Finishing What You Start
An interview with Mark Featherstone, Designer and Programmer

Posted February 9th, 2007

by Belarius

Play the Mr. Robot and Starscape demos now!

Read our review of Mr. Robot

Mark Featherstone handles design and programming at Moonpod. His first computer was a Sinclair ZX81. After finishing a computer programming degree, he worked at Gremlin Graphics, on sports games and racing games. There he met Nick Tipping, now the Moonpod artist and website developer. Gremlin was bought by Infogrammes and a few of the staff (including Mark and Nick) left to start a studio for Rage Games. There they made Gunmetal for the Xbox, though the studio closed afterwards. Moonpod was born and has released Starscape, Mr. Robot, and a variety of work for other publishers. They’re now working on a new game.

Belarius: According to Wikipedia, Moonpod is composed of just two people: yourself and Nick Tipping. How has a small core team has influenced the way you approach game development?

Mark: When working in commercial studios we don't really understand what happens around the games we make, i.e. marketing, sales, target audience, budgets, etc. The lowly developer has no control over exactly what gets made. A lot of devs day dream about being independent, they know what makes a great game and damn these faceless people in suits (marketing) telling US what to make!

Now, the clever devs start making games in their spare time, usually for free and that becomes their artistic release while the mortgage still gets paid. The not so clever ones (like Nick and I) decide to go it alone and make a living off their own backs. This means grand visions of all those game ideas you always wanted to make, but never could. The problem is you need to make games for your audience, not just for yourself. I might not care too much about fixing all those bugs and making sure everything sparkles, but the public sure as hell do. So you need to put prototypes together and get people playing them so you can get some feedback (which is what the marketing and usability people used to do). You need to organise large scale beta testing and spend a long time squashing every bug (which is what all those QA people used to do). You need to create buzz and publisher interest around what you’re doing (which is what those advertising people used to do). Wow, that’s a lot of different hats to wear!

Maybe if we didn't sleep we could get a game out in 12 months instead of 30? We certainly made a lot of mistakes and wasted a lot of time in the beginning, but luckily we did actually finish what we started, learned a few lessons along the way and got some good games out there.

Belarius: Being a small company, how has Moonpod approached the challenges of marketing and distribution?

Mark: If you want to be completely reliant on other people then don't worry about marketing, just make your game and hand it over to someone else. A small number of developers have been lucky enough to find success that way, whether it's a portal (Bigfish, Real Arcade, Oberon, etc) or Microsoft and Live Arcade. The only problem is that your livelihood rests in their hands. If you want any kind of independence then you must build up the profile of your own website and that is extremely hard work. The Internet is a big place and an indie voice is so quiet it has almost no chance to be heard. Expect to spend two or three hours a day trying to raise your profile. Making regular newsletters, contacting journalists, doing interviews, requesting reviews, making a great website, listening to players - these are all vital projects and cost nothing other than your precious time.

Once these basics are taken care of then you'll need to find some advertising and this is indeed a black art. It has to be well targeted and cheap, getting one or the other is easy, but getting both is almost impossible. The key to advertising is measurement. You must know where customers come from so you can tell if your meagre advertising budget is being wasted or not. Sadly, this is an unending daily ritual, the day you stop your efforts is the day you vanish from the Internet radar.

One result of the hard work in raising your profile is distribution opportunities. The more visible you are, the more publishers and portals take notice and offers of deals soon follow. Indies are often fairly inexperienced businessmen so being able to spot the time wasters and crooks is yet another new skill you'll need to learn very quickly. Maybe I should take my laptop and hide under the bed so I can get on with writing the game!

Belarius: Mr. Robot, your latest title, is very different from your previous title Starscape, but both feel like games inspired by the same era of what one might consider "classic" gaming. Is it fair to say you draw more influence from games that have stood the test of time than from more modern titles? Can you discuss any other elements of your game design process that might contribute to this feel?

Mark: Video games are a visual entertainment gaming medium and over the years the balance has shifted from the gaming side to the visual side. In the beginning the hardware wasn't that great and developers had no choice, but to actually create fun games. A lot of them might not actually seem that fun, but that’s usually just because games started SUPER hard. Nowadays we have smoother learning curves, tutorials, much better interfaces and generally simpler games. Remember when games didn’t even have saves!

When I say "game" here though, I mean sets of rules and goals, a pure form of game that is fun even if abstract in presentation (like Tetris). Modern games are more often than not, graphical and physical simulations of entertaining experiences, such as being a racing driver or a one-man army. If I tried to make such an entertaining visual simulation then I'd be competing with developers who employ a 100 staff and have 30 million dollar budgets, game over. So I have to look to simpler, more abstract games like the puzzles in MrRobot or forgotten genres like the scifi exploration of Starscape. When I look at a game like Crysis there isn't much I can learn that will help me, so naturally the games we make seem to harken back to another time. That, and I'm getting older :)

Belarius: Both Mr. Robot and Starscape have met with high critical praise and have earned Moonpod several awards. Has this feedback had an impact on how you approach making future titles?

Mark: I think you have to be careful with reviewers. They are so sick of the same old mainstream games they’ll often get very excited over anything new. New ideas are the one thing indies ought to be good at right? We still need to keep our feet on the ground and listen to our audience. They want new experiences, but they also want professional, polished, sparkling games. They don't play quite so much, so they are a little less concerned about pushing back the boundaries and a bit more concerned about having fun immediately. That means you need games that are easy to get into, look nice, have no faults and are lots of fun.

In the future we'll still be looking for innovation that can excite reviewers and generate press, but I think it's more important to listen to the audience (which is why all indies need a forum on their website).

Belarius: With two award-winning games under belt, it looks like you guys are on a roll. What's next? You're Wii certified, after all...

Mark: We need to expand (slowly) if we are to survive and that means generating enough income to hire more developers, which in turn allows us to release more regularly, on more platforms and raise our profile. This added wage bill creates a monster that if not fed will eat itself!

Initially this means streamlining the development process, better tools and trying to make games with wider appeal. The next cheapest and easiest platform to pursue is probably the Mac. Then you have the heady world of the consoles and the Wii does seem to be the platform of the people. Soon the WiiWare channel opens allowing digital game distribution. The emergence of consoles as an indie platform is very exciting, as long as you remember who holds the keys - the console manufacturers.

Belarius: Moonpod has dedicated considerable time to publicly documenting and discussing your development progress through your monthly "Developer Diary." Has the real-time feedback you've received from this process ever changed the direction which a game has evolved?

Mark: Only indirectly I think. Having to regularly document what you're doing is an excellent way to stand back from your work and ponder, "Why the hell did I design that?" and it also helps remind you to get on with things. So the process itself is a very useful analysis tool. Most of the game impacting feedback comes from deep in the forums and from beta testing. I think development diaries often trigger lengthier conversations in the forums, which have often borne fruit.

Belarius: Do you feel that the dramatic growth of the gaming industry has been a boon to small developers, or have the AAA-list games overwhelmed the underdogs?

Mark: Unless my perspective is damaged then I think there is a huge difference between the indie scene today, compared to 5 or 10 years ago. Nowadays games are finally entering the mainstream and this extra interest from the public has spawned a huge increase in indie development. Look at how many people are entering the IGF each year - it's incredible. Strangely, I think there is less chance for indies to actually make it big nowadays though (or even make a living).

The mass market has done wonders for raising the profile of games, but it also brings raised expectations. Consoles are taking over and people don't want to mess around with PC's, operating systems, changing hardware specs, bad drivers and manuals. The masses listen to the magic box in the living room and they want the shiny games that plug into the television and "just work", the ones with those amazing graphics they've been told they need, the cool and trendy ones. An indie making an Xbox Live Arcade game will need something like $350k and perhaps 6 ~ 9 developers, does that sound indie to you? The possibilities are big, but the bill is too.

Belarius: What games besides video games (board games, card games, etc.) do you enjoy, if any? Does it relate at all to your game design?

Mark: All kinds, I play anything and everything I can get. You can't design games without constantly feeding the game design bit of your brain. Even bad games can be fun. As a game designer you can't help but deconstruct everything you play i.e. what are the rules, why does this one work, but this one doesn't, what could be changed to improve it? I think my all time favourite non-video game is probably Magic: The Gathering, the endless supply of cards and their almost infinite interactions keep the game fresh. No, wait, it's got to be Dungeons & Dragons, especially now they've open the D20 rules for others to use in their own games. I always come back to Munchkin though, a very funny game. Being a big fan of Gamesworkshop I still enjoy a game of Heroquest. Then you've got classics like Chess, Poker, Carcasonne, Axis&Allies and Uno. I've even been known to play the odd real life game like laser tag or badminton! Playing a wide variety of games is crucial, a designer has to understand how games are built and how players interact with them. Most video games can be broken down and expressed as board/card games, which is why video game designs start on paper and often see their first prototype as a board/card game.

Belarius: After five years at Moonpod, what advice do you have for others who love games and dream of someday making them?

Mark: Don't give up your day job. Make games in the evenings and at weekends. Start by modding some big name commercial games as most have really nice editing tools and large communities building content. This is an easy way to get a feel for development and working with people. Take some computer science courses to get some grounding. You'll need a good all round education to get ahead in game development. Most of all you need to be playing games, all kinds, not just video games. Have a look around the internet, there are always people starting up game projects. Check to make sure they've actually finished something before, there are way too many unfinished projects. Find something that looks promising and join in. If you're sensible you'll keep it as a fulfilling hobby. Without money concerns you can make whatever you want, either aimed at a really small niche audience or even just for you. If other people like it then great, if they don't it doesn't matter.

If you want to make a living as an indie developer then you're in for a bumpy ride. With just one or two people you'll never be rich, but if you're lucky, work hard, find an audience and enjoy Ramen then you can get by. Whoever said, “we must suffer for our art” wasn’t kidding. It beats working for “the man” though.

If you're a pro developer living in the US and looking to go indie, then you need to put something together in your spare time and enter it in the IGF. If you get in the top ten then you'll have enough visibility to attract a console manufacturer. Hopefully your day job will have taught you all you need to know about the console in question. So if you pick a simple enough game then it should be possible to quit and pay the bills until it's out. It doesn't matter if the game isn’t a big hit; you're looking to create a reputation as a reliable and cheap developer. Once you've got a game released on a console you can go and visit some publishers and pick up a paid game project. If you're careful and the game is simple enough then you'll have enough money to hire a few of your old friends from work and start to grow a proper business (I hope EA aren’t listening).

Again, it doesn't matter if the game doesn't sell, you should have made all your money from the initial contract and as long as you delivered on time then you should be able to pick up more paid projects. Publishers understand that only 1 game in 10 actually makes any money, they just want to know you can get the job done. With luck the publisher will buy your company a few years down the line and you can now retire to the Bahamas, you won the game :)

Respond on the forums
Return to the features listing