An interview with Remode Studios

This week we have an interview with Ella Romanos and Martin Darbyof Remode Studios, who are preparing to ship their first game, Mole Control on the PC.

Phil:

Can you give us a little bit more background about the company? How many people there are, past games, that kind of thing?

Ella:

Remode was formed in August 2007 by Martin Darby and Andy Russell when they graduated from uni. They started off by doing web development work, just to bring cash into the business whilst they explored how to start developing games. At the time I was in my final year at uni (on the same course) but I was working with them and Andy was teaching me DirectX and C++. When I finished uni in May 2008 I joined the company and we decided it was time to focus completely on games, so we started pitching for investment.

In terms of past games, we developed game prototypes in uni, but none of us had worked in the games industry before. Our degree was in digital art and technology rather than games, which meant that we had a wide variety of skills and we all had experience in industry.

In the team at the moment we have a full-time artist and a placement student who is training as a programmer, and we have several contractors that we use on our projects including a lead programmer, two audio guys and an artist. Mole Control has had 9 people working on it in total.

As well as game development, we also do simulation development which is generally work for hire. Currently we are developing simulation for airfields as well as our game Mole Control. Both projects use the engine we have developed, so the synergies between the different sides to the business allow us to diversify risk and generally take a broader view of things a software company.

Remove studios Mole Control Logo

Phil:

You mentioned that you spent a year finding funding and ended up with a business angel and funding body supporting you. Thats a pretty big achievement straight out of University and something that many indies would dream of. Can you give us some more information on how you went about this and how the deal ended up?

Ella:

To be honest, it was really hard and you have to be very patient. The first challenge was to find people who wanted to give us money… We looked around a lot and looked at the angel investor networks, but eventually the science park where we are based put us in touch with an investor who was looking for new investments, and also a funding body. It was really daunting going through the process with them. We had to put together a business plan and financial projections, and when you have just graduated from a technology degree it’s not something you have a clue about! It was the biggest learning curve we had ever been through.

The first thing we had to do was structure the company properly, which may seem weird with only 3 of us, but if you want to get investment you really have to demonstrate that you are prepared for growth. We realised that one member of the team has to be outward looking, and not really be involved in day-to-day development (although in a small company there is always a small amount of cross over at points). The way it was explained to us was that the MD should have three concerns – vision, culture and money. It we hadn’t followed this, we would never have been taken seriously by investors. Which actually leads me to another point – when you are starting up take as much advice and help as you can get, from as many people as possible.

The other key factor was that we were already a registered company, we were making money through web development, and by the time we actually got the commitment from the investors we had proved that we could run a company for a year – if we had tried to get investment as three graduates wanting to set up I don’t think we would have even got through the door.

With writing the business plan and projections, we really had to concentrate on the business rather than the products – investors don’t care about the products, they care about how what you are doing fits into the bigger picture. If you just care about products then that’s great, but you need to realize that you are more of a lifestyle business and probably aren’t suitable for investment. I would say that deciding whether you are a growth business or a lifestyle business is the single biggest question you need to answer if you are thinking of starting a business (and all directors need to agree) as your approach to the business will be fundamentally different.

In the end we actually had investment offers from two business angels (one of which we accepted), plus an offer from the funding body. What we noticed was that once we had one investor interested, we could leverage interest from other people.

Mole Control title screen

Phil:

Your first game, Mole Control <link> has a nice casual feel to it, but it is unusual in that it is 3D, what made you go with the 3D engine route in comparison to say the majority of casual games that tend to be more 2D?

Martin:

There are really several factors that affected our decision take the 3D route. First and foremost we felt that 3D would offer a more immersive experience for the player, but crucially the production skills we had in house lent themselves more towards 3D (modeling, texturing, programming etc). The lead programmer on the project is very experienced (former Lucasarts senior) and after a discussion with him we felt it would be just as easy to do full 3D as it would isometric. We also felt that some robust in-house 3D tech would serve us better in the future. After looking at the minimum hardware specs for Steam users, a look at the way integrated graphics chips are going, and glancing at the fact that even browser based 3D seems to be more of an emerging standard now, it just felt right. Obviously tech should never be put in front of gameplay (a 3D match-3 could be weird…) but in this case we didn’t feel like it compromised the casual nature of the game, we felt like it enhanced it.

Phil:

From watching the video, it seems like the game draws a lot of its core mechanic from games like minesweeper where you have a numeric value showing potential threats for any given cel? How did you come up with this new take on that kind of mechanic?

Martin:

The origin point for the project was looking over old games. We knew we only had about five months (no time for brand new game mechanics) and that we wanted to make a small puzzle game while we were between contracts for simulation work. It seemed there were a lot of ‘match-3’s’ about, each building on the basic puzzle mechanic in a different way. Andy and Ella were big minesweeper fans and found the basic mechanic addictive but the game itself very 80’s and stale. Some initial research also suggested that a surprising amount of people don’t actually know how to play it. After some brainstorming on a whiteboard we realized the mechanic could be modded to be played with a character and Ella subsequently knocked up a flash prototype in a couple days to test this. Ella then passed the brief to me (designer) and Matt (artist). Matt gave it an initial conceptual treatment, coming up with the notion of ‘exploding moles’ and digging, I then worked through this from a functional angle, deciding what each powerup should do, untrodden/trodden grass, where you could dig, lives, game modes, how story was unlocked etc. We have also incorporated a tutorial that teaches the player to think about how the puzzle works. All these features were essentially born out of what we felt was wrong with wrong with minesweeper: you can die straight away, people don’t get it, there are no real graphics etc. Hopefully this should make the game more appealing to non-gamers and casual players.

Mole Control screenshot 1

Phil:

So you are about to release your first game. How do you plan on actually selling the game, via portals? Your own website? Did you consider the marketing plan when you started to create the game or have you concentrated on the development so far?

Ella:

We are going to sell it via our own website and also via other digital distribution channels. We are currently talking to several different channels and building our own site at the moment.

I think we did underestimate the marketing side of things when we started this project. The whole process of developing our first game has been a real challenge, and whilst we are really pleased with how it is going so far we didn’t predict the process perfectly! However, because I’m not involved in a lot of the development I have recently diverted my attention to marketing and distribution. Actually referring back to your earlier question about 3D graphics, this seems to be helping our marketing/press attention. So far Mole Control has been featured on Eurogamer TV and the front page of IGN and we are looking for further press once we get a release date scheduled.

Phil:

I guess one issue with having investors funding your developments, is that at some point they expect a return on their investment. How do you see yourselves achieving that goal?

Ella:

Game developers really need a string of hit games or a novel business proposition in order to grow. An advantage of a young and small company is that you can adapt easily according to the fast changing industry and the success of your products.

Three of the key areas that we focused on in our business plan, which demonstrated to investors the potential for good returns were:

1. Risk diversification – by developing both games and simulations. The simulation work is generally work for hire and therefore less risk, less return, and the games are self-funded and so are higher risk and (hopefully!) higher return.

2. Building value within the business – by building up our own technology and IP as we develop our products.

3. Strong management team – have a clear objective of how the company is run and where we want it to go and be focused on both the business and the products.

Mole Control screenshot 2

Phil:

How do you find life as an indie in Britain? Do you think there are any particular advantages to being an indie in this country?

Ella:

I think that there is opportunity in the UK to develop games that are perhaps a bit more unique, or a bit quirky maybe. A lot of mainstream gaming seems to be more outwardly American or Japanese, and I think this gives us in the UK, and Europe, a chance to make games that are a bit different.

I think from our point of view being in the UK and specifically the South West has been an advantage. There aren’t many other companies like us down here (as far as we know, we are the only games studio in the South West), and the area is really focused on economic growth so we had a lot of support including the links to funding opportunities and free rent for a year!

Phil:

What are your plans for future projects? Do you plan on targeting the more casual market? Do you consider other platforms like iPhone or PSP as a target?

Ella:

Our overall plans are to continue with developing games and simulations and build up the two sides to the business. With regards to games, we have a lot of ideas but I really want to see what people do and don’t like about Mole Control first. I would say though that we are interested largely in self-publishing, although we may look at DS and PSP in the future. With our background in web we are keeping an eye on the online space and we are interested in new business models like micro-transactions. We aren’t considering iPhone though as we don’t think that the business model is one we could justify to investors.

Phil:

Finally, do you have any words for other British indie developers reading this?

Ella:

I guess that my main advice would be to have a clear vision for your company, and to play to the advantages of your team – make sure that everything you do supports your long-term goals as well as your short ones and makes the most of your resources. You also need to immerse yourself in the industry as much as possible, go to events, do your research, find out what other people are doing and how they see things and then draw your own conclusions – for me that’s what makes being an indie interesting.

Martin:

Spaceships, zombies, violence, spacemarines and war CAN be cool if done well, but as far as the ‘conceptual layer’ on top of a basic game mechanic goes, surely there are different ways to stand out and still create appeal?

You can check out Remode studios work at Remode studios website and we look forward to reviewing their first release!

Tags: Interviews

This entry was posted on Monday, September 21st, 2009 at 6:12 pm and is filed under Interviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.