Clueless Entity
Andrea and Sebastian, from Swedish Indie Dev Team ‘Clueless Entity’, step into the Indie Corner Spotlight this week. What makes their partnership as developers even more special, is the fact that they are dating. Read on to discover their aims as developers and what inspired them to become developers in the first place.
How long have you been a developer?
About two years now.
How many years has your team been developing games?
Me (Andrea) and Sebastian decided to develop games at the same time, so two years!
Who, or what, inspired you to become a games developer?
In Summer 2016 we played a game called Fran Bow by Kill Monday games. It’s still one of my favourites because it has so many great elements in it.
The artwork is gorgeous yet creepy, and the story is so captivating, the music is beautiful. It was the kind of experience that stuck with me and got us so inspired that we felt that we needed to do something like that ourselves.
Fran Bow also proved for us that games could be art, and since both me and Sebastian have been into different ways of expressing ourselves creatively we thought that we could combine our skills into a game, and we’ve been doing that ever since.
What was the inspiration for your team’s name?
Game development is still very new to us since we started from scratch like two years ago with learning photoshop, programming, animation and more. So we do feel like we are clueless about the whole game dev thing, and Entity is just an extension of our cluelessness since an entity can be described as “a mysterious object or thing.” So we’re Clueless Entity, we have no idea of what we’re doing or how we’re going to do it. All we know is that we love making games!
Describe a usual day in the life of an indie development team.
Well, since I work as a nurse and Sebastian is studying full time we spend all the free time we can on game developing. On a normal work/ school day, I like to use the time on the bus to and from work to reach out and talk to other developers.
When we come home, we make some tea, turn on some nice music and sit in front of the computers about 2-3 hours, just working on the current game projects, drawing some new scenes, fixing some bugs and whatnot. Finally, we just like to relax with some Netflix or a book before going to bed and so a new day begins.
Can you describe the process/timeline of developing a game?
We’re still trying to figure out our process. But usually, we get an idea that we write down a rough script to. Then I can start drawing some sketches according to the story which Sebastian can later use to start with some early programming. At this stage we do some research, test different styles, decide how the game will be played and on what device. We try and find inspiration that’s related to the story through music, art, movies books and trips.
Now we have an idea of how the game will look and feel and this is when the process gets fun with designing characters and environments. I’m adding more depth to the art and animation, and Sebastian is working with adding more functionality to the game and implementing our ideas. Throughout the process, we add more details or make some changes here and there.
Near the end, I compose the music. Around the last month, we fix the final details. Throughout the whole process we try to let people play the game to see what works and what doesn’t, and then hopefully we have a game that we are satisfied with and ready to share with the world.
How do you juggle all of the aspects of games development?
We split the different aspects of game development between us. Sebastian is more into programming, I’m doing the art and some of the music, and we both work on the story and concepts for the game. We’re a team, and we juggle it together.
What is your ambition as an indie developer?
To tell a story, and to share emotions.
What advice would you give to someone who wants to get into the games industry?
I would say that it ’s important not just to do something but to start by doing something simple. Take baby steps and the more experience you get, the more complicated items you can do.
Where do you see gaming heading in the next decade?
It’s hard to tell as people tend to play what they like, be it retro games, indie games or triple-A games. There might come a new niche that will take over the Battle Royale craze that’s currently played, but no one will know for sure what that niche will be.
I want to say a huge thanks to Andrea and Sebastian at Clueless Entity for taking part in my Indie Corner Spotlight Interview. If you would like your Indie Dev team to be featured in my Indie Corner Spotlight, please get in touch.
