How to Score Treasure as An Indie Game Studio

[Music] this is Peggy and salts this is an amazing Pocket Gamer it just started and they told me we're at, 1500 what's it going to be by the end there are so many Publishers Gathering here so many Indies so I said to myself yes I can go out for big names but I want to talk to Andrew Andrew maddingley it was first of all it's great we connected on social so it it's like this is the real deal this is spontaneous I'm like yes if you want to learn I want to hear about it so first of all congratulations thank you you have a new game and you're an indie so you're doing it you are doing it so very small Indie team tell me about your game tell me about your team yeah well the team we're very small we're only four people um so yeah very tiny at one point we were a little bit larger than that but uh at the moment it's just four full-timers and we just released our

game back in December it's called tile Tales pirate it's a tile sliding logic puzzle game where you play a pirate and he's of course crash landed on this uh Island and he's just collecting all the treasures he possibly can and he comes across lots of different foes like man eating plants and bears that uh are a bit too playful and uh could potentially be dangerous to him and all kinds of obstacles that he has to overcome but it's very colorful very bright very animated and we're we're very proud of it so far and it's a solid game mechanic it's one that works you know it's a classic you know it's based on those little handheld tile sliding games in the in the past where you used to build a pitcher but we took that concept and we expanded it to an adventure game where you actually use the tiles to move your character around the world create a path for him you have to pick up objects solve puzzles and make your way through the adventure I like that new and I'll

tell you why because I've done a lot of interviews and people are saying the real game concepts are in nostalgic games I mean they worked once we had a tile game it was pretty cool I remember them um so yes you have Revisited that how have you however brought new energy into it and big question bringing in new users how you handling that well that's why we're here at Pocket Gamer connect there you go so as a developer I'm kind of learning that I don't really anything about selling the game so that's why I'm here is to learn about user Acquisitions and all these other kpis and everything else that we need to know to grow our audience so that's exactly why I'm here is to build connections and learn those parts of the business because this is our first game we don't really know too much about it yet so we're we're trying to get out there and just do everything we can to find our audience and uh but yeah as far as the genre goes uh you know we're expanding on that little tile sliding mechanic like you mentioned it's

a Nostalgia thing and we really wanted to take that idea and turn it into something a bit more uh Lively and adventurous and we did our research we couldn't find any games like this at all um there were a couple that had a couple of little tile sliding mechanics in it but it wasn't an adventure it wasn't something that had a lot of character and animation and talking characters that you can interact with and uh so we really wanted to create something new and we think that we've done that well you come to the right place because this is a great Community right we're so we're so giving and and forgiving um because you're going to be making a lot of it's going to be trial and error it's a lot of mistakes um I will say for me personally anything I can do to help you out with all the content we've been creating you know Pocket Gamer podcasts articles happy to be your Shera through that yeah that be great guiding you is also a question of where are you taking the game have you

thought through your mutation model um we started out at a premium uh model so yeah a bit Brave I know I know I know but uh so we we tried that for the first month so we've only been out for a month and we've learned pretty quickly that switching to a premium model is is going to really be the way to go so we're in the process right now we've got the the iOS builds ready for a premium pay model and the Google one is coming up now so we're in the process process of updating that and we're looking forward to a much bigger audience after we get that updated so and then of course we're finding Partners here for user acquisition and all the other things uh to to really help us grow yeah yeah it's all about UA and you know there are more possibilities now that's the good news you're you're you're you're a little I wouldn't say late but the industry is mature so there's alternative you know models diversification you can mash them up with

uh ads as well as IAP um how excited are you about the possibilities are you going to match them up or are you going to go sort of this straight and narrow to you get your footing yeah I think we're we're really interested in trying little pieces at a time to really see which things benefit us the most over time so I think we actually would like to kind of give each independent model change its own dedicated time to sort of see what the numbers see see what people react to the most and really get that knowledge for ourselves I know there's a lot of people who will tell you what the best thing is right off the bat and they'll be like do do this and then do that but we're the kind of company who really wants to to learn the lessons on our own you know and kind of see what works for us because what works for us might not be what works for everyone else and we really just want to figure that out was I saying a good a good place for it I mean I was intrigued because it's like indie new game new

launch just at the time when all the data all the conferences tell us you know it's just dominated by the big Nam so so it is about Indies pocket Gamers about Indies say something to the Indies out there to give them a little bit of spirit I mean you're you're a spirited man Andrew you have to have gotten you you must have you know dipped into The Well of optimism share some of that uh well I will say it is a tough world out there but you got to be optimistic about it you got to say you got to believe in the idea that you're working on and really think that you have something special and if you just keep working on it you build yourself a nice good team who also believes in the product that you're working on then you'll come up with something great and hopefully find your audience but that's the that's the tricky part is finding your audience but if you hit on that nice little niche like these classic games that we're talking about that people are you know they played when they were a kid and they're like oh I remember things like that and I really want to play something like that again and this looks like a

new take on it then you can really find that little cuz you don't have to be this multi-billion dollar conglomerate that absorbs every person out in the world you just need your own little audience who can provide for you so that you can continue doing the thing that you love and that's exactly what we're trying to do that's exactly it not everybody has to own the world exactly actually who wants to own it it's too much work for me and and Andrew all the best luck in the world with your new game I'm so impressed you've got grit I wish you success thank you Peggy that means a lot to us and we're looking forward to uh some advice from you of course in the future as well I give it to you freely no question Andrew thank you thanks Peggy appreciate it this show is all about how to do your job better how to make an amazing game how to Market it and you have a say so if you have a story or know someone we need to shine a light on then we would

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Peggy and salts and that's a wrap until next week