Game Development Livestream: Behind the Scenes of Grumpy Gaffer: Game Dev with RC Game Studio

Game Development Livestream: Welcome back everybody to the game development live stream. This is the live stream where we talk to game developers, creative heads,

Jon Radoff: people who are really working in the industry, making things, building things, creating games that they're bringing new entertainment and joy to people who love playing games like myself, like you, like pretty much, I think it's about 3 billion people in the world right now playing. So this is the most important media type of our time. And we love to have people from the industry here to learn, to ask questions, so it's your opportunity to ask the team today questions. And I'm really excited because one of the things that I've really gained an appreciation for over, I'll say it's really accelerated over the last decade is game development has gone from something which has existed really in only certain kinds of regions of the world to now it is an art form. It's a media form that everyone around the world all the 3 billion people are not only playing games now. Many of the 3 billion are making games and they're all over the place. So this is exciting because we've got an awesome team here from Costa Rica, the land of pure Vita and I just, I just probably confirm for everyone that I do not speak Spanish. But I did visit Costa Rica once and I then I remember the phrase so we've got a team here from Costa Rica. I'm going to be really curious about what it's like just building a game in Costa Rica. But let's start with the team guys introduce yourself. Let's see we're starting with now I'm forgetting who we're going to start with Paul are we starting with you. Yes, let's scoop those up.

Game Development Livestream: First of all, thanks for the opportunity to be here and talk with you guys. I'm really excited and happy with this chance. Well, my name is Paul Fernandez. I have been working games from around 10 years by now in different projects in different companies and now I'm creating RC games studio that is or a small studio here. Well, in my background, I think I'm working on more than 10 games and different games. Now I'm the project manager of GrumpyGaffer and the game director for this game. I'm really nice to meet you guys.

Jon Radoff: Nice David.

Game Development Livestream: Hi, I'm the lead programmer of this games, GrumpyGaffer. I've been working with Paul for around six years now and we're very glad you are given us this opportunity in general. So, well, calling myself the lead programmer will be too much because it is mostly just us three in this project. But yeah, that's where we are standing right now. Okay. And that leaves you, Draf. Hi, I'm Jeff. And I'm the lead artist of this project. I have a degree in digital animation and my background basically is developing with the RC games for about 12 years. And as I said, I used to be a motion designer for Amazon. So basically that's my background. Thank you very much for this space.

Jon Radoff: How did all of you meet and form your team? And it is the three of you, right? We're literally looking at the whole studio right now. Or do we miss anybody?

Game Development Livestream: No, there are some missing members here. I'm one of the founders and the other one is not here. It's not pressing this call. But we meet almost all in the university. And we meet Jeff on a global game. And I think it was the very first global game that we go for. And we met Jeff from there and they stay with us. Thanks.

Jon Radoff: I love that you met in a game, Jam. You know, this is one of the biggest questions that I get asked when. It's like a college student or even much older than a college and just people who have been either doing art or programming or something that's game industry adjacent. I'm always approached by people who ask me, how do I get into this industry? And, you know, first answer is, well, it's kind of an industry that wants to know what you've done, not just what you think you might be able to do. So having a portfolio of games and things that you've worked on is really key. What is a great way to do that? Go sign up for a game jam. And you'll instantly be put together with another team and you can contribute your skills. And you'll come away with some kind of portfolio piece. So if you do that a bunch of times, you guys took it to the next level. You're not only met at the game jam, you formed a studio. So everything sounds like you really clicked in that first thing.

Game Development Livestream: What was the game jam project that you worked on?

Game Development Livestream: Well, actually, we're working through projects in that game.

Game Development Livestream: They were really fun, I used to play in the game. They were similar in the style of a graphic author that you have that kind of red-leaf-swing style of fun, and it just seemed to stop.

Game Development Livestream: It was that you can be downhill, that was running in a competitive way. There was a split screen where you need to defeat the other guy, the other guy, but it was not just because you were moving faster than the other ones. Because you were doing things that annoying the other guy. For example, in changing the controls and they now the four is the backward and that kind of stuff or sending a surprises that are going to black out the screen or that kind of stuff. And yeah, that was the, I think last time was the first game we created. And then we go for three or four more games after that one. And we actually create one or two games in our office. When we had one before the pandemic, we had an office and we do a game inside our office. And games are actually a really important part of our history. Yeah, yeah. On my end, I went out from, I mean, I recently graduated from college. So I was wondering what to do with my career. So I knew about the existence of the game gens and I just went to one of them. And I met these guys and I'm still here.

Game Development Livestream: Basically, that was my journey.

Jon Radoff: Awesome. Well, let's talk more about your game, but maybe it's easiest if we just start by looking at the game. And then I'd love to hear you guys talk a little bit about what your vision was for this and where it's going from here at this point in development.

Game Development Livestream: Oscar, do we have a video ready to queue up to take a look at what these guys have been working on?

Game Development Livestream: Yeah.

Game Development Livestream: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Nice.

Jon Radoff: So I'm picking up a tower defense vibe. Yes. Tell me a little bit about the game and the idea you had coming at this.

Game Development Livestream: Well, um, Grumpy Gafford Barnes in a game then actually from 2019. I think I if I remember well. The team of that game that was what means hum to you. Then we agree that hum is actually a safe place where we can stay calm, relax it away from the stress of life and all kind of annoying stuff. Um, then we think, okay, we have an objective. We need to protect our home, but who are going to protect our home? We're going to protect us. We remember that Gafford's are people that say a lot of time on the house. And when we were a child, I think almost all one. Meet that other people that was scary for us in that moment, even when they were really nice people or we're really good. And then we say, hey, that's a really funny concept for our defenders. They're the perfect heroes that we need to have in our game. Then we decide an army of Grumpy Gafford's that are going to protect ourselves. And when we were talking about then where we need to protect against.

Game Development Livestream: Then we figure out there are a lot of things that are annoying around the world.

Game Development Livestream: And then we create a list of them. We personalize with giving characteristics to any of these annoying stuff. And we were forming each of the enemies that we that we have are now in the game. They're from political decisions to just simple silly things that just annoy us. And that was how the game was concepted and formed. And the game is actually a tour defense. It's highly inspired in plans for zombies. But we want to add it more strategy in the game. We work in trying to create a casual game that is easy to play, but hard to master. As I'm really fun of Dark Souls and that kind of hard games. Then I decide to add a lot of strategy elements and micromanagement things to create an exciting game that you need to think about really well to handle each level. Yeah, we thought about the game, the game design and the strategy. And after that, actually we thought about what the background we can put to the characters. So as a kid, I remember this elder guy who was extremely annoyed by us being put on the street. So to the point that he grabbed, he used to grab the football and so far. So that experience was also part of our inspiration to make a character like this. So we thought about this guy, we just want to play to local and he keeps receiving annoying neighbors.

Jon Radoff: So since we're talking to a game industry audience in this particular lives here. So I think a lot of people want to learn some of the decisions that you made. Now when we were watching the video, I noticed that it looks like there's some currencies that you can buy in the game. So it looks like you went with a free to play, if I'm getting it right, the free to play business model. What drove that decision for you and is that a hard thing for a smaller team to take on in the current live services environment? I'm just curious how you think about that.

Game Development Livestream: Yes, exactly. I mean, we were working on games for other guys a lot of time. We were made in mostly outsourcing experiences that were great, but we were not able to show these experiences we developed to anyone. Because the signals and that kind of stuff. And then we decided it's time to develop our very own game. And we want this game like a gift for the people that follow us, the people that are going to play the game. And then we decided we are going to we need to go for a free to play game or almost free to play game. In a steam, it has just a small cost because the steam is politics of. But this is all our stuff. But we want to make a game that is really cheap that anyone can afford or just play by free. Actually, even when we add micro transactions on that game, the idea is that all levels are developed really carefully that all can be completed free. Just with the progress of your game, if you just spend time playing our game, you're going to have enough currency to get more. Plenty of more. And you can play the entire game all the 90 levels of the campaign free. That is because it's our very first project to have the RC games name in his in his logo and it have that. Then even when it's actually a really challenge, we decide to go that way because we want to have this for our players. Yeah, as Paul was saying, we were going for a model that was in preparatory at all. I mean, we wanted people to play the game throughout the entire campaign without having to really spend any money on power ups and rates, unless they wanted to, unless they want to support this in general. And there's also a lot of ways that you can earn the same currency, the same currency that you buy with real money. You can get it through playing the game itself. So there's actually a lot of features in there, like an alternative that we run, that we hold every week, every week. And people get getting the kind of currency to spend the games without having to spend any real money, unless they want to, unless they want to really compete and get the first place like every every week. And so, yeah, that's the kind of model that we went for.

Jon Radoff: So I have more questions about that, but before we do, a lot of people show up to this live stream looking to earn a code. And I'm trying to keep it a little bit random when I introduce this in the process. So we're going to take a moment now to give out the code. And I think your team will like the code that we're giving out today. So the word for today is gaffer g a f f e r. So if you're in our community, if you're on the leaderboard, you're trying to rise up the leaderboard, that's your code gaffer. You got to use slash claim in discord. If you're wondering what the heck we're talking about, and this is their first term hearing about it, sign up for the beamable network discord. Get in there, validate your account. And you also join hub dot people will not network because that's where we run the questing leaderboard for the air drop campaign, which is going to be coming sooner than you might think it's coming along. So get in there if you haven't yet, you slash claim slash claim gaffer g a f f e r is the code today. So we'll earn the little bounty from our quest system that allows you to earn some points towards a very, very highly sought after air drops. Okay, so coming back to you guys. So you made a very deliberate decision that you were not going to go for the jugular on monetization. And when I built some of the games that I did at that disruptor beam, so start your timelines and game of terms of scent, we were pretty deliberate that we wanted to have, you know, a lot of dollars flowing through the system. It was really just, you know, at the time, it was almost contrary. So it's actually a contrary and play believe it or not. So what at that time, North American games were very hesitant to monetize. And I had a theory, which was that if I adopted what was essentially a Chinese business model and applied it to a Western game that it would work for us. And it did with, you know, Star Trek has arped out over a dollar. Average revenue per daily active users. So it monetizes very highly. But maybe that doesn't always work in today's market. So you're saying you've gone a different way, which is rather than just trying to maximize the arped out, it sounds like you're just trying to maximize retention and engagement of your users.

Game Development Livestream: How do you find that your users respond to this approach to monetization where they may not need to actually spend on currency to get through levels?

Jon Radoff: First of all, do they really know, do they know that? Where did they just leave to the assumption that you're like most free to play games that they've interacted with where they're going to hit a pinch point? They just have to spend the money if they want to go any further.

Game Development Livestream: Well, I think we developed the levels in the way they can go progressing to the campaign. They are going to learn we create a tutorial. But the first campaign is actually a tutorial. It is not a step by step tutorial, but it's going to teach how to play the game. And it's actually easy to complete each level while they're learning new concepts about the game. We don't say in any place that the game is actually a free place for that thing.

Game Development Livestream: I mean, we want to make the user the progression in a way they can feel they can complete the game without needing to pay anything.

Game Development Livestream: It's just, it was like the design, not more like saying something that is free or that kind of stuff. We have been getting positive encouragement through these teams reviews. For example, we're very glad to see the community come together and tell us that they really like the game, the tactics and the gameplay itself and also the graphics. We try to implement this if you notice the bives of the game, they're really 2010, 2009 kind of style. Those games that came out on that year, on that era. And we're going to keep that bive of a campaign and an arcade-ish kind of game that you have to go through at your levels.

Game Development Livestream: Just enjoying the game has it was not like in our days that they just want you to spend a lot of time in there.

Game Development Livestream: And hopefully they want you to keep you old your money just to progress just like a pay-to-wing kind of model. So we wanted to try it away from that and keep it together like an old kind of console.

Game Development Livestream: People will feel nostalgic and will feel that they will feel great about gaming again.

Game Development Livestream: They all, they all, they all times.

Jon Radoff: So you're on, you, you distribute through a couple of very different platforms. You're on steam. And you also, as I understand it, distribute through Google Play. Did I, I think I saw that in the graph? Do I have that right? I'm just curious what distinctions you see those because certainly on steam, you get a lot of like hardcore gamers. And I think I can imagine them being that exact kind of player you just described, which is they've seen enough of the free to play. They don't mind it if it exists at kind of low key level, but they want to seek skill-based gaming. They don't want to feel like they're free to play monetization is an obstacle to actually engaging with the game. Whereas Google Play players, let's face it, like they download these games and virtually the only games that they end up downloading are the ones that have a pretty highly monetized model because it's almost the only way to succeed on Google Play because user acquisition is so expensive, which kind of drives developers. So I think also when people think about like the monetization strategy of mobile, you'll have to remember that the combination of the high take rate plus the high cost of user acquisition on these platforms almost defines the monetization strategy that you that you have to use. And the question really comes down to what distinctions have you observed between your Google Play users versus steam or have you built a community that's cross platform and you're not seeing distinctions.

Game Development Livestream: Well, indeed, actually the game is cross platform, it was one of our intended purposes for this game when we were starting the developer. It was have a game that can be played almost in any place. Then we have now Android, we have a steam and tomorrow I think it's going to be released on iOS. All right, you heard. Yeah, well, there are just a small difference between the players because we want to have a balance between if you want to be really good playing this game or if you want just to spend some time when you are on a boss or you're going on a train or if you like, we are from Latin America, there are a lot of places without internet. Then one is that actually it was another challenge that we need to face. We want to game that can be played without internet also. Then if you are really away from the city and you don't have internet or that kind of stuff, you can still play. The last they are purpose in creating this game. And yeah, this is, these are little difference between the players because we think we try to balance that between if you want to be a really good player, really hard player as you tell or if you just want to spend some time. For that reason, we create some mini games inside the game. We also think I mean, my family is is like a lot of the Sudoku game, actually. Then we even include that Sudoku for a way to which reach that kind of people that just want to play a really Sudoku, just a fun Sudoku. And actually my mom plays the game a lot, but only the Sudoku. Then to sort the kind of challenge between the difference between the players, we arrange that creating some mini games. Then there are more casual games like this machine storm that is just a point and click game. Or we create the nightmare mode that is actually when we just move forward, strategy to the another level totally. And even when that level is really complex, you can pass all of them if you just sit down and study the strategy, study the strangeness of all your characters. And yeah, that was the way we manage that difference between players. I like to point out that our decision regarding my decision, it is based also on the context that we are small in the game that studio from Kosherika. Or Mango was actually to have a game that could reach a lot of people. Maybe in the future we can think more about more monetization strategies like skins or weapons, things like that. But we made priority in this production to just have a game that could reach as much people. Yeah, an important thing about the context that the Jeff tell us is that it's our very first game. We didn't have any game to show to a publisher for example. We have a lot of projects in mind. We have updates. We think on updates from Granpa Gaffer. We have another projects that we are wanting to create, but we don't have anything to show. As you pointed out at the beginning, this industry is more about what you have done, not what you can do. Then one of the idea of Granpa Gaffer was create a game that we can show.

Game Development Livestream: We can actually create games from zero to the end, with quality, with good amount of refinement.

Game Development Livestream: And if you want to support us in this new project, then you have something to see about that.

Jon Radoff: So what kind of so we know you use being a wolf for part of it, like monetization, what other technologies were important for this? And why did you choose some technologies you did as you built this game?

Game Development Livestream: Well, indeed, we face a really big challenge here. We want to create a game that is almost free. We want to create a game that can be played offline. But we want to create a player again that people can interact with others in not really intense way, but just in a small way. And that three things are actually really, really, really challenge. The only way that creates a server that can handle that is created by your own. But it means it's going to be an extra effort creating that thing. And then we just start looking for services around. And we saw B-Mobile. And we get in love with B-Mobile. It was really cool. It just helped a lot with all that challenge that we face. And also, actually, give us the chance to create another thing that we were not thinking about, like the tournaments. That we like a lot when we see that kind of functionality about the B-Mobile platform. We saw this chance to create a more interactive experience also. A kind of competitive way to play with some junior friends or that kind of stuff. And then that's the main reason why we chose B-Mobile. We found in B-Mobile a really good platform that fit all our requirements.

Jon Radoff: Yeah, thanks for that Paul. So it sounds like he tapped into a lot of the ability to provide essentially a social experience for your players, but in a light way without having to build like.

Game Development Livestream: Yeah, we were trying. And we were looking for alternatives. We wanted to expand on our sense of the game because we were we it is mostly a single player game. But we wanted to get some community engagement and not also that, but also we wanted to have an inventory.

Game Development Livestream: We wanted to handle.

Game Development Livestream: A leader, birds. We wanted ways for people to participate, to fit. And in a way to modernize them a little bit. And we also wanted to learn about in-app purchases, for example. And there's all these features where we weren't finding in the in any other alternatives. So we were looking for in the during development. We were really satisfied with them until we found out about B-Mobile. It was just through browsing. And I want to highlight something here about the B-Mobile team. For example, for people like Trapper or Alistair. It was really, really helpful during the time that I were clear now by doubts. So been issues constantly answering my emails. So they were really really really great help during the during this time. And we appreciate it since about B-Mobile like the inventory, for example. That you guys offer for us. We were really really small. We don't really have that much of a budget to invest in this. And so it is allowing us to use a back-end service. Because as you said, this is the phrase that they read. I don't know where in an article or a video or somewhere. And you came out with an idea about the that you want to people to focus on the creative process. And mostly not about the infrastructure or the boring stuff, let's say. And I really like that. I think that's the greatest idea that you can come up with. And you really helped us because we were at the very tail end of our development. And we wanted to we would need it to to at this these systems, these services. And we already had the core gameplay down essentially, but we were lacking this. All the systems and services that we needed. And you haven't really even scratched the surface. So we speak when it comes to what B-Mobile has to offer. And because you have kind of a lot of features like multipliers and much making the. I will be really interested in actually do some research and see what they do. And well, it is it was it was great.

Jon Radoff: Yeah, I mean, I've spoken to so many indie teams. And I think that there's so much engagement that could be added to so many games by adding even the simplest. Life services components. It doesn't mean you have to even add a in game economy, which you guys have also done. It can just be as simple as have some social systems in place and some leaderboards and events and kind of maybe change game logic a little bits that the events. Have different incentives within them in terms of how you can perform and how different characters, for example. Have their stats modified like I think just a simple thing like that can add a whole layer of repeatable play and. You know much more engagement to the game. It can even lead to content creation because then people play the game and they show things like here's how you win in the current event and their post video. So there's a lot of things that that can be done along those lines, but I also run into so many indie teams that just make the assumption of. Well, then I've got to code a server and what if that doesn't work right what if we have too many users and then it doesn't scale just now I've added like you know multiple engineering headcount to my team just to worry about these problems. And what I have really made part of my mission to be is like these kind of services are no longer the domain of just like a triple a or double a studio with tens of millions of dollars of budget. Right, by the way, those teams should be using this technology to because even it doesn't matter how big you are you don't really want to be building is you put it the boring stuff yourself because the boring stuff is actually really hard to do well and if you do it wrong bad things happen to your game. But in particular, just giving you the ability to amplify your creativity and allow you to dream bigger and have those kind of systems in place within your game. Without being an impediment and really be able to take advantage of the current market landscape, which is that players kind of expect it and they want it and they want that social engagement they want the content to stay current. So really happy to see that. You know you guys as an indie team with as you said to yourself a small budget have been able to build and incorporate those kind of systems into this and out of curiosity beyond beam ball what are the key technology of you this is unity I take it. Yeah, yeah. So it's sort of like back in the day, there were people still building their own 3d engine and then unity show the world that you could actually build a 3d graphics game. Without building a 3d engine yourself and suddenly it opened up a whole world of possibilities for teams to go and build you know bigger games with a bigger vision because they equip you with that that's kind of the thinking that we had. And it being able which is to give you the ability to be in the life services business without having to take on the millions of dollars of development that some of the earlier studios had to engage in for that. Can I ask a question. We love it when you ask questions yesterday people were demanding so I'm glad you're jumping in that's why.

Game Development Livestream: That's why I don't say anything I keep it more but like if you're imagining the next game that you were going to design and you had already had availability of a tool like beamable.

Game Development Livestream: Would you framework your your your development process like you would design the game around the technology and the solutions that be able.

Game Development Livestream: As a service could offer or would you take the concept of the game and then try to hook it into beamables like offerings like what would you see yourself. Imagine in the next game around the the possibilities that beamable could provide you in the production and then that would help to really frame up what you're creating or would you start with the idea of the game first and then see where those gaps could be patched and by beamable.

Game Development Livestream: Well, I think it's.

Game Development Livestream: I mean both options I mean depends of the game we now we have. I think three main ideas about what is going to be our next game and they're pretty different ideas. Then there are one in specific that yeah it's think around what options beamable offers. But there are others that are just a single player game that they are not thinking of be more because the nature of the game. But clearly we are going to have beamable mine for each of the next project we are going to have because it was really cool work with with you guys. I mean I don't have any bad words for you. The sport was really great. The option the beamable platform offers is great also. I like a lot that you can pick only the options you want not all the package. This is very important because we want to for example in play in grumpy offer which is one monetization we just want the leaderboard and we just want the tournaments and we don't want all the old package. We don't need to think in other things and actually that support that give a lot of flexibility for us as a model studio to pick only the things we wanted in that specific project. And I think it's it was a great service. I don't have anything to say about beamable. We are aware of our capabilities of beamable so for sure we can use the services we will go for it for sure.

Jon Radoff: So tell me what's on the road map for your studio. So first of all let's just start with the current game. You said it had a very small budget. So you said you have a lot of projects that you've worked on. You mentioned how you've done development essentially to help other developers. You've done contract development within the studio if I understood you right. This is the first title that you basically self funded it right. You're just doing the studio within all the spare time that you've got.

Game Development Livestream: You're like let's go.

Jon Radoff: So what is it? Is it your hope that that gives you the portfolio strength to start pitching games to publishers to other people who would fund game projects in the future.

Game Development Livestream: Yes, yes, that's actually the plan. We want to create a company as a portfolio thing that we can show. We have worked on really exciting projects from other companies and not only games we developed a lot of software things. That beat me and my other partner we are computer science engineer then we have a lot of skills to create almost anything we could. We are creating back in the back ends we have creating websites we are creating anything but what we want to create is games. That's the reason one of the name is to your RC games. But we even we can show some projects that I have worked before. There are just two few then we will not fear we will not feel enough sure enough to go pitch games from publishers without any game to show and say hey here's the game played it. You know you can see that we are able or we are. Have all the skills to create a game from zero to the end. And yeah, then this is what's self-funding project. The idea is that the next projects we are going to have we are going to create some prototypes that we can show to the publishers and then and we have this background to say hey we are able to. So many does come live come to life. Yeah, and this was one of the positive outcomes that we expected from this billable network campaign. I think that we we are aware we know that graphic offers a good game. It's a polish polish game. But had no visibility.

Game Development Livestream: We spent some budget creating some marketing for social media.

Game Development Livestream: But we feel now with this campaign will help of the whole that the game is getting to the right people. So now we're more confident on looking for publishers and about our future in general. Yeah, we were we are very ambitious as a studio. I think we got we got to limit the scope a lot for this game in particular. We wanted to include. I don't know there was a moment in time. I wanted to make the game even multiplayer. I wanted to add another feature that we didn't have time for because as you said, we were working on our spare time only and. I don't know we wanted bosses in the game. But we want to add maybe in the future we see the support from people right now. So we may actually add the what we were thinking of because we were actually about to put it into shelf. But we want to add more world's more levels more characters, maybe skins or cosmetics for the game. And yeah, in particular, we do want to do a lot with it, but we were like in the funding. We're like in the time we still have to eat. We still have to survive at the end of the day. And. And yeah, yeah, I hope we hope that. And we wrote out all the answers for the game. We get to the point where we can actually just live our lives out of it out of making games on our own. So let's go at the end goal.

Jon Radoff: I'm curious about the journeys that different studios have been on. Did you have you gone out in the past and pitched publishers for ideas and tried to get funding for games is creating this game. A reaction to the feedback you are hearing from them, which is you needed to build up your own kind of studio portfolio. Did you try to fund this particular game just tell me a little bit more about like that journey that you've been on to try to create your own titles.

Game Development Livestream: Well, indeed, we even don't try to pitch this game to the publishers. We ask help from some game. Cons game advisors around the world. We have good reviews from them. They like the game. They give a really important feedback for us to improve our game. But we will not think on go to the publishers. We think to pay for a marketing campaign with a specialized studio. But for our not for our lack of experience in that kind of that part of the development. We try to look for just when we we are almost ready to launch the game. Then all the studios just deny our solicitation because they were full of the job. Then we yeah, we we we made a lot of mistakes during this during this last phase of development. But I think it was a really good important learning experience for us. Because this this part of the self of the publishing it was something that we didn't know at all as we are creating game for other guys. The other guys will be in charge for that part and we will not know anything about that. We are really good into the development, but we are not good in the position. Marketing so marketing and that kind of stuff. And we create we do a lot of mistakes in that part. But yes, in this project, we were not we were we even ask for search for a for a publisher because we don't have anything to show. It's not good say I developed where I developed games from that studio, but they are names are not even there. Of course. Then the idea is, OK, now that we have a game, we're going to feel more confident and we also learn from our mistakes. For the for the fear of we are going to start looking for American or publishers.

Game Development Livestream: A lot of earlier time in the development phase.

Jon Radoff: For anybody who's tuning in at the moment, by the way, we love to hear questions from the audience. So we've got over 800 of you tuning in live right now. So if you want to understand the world of indie game development. This is a team to ask because they're doing it in Costa Rica with their own team, their self funding it. Like they're doing hard mode game development. So please do ask questions about this. I can say 80% of the panel today is in Costa Rica. So the game development team here are games there at Costa Rica, Oscars from Costa Rica too. So I my question is actually for all of you, what is the Costa Rican game development scene? What does that look like? Are there a lot of game developers in Costa Rica? And for people that are builders like you are, what are the avenues in Costa Rica for getting a game published? Let's say you realize all your dreams here and this is now the portfolio piece. Are there obvious publishers to go talk to where you can take them the next set of ideas? So that there was kind of a bunch of questions at once, but it comes down to what is life as a game developer in Costa Rica?

Game Development Livestream: Well, the game developer in Costa Rica industry just grow a lot in these past years. When we start with like forest studios, one big one that is called for paylabs. It's a kind of medium if you compare with international issues, right? But it's the biggest one from Costa Rica and it was the first one. They develop some really good games like the Nickelodeon actual game, but it's like an smash game. Well, actually, I mean, the game industry here in Costa Rica is really friendly. Our companies, we know each other. I have been working with them in some locations and helping with other projects or they are on projects in some other set. I think it's a really good and healthy environment for game developer here in Costa Rica.

Jon Radoff: I'm hearing that it's pretty tightly knit that you know each other.

Game Development Livestream: Yeah, yeah. We almost know all other companies. There are a lot of events around here like an expoVTor connector day and the gamecom and that kind of events that they invite the developer company, the developer community. Then we met each other in this kind of events and we have the chance to test their games or provide feedback for our teams and that kind of stuff. And this is pretty pretty good. I like that. And the game quality is evolving really, really, really good. The first games we were developing, we saw that it was an early industry that was growing up. But now the games that we look on that events are really nice and really fun to play. And they are really pollution and it feels that the game quality is actually evolving. One thing that I like a lot is that almost all the studios have really unique or you know, the ideas. The creativity here is really high. Then the life here in us game developer is pretty good. I think you have enough companies to look for if you want to start creating games if you're a game artist or if you're a developer. They are really good people. They are not that kind of, hey, no, I don't share my knowledge to you because you are from another company or you are another developer. And I think that is pretty good here because we have, we support each other a lot. We have this core channels and at least once a month, they organize, get together to talk about work.

Game Development Livestream: That was going on nowadays to share projects and stuff like that.

Game Development Livestream: That is something actually that made me a time more to get into the, to the game industry.

Game Development Livestream: I mean, the environment that we share here is really healthy.

Jon Radoff: What's the future look like to you guys? Actually, let me start even with the present, like in the last year, there have been a lot of layoffs at like a lot of AAA studios. Has that trickled down to where you guys fit in the industry? Has it been harder to get work over the last year? And what do you think the future looks like? And I got to shut my window because someone's running equipment.

Game Development Livestream: Yeah.

Game Development Livestream: Okay. Well, yes, indeed, the game industry is hard. Pollution game is hard. It's teaming every single day is going to publish a lot of games, totally different games. And there is a lot of options. Then it's hard to get your game to your target players because there are a lot of things around. And most of the people actually play games that have been released some years ago. Not the really actual games. There are only just some AAA games that have a lot of money for publicity and campaigns that marketing things that are playing in the same day they just release. But I think that is not actually, it's a problem, but it's not a thing that can be not or just say that it's not going to be able to pass that limitation. It's good to have data monomotions and that give you a lot of inspirations to create your own projects.

Jon Radoff: Yeah, there's a lot of new games all the time, but all the old games don't go away. So it gets more and more competitive all the time. So games have to be great is what it comes down to. What does the future look like though?

Game Development Livestream: Like everything from the fact of this more and more games coming along.

Jon Radoff: Then there's platforms like us that are making it easier to build bigger games. And then there's AI that's doing its thing whether it's art or code. Like when you look at all these forces, what do you think the future looks like as a game developer, either worldwide or just where you are in your communities?

Game Development Livestream: Well, I think UI is having a considerable thing. I'm not going to affect any single branch of the node.

Game Development Livestream: I think we're going to see a lot of things that are going to use AI for support, for the developer.

Game Development Livestream: So creating our training to the scene, creating machines. I think AI is going to be really important. Well, in gaming.

Jon Radoff: And David and Jeff, like in your specific domains and art and programming. First of all, I'll just ask you use AI as part of your own creative pipelines or coding pipelines. And I impact you.

Game Development Livestream: Sorry, yes, you go ahead. Yeah, really regarding art. I've never used AI. I've never used that in my life. I mean, there are tools, for instance, in Adobe that is using a IA, right? But I think that the artistic varm is trying to embrace a bit of that. But no, everything that I do is with my view and my mind. Yeah, in my case, I think that there's a lot of what the AI can do for you. And they can provide a lot of new avenues for you to explore and ideas. And by the end of the day, the design itself comes from you.

Game Development Livestream: And the ideas and the concepts that you want to convey should come from you, from your own imagination.

Game Development Livestream: And the issue should at least for the time being just via tool for you for to add to add some capabilities for to explore. And I've used mostly for support. I mean, not for programming itself. I mean, we're not at the point yet. And at least for me, I'm not of comfortable yet. But I know, I know, I know how capable it is. And I know how strong a fatuli can be, especially when it comes to art, maybe you can accelerate a lot of our processes.

Game Development Livestream: And for example, creating backgrounds or stuff that are maybe not particularly important to be spending time on or general services after and overall.

Game Development Livestream: So yeah, we think of where stage where we can really say what's going to happen because there's their effects. And the whole world has a society that's going to be affected by this in any sort in any way. But we're hopefully, hopefully, restraining ourselves. So we have the design and the final decision on what the game is going to be instead of relying on AI on itself.

Jon Radoff: All right, well, let's get off AI even though we need to bring it up.

Game Development Livestream: But most of our conversations for one reason every single conversation.

Jon Radoff: But what I want to go back to those source of inspiration. So we've got a bunch of you here. So what are the games that you played that inspired you to want to become a game developer. It doesn't even have to be like your favorite game. But which one inspired you and be like, I want to make something like that.

Game Development Livestream: That is the earth one that I want to do.

Jon Radoff: And I'm putting you on the spot. So think fast. But Paul, can we start with you? And then we'll, we'll go through that.

Game Development Livestream: So I have the question from my all the time work. I spent a lot of time creating work, working in the work, work, work, map, publisher. Work was one of my favorite games and I don't know how many hours I just create custom maps and campaigns on work.

Jon Radoff: So you kind of started as a game developer, but making custom maps. Like I think that's a completely valid way. Like people think about the world of modding, but that's kind of the gateway drug into becoming a game developer too, because you start shaping a game experience and learning a lot about how to keep it fun just through things like map design.

Game Development Livestream: Yeah.

Game Development Livestream: Yeah, in my case was I've been a multiplayer gamer for a lot of time, but we I'm actually not getting the large inspiration from it. I just spent my time there. But if they had to be honest, it is still something that I may want to do in the future, especially because I've been involved in the scene. I know I know a lot of there's a lot of knowledge that I can grasp from it. Hopefully I can put it into whatever I want to develop. Unfortunately, it is very hard for a small studio like us to do that. We're really, really small. But if I was to do that, I would like a multiplayer on the other side. I really like games recently. I play a possible game called Baba East EU. It is the perfect way to describe what I like in the game. It is very simple, but it has outstanding, but simple mechanics that make you break your brain in a way for you to solve the puzzle in the end. It is very innovative and at the same time.

Game Development Livestream: That's the kind of game that I would like to use as an inspiration for the future.

Game Development Livestream: In my case, I grew up with Sega Genesis. So I have a lot of inspiration of Sega Genesis Sonic 2, rock, versus Seminator, those games. I remember I was such a child playing that. I also had NES when I was a six-year-old.

Game Development Livestream: So I started really young thinking.

Game Development Livestream: But besides that, I like to bring to the game, my game journey, the TV shows that I grew up with. So I'm blending those worlds in my case as an artist.

Jon Radoff: Alright, so we're coming up at the end of our hour here. I want to close with you guys and how we can help you the most. So we've got a community here. We've got almost 1,000 people in the live audience. And probably a bunch of people are going to watch this video after the fact, particularly people who are just curious about indie game development. But how can we help you? So we can go to RCGameStudio.com. Right? And we can head over to Steam or download the game. What else can we do?

Game Development Livestream: I think that the main social media output that we have is its Instagram. And the... Yeah. And we are actually receiving a lot of compliments during these team reviews. They're making me the happiest. At least for me personally, I hope those keep coming because we want the game to be there for a broader audience also. And if you can't live a comment there, it will be really helpful. And in general, it just follows us on Instagram. And we are actually working on updating our website. So it's just waiting for a little bit until it comes out. But you can also go there. And if you want any of our services or you're interested in using us for any project, we have that. We are available then. Yeah. We actually have a Discord server. So if you want to join and start conversations there, sharing how they're doing with the game. We're going to share the leaderboards there. So we can have a RC Games and a Grand Prix offer communicator.

Game Development Livestream: So if you really are a Grand Prix, you can be a Grand Prixer.

Game Development Livestream: You know, Discord server.

Game Development Livestream: It's fun.

Jon Radoff: Okay. Well, there's the Instagram scrolling along the bottom. I see that Oscar attracted down there and then threw it in. Oscar Oscars like the strong nuclear force just holding this live stream together. It would just fling off into the universe and its component parts if we didn't have Oscar. Making sure that this stuff came together and the right camera was running at all times. So you heard it guys. Go to RC Games Studio.com. Download the game. Go to the Instagram, which you see scrolling there. Not sure if the Instagram is linked from your website. Hopefully it is. They can find it there. Join the Discord. Those little codes are a little bit of a mouthful on a video stream. But find your way into it. Join up and play the game. Play the game and then participate. So guys, thank you so much. There's nothing more valuable to a game developer than your time because it takes so much time to build a game. And you decided to come spend it with me and talk about your game development journey, your game. Life in Costa Rica as a game developer, all of that stuff. So thanks for taking the last hour. All three of you here and doing that. I'm really grateful for it. And I know that our audience is really inspired by your story and they're going to do it by going and playing your game. So I've never heard it guys. Go download it. Thanks guys.

Game Development Livestream: Thanks a lot.

Game Development Livestream: All right. Until next time everybody.

Game Development Livestream: Thanks everybody.