The Indie Corner Spotlight – Shedworks
Next in the Indie Corner spotlight, is London based, two-man team, Shedworks. Fresh from showing more of their upcoming game, Sable, at Gamescom.
How long have you been a developer?
4 years.
How many years has your team been developing games?
4 years.
Who, or what, inspired you to become a games developer?
We’ve always been interested in games, I think it wasn’t necessarily clear HOW to make games for a while growing up. But, as successful indie games became more prevalent and the technology became easier to use it made making games as a small team feel viable.
What was the inspiration for your team’s name?
We work in a shed, not much more complex than that!
Describe a usual day in the life of an indie development team.
Daniel cycles in, we have a morning cup of tea and chat before we head to the shed and start working on whatever tasks we have set up for ourselves. We mostly work on our own stuff and throughout the day have discussions about ideas we have or problems we need solving, and at lunch, we go to the local high street and eat together.
Can you describe the process/timeline of developing a game?
It varies for every game, I think. Some game concepts come fully formed, some games come as a single mechanic or a world or an emotion you want to evoke. We usually start with a gameplay prototype and then work out how we want to handle it thematically. Then we try to make it fun or interesting and work out how it looks and feels stylistically.
How do you juggle all of the aspects of being an indie games developer?
Not very well but we’re getting better. I can handle, for example, swapping between different design roles. I love being able to be a level designer one week and a character designer the next but where it gets difficult is when you have to deal with stuff like accounting, marketing, paperwork. Stuff that isn’t necessarily contributing directly to the development of the software, I find transitioning to that stuff quite difficult because it requires a very different mentality.
What is your ambition as an indie developer?
To make good and thoughtful video games.
What advice would you give to someone who wants to get into the games industry?
Apply critical thinking to
Where do you see gaming heading in the next decade?
Not a clue!
I want to say a huge thanks to Dan and Greg at
