found out there was a grant funding available for game dev.
- *Jake* As the experienced member of the team it fell to me to prepare a pitch and travel to Bristol where I pitched to a bunch of AAA game dudes. In short I came up with a solid business plan which you should always have for all games. I had a track record and said “bet on me”
- *Jake* Predictably the game took longer than planned and we needed to get more money so we looked into other funding sources.
- *Helen* My skillset was in X Jake did the bulk of the experienced roles We hired contractors for stuff neither of us can do. A large part of Jake’s time was spent in mentoring me to learn skills I didn’t know e.g. design.
- *Helen* Risk of Jake’s time being wasted instead of him working on more profitable games. Risk to Helen’s career Risk to family finances Risk that we can’t work together + or worse.
- *Jake Describe core game (need screen?) metagame design Metagame wasn’t originally a ballroom.
- *Jake* Decorate it and every item affects gameplay. I knew this would work well and how to introduce and balance these items etc.
- *Helen* You also upgrade the main character Bella. Though one player told us she played the entire game with Bella in her underclothes because she thought it would increase her chances at balls. Bella’s parallels with us.
- *Jake* Progression Quintessential tour of England. Tax Credits (again)? We went to some of these places as research.
- *Helen* Gloustershire in the Cotswolds Badmington estate
- *Helen* Stourhead house. Unique Regency Library.
- *Helen* We love visiting Bath and looking at the architecture. Went to the museum there and looked at objects.
- *Helen* Objects inspired game objects and UI design. *Jake* Wanted it to feel like a finely crafted piece of jewelery.
- *Jake* Cameos as charging powerups.
- *Helen* Historical research pier. Someone complained the beach should be pebbles. Oops!
- *Helen* Characters. Helen went to V&A to research costumes. *Jake* Re: keeping artist's on track
- *Jake* British references + humour.
- *Jake* Been together 15 years so we knew what we were getting into. Introverted spaces
- *Jake* re: Mentorship *Helen re: photoshop + story * Jake re: project maagement
- *Jake* JOKE: Try to work hard and get rich before you have kids
- Only 14% of total on Steam Press only took seriously after Steam. We struggled with PR before. ----- Meeting Notes (2016-04-06 19:40) ----- *Helen* Felicia Day *Jake Steam vs Casual
- *Jake*
- *Jake*
- *Jake* The company is now supporting two people.
- *Jake* Pitched idea with a bigger scope to Positech games. Not a casual game, going to be on Steam. Now Helen is working on the game full time.
- *Jake* Unique turn-based duelling system
- *Helen* We love RPG games so we’ve added and extensive RPG-style inventory to Shadowhand.
- *Helen* Re: story + location
- *Jake* Come and play the game here at Rezzed in the North Hall.
- *Jake* If you are both totally committed to the same vision and are willing to take the risk.