Later Today = Tomorrow.

Tomorrow = Next week.

Next week = Next month.

Next month = in a few months.

In a few months = never.

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Gather around everyone, it’s time for a story. This story is about the formation of an independent video game studio and for the most part common sense. Some people gain it at an early age, others much later and some don’t at all.

Hope is something that can drive you to do great things however reason will get you there in one piece. I do think that if there’s one positive thing to come out of all of this it’s the life lessons learned and the experience gained – because it sure as sh*t wasn’t the sanity I kept. Like so many others I’m an aspiring game designer and when I’m not organizing game designs into neat (or sometimes gargantuan) documents I’m making myself semi-useful in producing them. I’ve recently self published a project called Orb Blast.

I would like to go back to the beginning of my semi-professional career which started in 2006 when I joined a start up company [THE FIRST] that promised to mold new ideas into something the world can enjoy and give new upstarts a chance to reach their goals. This start-up company showed a lot of promise, especially to someone who was just starting out and was looking for such an opportunity to not only gain some great experience but work with some really talented people. I was introduced to this company by my former business partner who was one of the founding members.

At the time I was focused on creating pitch material and a demonstration for a new project and for a time it was good. My contact within this organization was the Director of Operations [THE FIRST DOO]. Team Leads reported to the Director of Operations who discussed the situation with the other executive staff members. One day I received an e-mail from [THE FIRST DOO] saying that the he was leaving the company however he still wanted to work with me (later this will be known as a snake in the grass). This is a very tough position for someone new because on one hand you feel obligated by loyalty to an organization however you also want the best for your project.

This was the start of a long sad history where [THE FIRST] would see many, many new Director of Operations. One individual promised to secure funding in 6 months, he was gone in less than 6 weeks. So myself and others left to continue our work with the former DOO of [THE FIRST] and formed [THE SECOND], by this time I was swallowed up in the world of business however it wasn’t long until he disappeared never to be heard from again – thanks!

I was left with what I started with, myself and a few others who wanted to make a really good game and any other unreasonable jargon we could throw around since it had to be THE BEST (See Duke Nukem Forever). Mobile, casual, and anything else considered “small” was beneath us. Yes sir, we were going AAA (gee I wonder what will happen). This is a common problem with a lot of people and it’s great to dream big but for the love of god you have to be reasonable, you can usually spot the ones that are likely to fail by the size of the project and the inexperience of the team. The larger and more complex the project the more likely you are to fail however this isn’t true of everyone and a few have managed to do great things but the majority reaches epic fail in no time flat. Those who do succeed usually have a nice body of work behind them or fully grasp the size of the project and the effort needed to see it through – it might even be a little luck.

It wasn’t long before [THE THIRD] was formed, it had 4 founding members and despite the advice from people smarter than ourselves we set off to do what seemed reasonable, start a game studio and fully expect everything to succeed without any problems. Our friend inexperience quickly joined in on the fun (among a few other factors) and everyone went their separate ways.

Then some stuff happened and Space Monkey Games Ltd. was formed in 2007.

In the beginning everything was great, at least better than anything had been going in the past. We were hard at work producing demonstrations of technology, outlining our plans for the future and building on past experience we intended not to make the same mistakes. Instead we made all new ones, no rock left unturned it seems!

What can you do to ensure failure? Well the first thing you can do is work on a project that is well beyond your capabilities and resources, that’s a sure fire way to fail which was something that survived throughout this whole experience, it was the common element in every situation and the second thing you can do is pitch a game to a publisher and then deliver something entirely different such as my former business partner demonstrated.

It was also around this time that I did something very difficult, it was however the best thing I could have done for myself – I shelved the project that I had carried with me this whole time. It was hard to do but it was like waking up from a coma, having everything you’ve ever done snap into place and wondering why the hell you didn’t do it sooner. Perhaps I felt that I and others had put in so much time that it would be a waste to abandon it however sometimes that’s what you have to do, you have to realize when something just isn’t worth it anymore and move on. You can even just put it on hold and come back to it later and maybe in time I will come back to it when the time is right.

As I was waking up my former business partner continued working on his large (and at the time ever-expanding project) I started thinking differently about games and what I could do. At this time The Orange Box was just released and I happened to try Peggle Extreme, I loved it. My former business partner had also played and recommended the game. Peggle is simple, fun and easy to get sucked into. You don’t need cutting edge next generation graphics to make something enjoyable.  I set out to start over and create something simple and fun. In retrospect I should have done a bit more research on what the market was asking for but the main thing is that I was thinking more reasonably.

My former business partner joined in after much coaxing from me to be an executive producer and actually pay people for their work as contractors and not mess around with trying to get free labor from people like in all our previous ventures. He hesitantly agreed and we started production for what would become a 6 month project.

At this time my business partner appeared to like this new direction and seemed to abandon his large scale adventure project and do a smaller version however as we neared the end of Orb Blast he had given up on Space Monkey and wanted to dissolve without even giving things a chance, he also seemed to have abandoned his project small scale version in favor of one which had ballooned out of control. We parted ways shortly after that.

So what was I thinking? Well I wasn’t, I feel like an idiot for even going as far as I did, for as long as I did. I was fueled by hope that things would come together, hope that I was making the right choices but not stopping to listen to reason. I can’t say I’m glad things worked out the way they did because friendships were lost and some bridges were burned in the process however it helped get me on what I believe to be the right track finally.

Today I approach things a lot more carefully and keep my goals reasonable. Looking back though I have to laugh, laugh at what it took to find something as rare as common sense.