Birth of a White Paper game
It started with an idea in 2011.
We set out with a goal of designing a short narrative experience working out of our homes with no long term vision other than developing the games we wanted to create.
After a few initial prototypes, soon enough, we grew into a team of 6 working in a small space in Manchester, UK setting out to make our first title both as individuals and as a team.
Our First Release
Three years later, we self-published our first game, Ether One.
It took everything from our small team, but we released it to strong critical acclaim with incredible support from Epic Games & Sony Playstation.
Although not a runaway hit, Ether One was nominated for a Develop award for ‘Use of Narrative’ and became a Finalist at Indiecade 2014 but more importantly, showed us we could make a living creating original games.
a Bump in the Road
With a small amount of hubris from our side, we began our next project; The Occupation.
What started as an exploration in the walking sim genre being meshed with the immersive sim genre turned into an ambitious undertaking.
The Occupation would ship 4 years later in 2019 across 3 platforms and in 7 languages.
Being the scrappy startup no longer worked for this massive undertaking which we realised too late. Without the knowledge of proper budgeting and producing, the resulting work created unnecessary stress upon ourselves & the project.
Although The Occupation received some incredible accolades, we made the decision to regroup and refocus on strengthening the team to double down on our next project.
Internal Focus
With a better understanding of the game development pipeline with more emphasis placed on team culture, we were able to build a strong foundation in which to execute our next game title.
We formed new pipelines & processes to create stability whilst avoiding the impulse to create unnecessary rules which provided our team with the same autonomy and creative freedom from our early years.
Our goal was to place emphasis upon hiring & continuous learning within the team to ensure we deliver the best titles to our players whilst retaining team members for the long term.
as a Team
We focused, refined, developed and designed to build upon the knowledge and skills gained from past titles.
We spent the post-pandemic years looking internally, understanding what titles we find most interesting to work on. Then, doubling down on our mission of respecting our player's time, input and building worlds surrounding larger important themes.
As we look ahead to 2024, it'll be filled with a lot of exciting project developments, reinforcing roles on the team to help build and grow a sustainable, highly skilled team.
