mid_gen's Launch a Game Studio Thread

[mid_gen]

Finally got another vlog up, ended rambling a fair bit, blame the heat! I couldn't sit in my sweatbox study editing it for too long so it's nearly 30 minutes I'm afraid

Been down to De Montfort Uni twice this week, once for the Games Tech grad show, and yesterday for the Games Art. Some good contacts, lad from Nottingham I'll probably get in to do some game design work if he's interested (I've refactored all the ship/weapon code so all the blueprints need redoing). Also a good concept artist I've exchanged a few messages with, will commission some concept explorations of the visual style.

Now learning Figma to help speed up creating socials content. I've gone public with the studio on LinkedIn now so want to keep that momentum up with posting for the forseeable. Nothing specific I'm aiming for, just visibility at this point, before I get to approaching investors/publishers.

 

[mid_gen]

Still plugging away, and making a lot of good progress on the prototype. I've ended up chatting more on the Discord than posting on here! A recent vlog update :

Also, a monologue/rant/advice video for young programmers about breaking into the games industry :

 

[mid_gen]

Well, I did not get the UK Games Fund grant. Mostly positive feedback which is good.

Frustratingly, the main negative feedback was that my saying that I'm using AI tools to streamline development was 'unproven and risky'.

You have to run this absurd roll of the dice at the moment to try and second guess if the person you're talking to is in the pro or anti-AI tribe....really ridiculous. If you speak to investors all they want to hear is how you're using AI to streamline your production. But applying for grants you gotta pretend you aren't using them. Daft.

Anyway, that was the ideal funding scenario, but there are other paths forward!

 

[100Ryan]

As I understand it these grants are mostly job creation programmes for their country to boost the number of people in a particular industry. From that perspective it is logical that they would prefer to fund something that is creating jobs and work for more people in the UK rather than sending money to US AI companies. The fact that you might accomplish something impressive individually along with AI (and contracting out some work as you've mentioned before) might be outside of their intended purpose?

 

[mid_gen]

As I understand it these grants are mostly job creation programmes for their country to boost the number of people in a particular industry. From that perspective it is logical that they would prefer to fund something that is creating jobs and work for more people in the UK rather than sending money to US AI companies. The fact that you might accomplish something impressive individually along with AI (and contracting out some work as you've mentioned before) might be outside of their intended purpose?

You are right that the funding aims to create jobs. That’s what I would have spent the grant on, hiring freelance artists (which is what it was intended for, and they agreed my hiring plans were solid).

The money I spend on AI is trivial compared to the cost of hiring people, really barely worth considering.

The net result of not getting the grant though is that I can’t afford to hire artists right now. I’m going to have to do it myself, which is far from ideal, but I do have some experience, so not a game over scenario.

I have heard through the grapevine that the people behind the fund are anti-AI. Unfortunately after I did my pitch. Lesson learned.

 

[Noxia]

Well, I did not get the UK Games Fund grant. Mostly positive feedback which is good.

Frustratingly, the main negative feedback was that my saying that I'm using AI tools to streamline development was 'unproven and risky'.

You have to run this absurd roll of the dice at the moment to try and second guess if the person you're talking to is in the pro or anti-AI tribe....really ridiculous. If you speak to investors all they want to hear is how you're using AI to streamline your production. But applying for grants you gotta pretend you aren't using them. Daft.

Anyway, that was the ideal funding scenario, but there are other paths forward!

Edit. Thought it was gov funded thing.

 

[mid_gen]

Edit. Thought it was gov funded thing.

It is government money, comes via a non-profit, but it is taxpayer money.

 

[Noxia]

It is government money, comes via a non-profit, but it is taxpayer money.

Oh in that case I wrote: "that's a bit rich considering multiple Gov departments pushing for use of AI"

 

[Kenai]

Oh in that case I wrote: "that's a bit rich considering multiple Gov departments pushing for use of AI"

Without descending into politics too much, there is no doubt consideration for the optics of job creation within government departments (vs increasing productivity) as 'wasteful' that is percieved differently if that funding is used for job creation in the wider market to 'drive economic activity'.

 

[Worthy]

It's fascinating to see the progress on this. I really like the art style.

 

[mid_gen]

It's fascinating to see the progress on this. I really like the art style.

Glad it's interesting, I'm certainly learning a lot figuring it out as I go

I've had this little nagging idea in the back of my head for a while now, about making the combat phase into a kinda rythm game, like Rez. Have an electronic soundtrack and have to assign the weapons to different instruments. I might let an agent run off and implement it on a branch and see if it's got legs.