Developer Ramblings: Brjann Sigurgeirsson, Image & Form

from Brjann Sigurgeirsson, Image & Form CEO

First I'd like thank Cat and our other friends at N4G for having us, and even more so for bearing with us - or rather me. I'm submitting this dev blog at the *very* last moment, and that's not because the team over there deserves slackers, but rather because it's July. And in July Sweden stops and vacation kicks in. And it's SUMMER! If global warming could remain at this level, I'm sure environmentalists will have a hard time arguing with Swedes. Sweden is a pretty "long" country, and where Image & Form is at - in rainy, windy Gothenburg - we're quite used to summers that are - you guessed it - rainy and windy. But we're having tropical nights now, with temperatures over 20 degrees C while we're asleep. Which we aren't, because we never get this kind of weather. And apparently we're not indoors writing dev blogs either. So, to recap: N4G doesn't deserve slackers, but with a summer like this... cut me some slack, guys...

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The Swedish summer heat is perfect for some outside SteamWorld Dig cosplay

But now I AM writing this dev blog! I'd like to tell you a little about Image & Form, which is an indie studio made up of 17 gamers/gaming aficionados (or supernerds, if that suits you better) - and our little claim to fame game called SteamWorld Dig. It's brilliant to run a company like this one, where everyone realizes that he/she actually gets to attend to their hobby and get paid for it. There are five programmers, six graphic artists, one full-time game designer, one level designer, one lousy CEO (me), one project manager, and two PR/marketing guys. Most are working full-time, and we're rarely all in the office at the same time. Sweden has really great parenting laws, which means that you get 18 months off with your kid until they're eight. Lots of guys are getting better at using this system, which means that the parents split the time between them. For us, it usually means that at least someone is on parental leave at all times. Right now it's our art director Tobias Nilsson and our project manager Marco Podda, who are off for 6 and 9 months, respectively. It takes a bit of planning for a limited studio such as ours, but it's a great system. 

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Welcome. Anytime.

As of today, Gothenburg - traditionally a quite industrial city, where companies such as Volvo have their headquarters - is a bit deprived when it comes to game development. This is strange and hopefully changing, as the local government has realized that gaming is a "future industry". The other main cities in Sweden, Malmo and Stockholm, have numerous big developers such as Massive, Dice, Mojang and King.com. Gaming-wise, Gothenburg is a valley between these magnificent peaks, which - gladly and remarkably - has bred quite a few really good indie studios. Like I'm fond of saying, you don't succeed because you're in Gothenburg, but rather in spite of it. But it may change now - the region is picking up. There is a world-famous indie studio called Coffee Stain Studios in Skövde, which isn't that far from Gothenburg. They're good friends and just as nerdy as we are, and I think we've understood that we can accomplish quite a bit more if we help each other out once in a while. The kind of stuff you need when you're pretty small. Let's advertise the city some more: 

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Beloved Gothenburg. Rainy. Windy. This picture must be photoshopped.

In 2012, we realized that we *really* didn't want to do work for hire anymore. We were knee-deep in mobile development, and got ready to start making our next game. But when I visited GDC in San Francisco in March that year I noticed that many of the mobile development sessions that I was interested in weren't attended by that many developers. In fact, the audience looked chock full of successful business people with cool hairdos and expensive clothes. Things were changing on mobile; there was quite suddenly a heavy emphasis on monetization, user acquisition and acronyms I'd never heard of. Games were getting simpler, and the trick was where and when to apply the "hook" and get gamers to pay. 

I'm not at all saying that we're better developers than many mobile developers, and there are still *great* games being made for mobiles and tablets. But we wanted to make deeper games. We wanted to make games that people don't mind paying for upfront, so that we wouldn't have to pester them afterwards, but rather let them enjoy and immerse themselves in the game. 

And still I had decided that the next game would be a mobile game, a lovely little thingy about a young demon that we still have sitting on a shelf in the office (or rather, in a number of folders on a server). I'm the CEO, so I get to decide things like that. Then our lead programmer/designer Olle Håkansson decided that there would be none of that nonsense, and instead we would make a game that he and his brother Björn (one of our artists) probably had thought up over a number of beers (they do that every now and then). It would be a game about steampunk robots digging for treasure in the Wild West. I told him sternly that I was the CEO and I get to decide things like that. He agreed that that was an interesting albeit shallow argument, and then presented at least fifty arguments why we should make the other game. For one, it would be a chance for us to make games for other consoles, if we believed we didn't have the skill set to make F2P games on mobile. We would start with the 3DS. 

I'm pretty sure he started out like that. And that was quite a shaky argument to begin with. Remember, this was almost two years ago - in game-industry time, that's aeons. We liked the 3DS, but globally the jury was still out on that one. It was hard at the time to gauge whether Nintendo's new handheld was going to be a hit or a disaster. But I guess he had at least another fifty arguments up his sleeve, so after a while I gave up and said fine, we'll do it. But the name, SteamWorld Dig, was just ridiculous and as CEO I would definitely get to decide on another name. (He subsequently blocked every attempt at that.)

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SteamWorld Dig. The worst-named game ever from the worst-named game studio ever.

We got incredibly lucky with the release timing. We had initially planned to release in March 2013, but we got delayed. By March, the game simply wasn't very much fun to play. I was nervous as hell, the kind of nervousness you only see in CEOs who have borrowed a mountain of money to complete a game only to find out he needs to borrow more in order to pay salaries during "development overtime". But by the time we released in August 2013, a game called Animal Crossing: New Leaf had been a 3DS system seller for quite a few months. When we launched, Nintendo had sold millions of 3DSs to gamers suddenly ready to play something else (well, at least a few of them), and they decided to promote the game heartily. SteamWorld Dig stepped up to bat on this successful platform, and hit really well: we reached and stayed for a good while at the #1 spot in the eShops in the US, Europe and Australia. I don't mean to suggest that SWD is anywhere near as long or "big" as ACNL, but it is one damn fine game nonetheless. We've picked up countless GOTY nominations for it, and actually quite a few awards as well. 

In December last year we released the PC/Mac/Linux version on Steam, then on GOG.com, Humble Store and a few other places. In March 2014 we released it on PS4 and Vita. Next up is Wii U and Amazon, and just *maybe* some other console as well...

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Robots in the Wild West. I *knew* it would be a hit. ;)

Currently we're working on the next game in the SteamWorld series. We have lots of ideas for SteamWorld games, and the plan is to surprise with each new game. The next one, which we'll hopefully announce shortly, will be radically different from SteamWorld Dig in terms of gameplay, although it'll still be about steampunk robots. And of course that one's also a brainchild of Olle and Björn. Look out for it when we announce!

Day 25 | Image & Form