Game Dev Podcast - The RisingHigh Extended Tea Break - Game Development Advice for Game Developers

Today I sit down with Academy Member Chris Trudeau of Boston Trudeau Studios, who landed himself a Voodoo publishing deal with his latest game title Twenty48 Solitaire, so huge congrats to Chris, super excited at such an awesome success story.

Download: Twenty48 Solitaire

In our conversation, we discuss how Chris made the leap from being a professional finish carpenter, dabbling with selling print on demand t-shirts from his 2 Etsy shops as a side hustle, to stumbling across Buildbox and ultimately creating mobile games.

Using a deck of cards to brainstorm game ideas, thinking how to twist this classic card game, and grabbing tons of feedback from family and friends, the first versions of twenty48 Solitaire was born.

Chris hired someone on Fiverr to create his first prototype ( made in just 12 hours ) in unity. Soon after that, he made the transition to the new engine and he quickly starting learning for himself, and has never looked back.

After contacting Voodoo with his idea, within a few months he had secured what would become a life changing publishing deal.

Chris tells us why he loves Voodoo so much and how he’s constantly learning from the publishing support team. He loves the fact they are genuinely excited about building games and make you feel part of team. Voodoo have patience with small dev’s, are pro-active and get things moving fast.

Although Twenty48 Solitaire is not the ‘normal’ hyper casual game we are used to seeing from this publisher, Chris explains they are always open to new games that go against trends, something different that will stand out from the crowd.

Next on the agenda for Chris in the coming months will be the maintenance of Twenty48, making sure it performs well and carrying out further game test ideas with the Voodoo team. There are also thoughts of team expansion within Boston Studios, but the main focus will be with Voodoo and coming up with that next great game.

It’s fantastic to have Chris inside the Academy and it’s been an absolute pleasure to celebrate his Voodoo signing. It really couldn’t of happened to a nicer guy. I asked Chris what he enjoyed the most about being a member, and unsurprisingly ( as everyone says the same ) it was the Friday Live Sessions where we keep up to date with research and App Store trends that bring the most inspiration.

I’d like to thank Chris for joining me in today’s special podcast and for sharing his game Dev story, I wish him every future success.

Website: https://bostontrudeaustudios.com/

Thanks so much for listening.

Website: RisingHighAcademy.com

We truly do appreciate you taking time out of your day to listen and hope you got some value.

If you enjoyed today’s show, it would go such along way if you hit that Subscribe button.

We’d also be forever grateful if you’d consider sparing just a quick minute to Leave us an Honest Rating & Review.

We always read each and every one personally and it always makes our day!

Thanks so much, Kevin & Jilly.

After our Academy Anniversary month of July, we took some time for a lot of soul searching about what is next on the agenda for us as a Indie Game Studio and the company in general. The fact is, it has been way too many months since the production of our last game, and this has long been an itch that badly needs scratching! We love doing the podcast and it’s been a lot of fun, but it has surprised us at just how long a process it is.

We’ve come to the difficult decision to take a short hiatus on the podcast, to enable us to free up some pure focus time to head off and start a new game and concentrate on providing the best advice and service to all Academy Members.

We’ll be back to share all our highs and lows on our game dev antics, along with the problems we face and how we solved them ( or not )!

Until then, be sure to follow us on our social media accounts Facebook, Twitter & Instagram.

If you want to join us inside for our regular weekly live video calls, in-depth training and workshops, personalised game consultations, game developer community and a whole ton more, simply head on over the Academy for all the details.

Bye for now and we’ll speak to you very soon indeed.

Thanks so much for listening.

Website: RisingHighAcademy.com

We truly do appreciate you taking time out of your day to listen and hope you got some value.

If you enjoyed today’s show, it would go such along way if you hit that Subscribe button.

We’d also be forever grateful if you’d consider sparing just a quick minute to Leave us an Honest Rating & Review.

We always read each and every one personally and it always makes our day!

Thanks so much, Kevin & Jilly.

Say Hello & Connect with us:

Website: RisingHighAcademy.com

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Hyper Casual games are dominating the App Store Top Charts.

In early in 2017, we saw the rise of Hyper-Casual games going main stream with publishers like Voodoo.io leading the way with their smash hit paper.io. These usually lightweight games, consisting of nothing much more than an addictive core loop on launch, are typically a few steps ahead of a MVP ( minimal viable product ) or prototype.

Pushed heavily via social media campaigns ( Snapchat / Instagram / Facebook ) publishers can achieve extremely low CPI's ( cost per install ) and thus propelling these simple small mobile games to the pinnacle of the mobile App Stores with a relatively modest budget. Because if this, they are highly scalable and massively sharable and often go viral pretty fast.

Website: RisingHighAcademy.com

We truly do appreciate you taking time out of your day to listen and hope you got some value.

If you enjoyed today’s show, it would go such along way if you hit that Subscribe button.

We’d also be forever grateful if you’d consider sparing just a quick minute to Leave us an Honest Rating & Review.

We always read each and every one personally and it always makes our day!

Thanks so much, Kevin & Jilly.

Say Hello & Connect with us:

Website: RisingHighAcademy.com

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To finish up our devlog style episodes for this month, we look ahead to what we’ll be working on for the 2nd half of 2018.

With the imminent release of Buildbox 3 ( Beta ) in the coming weeks, we're super pumped to get back into our favourite game creation software and take a look at the next generation of Buildbox.

Whilst of course it’s very exciting to have new tools to play with and finally get to play around in 3D, it’s also worth remembering that the Arcade Style Hyper Casual games that are dominating the charts, and the ones we love to build, are always simple in concept.

In fact, as we deconstructed a whole ton of these in our Hyper Casual Games course “Seriously Snackable”, the very essence of these games revolve around the core loop and really not much else.

Website: RisingHighAcademy.com

We truly do appreciate you taking time out of your day to listen and hope you got some value.

If you enjoyed today’s show, it would go such along way if you hit that Subscribe button.

We’d also be forever grateful if you’d consider sparing just a quick minute to Leave us an Honest Rating & Review.

We always read each and every one personally and it always makes our day!

Thanks so much, Kevin & Jilly.

Say Hello & Connect with us:

Website: RisingHighAcademy.com

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More of a general chit chat this week as we’re on holiday, or at least we were supposed to be.

Following an impromptu decision to take some time out as I was approaching burnout, it soon became apparent that our schedule was completely shot and there was no podcast ready, oops.

We made a commitment to show up each and every week, and not wanting to break our run so far, we came in, sat down and recorded.

As a small business owner, there’s never enough time in the day and there’s always something that needs to be done, it’s a never ending ongoing process.

However, there definitely comes a point when R & R needs to take priority and, although slightly broken, we are on a go slow right now and taking days away from the grind. It’s important.

We discuss all what this means to us, our accountant pains and I also managed to do probably the worlds worst maths equation ever, but hey, we showed up and that’s the most important thing, to us anyways!   

Website: RisingHighAcademy.com

We truly do appreciate you taking time out of your day to listen and hope you got some value.

If you enjoyed today’s show, it would go such along way if you hit that Subscribe button.

We’d also be forever grateful if you’d consider sparing just a quick minute to Leave us an Honest Rating & Review.

We always read each and every one personally and it always makes our day!

Thanks so much, Kevin & Jilly.

Say Hello & Connect with us:

Website: RisingHighAcademy.com

Facebook - Twitter - Instagram

As July marks the one year Anniversary of our Game Dev Training Academy, we decided it would be nice to sit down and have a chat about our journey so far, and revisit the reasons behind why we decided to set up the Rising High Academy.

Website: RisingHighAcademy.com

We truly do appreciate you taking time out of your day to listen and hope you got some value.

If you enjoyed today’s show, it would go such along way if you hit that Subscribe button.

We’d also be forever grateful if you’d consider sparing just a quick minute to Leave us an Honest Rating & Review.

We always read each and every one personally and it always makes our day!

Thanks so much, Kevin & Jilly.

Say Hello & Connect with us:

Website: RisingHighAcademy.com

Facebook - Twitter - Instagram

For all you seasoned game developers out there, when September time rolls around and Apple releases new devices and iOS versions, more often than not we need to update something to ensure our old games still work correctly.

Whilst this can be a pain the you know what, it can actually be turned into a positive, and a time to revisit our old games, breathe some life back into them and bring them up to date.

Visit us for the Full Show Notes & Links to all the Resources:

Website: RisingHighAcademy.com

We truly do appreciate you taking time out of your day to listen and hope you got some value.

If you enjoyed today’s show, it would go such along way if you hit that Subscribe button.

We’d also be forever grateful if you’d consider sparing just a quick minute to Leave us an Honest Rating & Review.

We always read each and every one personally and it always makes our day!

Thanks so much, Kevin & Jilly.

Say Hello & Connect with us:

Website: RisingHighAcademy.com

Facebook - Twitter - Instagram

Working under constraints, especially in a creative field, can be a challenging but highly effective way to build up your inventiveness. Often when starting out a project, setting some kind of constraint can force you into action and get your brain thinking in a different way.

For instance, it’s time to start a new game project. “Let’s now build a game.”

You’re at your workspace.. Cool… erm… yeah… so… yeah… erm…

Now, let’s imagine you put some constraints on the project:

“Let’s build a game with only 2 colours” or

“Let’s build a game in 48 hours” or

“Let’s build a game with only Triangles.”

By starting with some constraints in place, whatever they be can be a hugely powerful jump point to get those creative juices flowing. 

Visit us for the Full Show Notes & Links to all the Resources:

Website: RisingHighAcademy.com

We truly do appreciate you taking time out of your day to listen and hope you got some value.

If you enjoyed today’s show, it would go such along way if you hit that Subscribe button.

We’d also be forever grateful if you’d consider sparing just a quick minute to Leave us an Honest Rating & Review.

We always read each and every one personally and it always makes our day!

Thanks so much, Kevin & Jilly.

Say Hello & Connect with us:

Website: RisingHighAcademy.com

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We had an interesting question come in this week from Podcast listener Stuart, so we decided to have a chat about just how essential having a website and press kit is for your games.

Stuart says:

“I’m half way through building my game and I’m starting to have a think about marketing. Do I need a website and press kit for my game and is it something worth doing anyway?”

Great question! We answer this and more...

Visit us for the Full Show Notes & Links to all the Resources:

Website: RisingHighAcademy.com

We truly do appreciate you taking time out of your day to listen and hope you got some value.

If you enjoyed today’s show, it would go such along way if you hit that Subscribe button.

We’d also be forever grateful if you’d consider sparing just a quick minute to Leave us an Honest Rating & Review.

We always read each and every one personally and it always makes our day!

Thanks so much, Kevin & Jilly.

Say Hello & Connect with us:

Website: RisingHighAcademy.com

Facebook - Twitter - Instagram

Browsing around on the App Store has been part of our daily routine pretty much ever since we first started building our games.

The App Store is the playground we play in, and thus it’s super important to keep a keen eye on the market.

With the Store refreshing each Thursday, it’s always a bit of a buzz to have a good look around at just who the movers and shakers are, and what’s working right now.

Visit us for the Full Show Notes & Links to all the Resources:

Website: RisingHighAcademy.com

We truly do appreciate you taking time out of your day to listen and hope you got some value.

If you enjoyed today’s show, it would go such along way if you hit that Subscribe button.

We’d also be forever grateful if you’d consider sparing just a quick minute to Leave us an Honest Rating & Review.

We always read each and every one personally and it always makes our day!

Thanks so much, Kevin & Jilly.

Say Hello & Connect with us:

Website: RisingHighAcademy.com

Facebook - Twitter - Instagram