By Terry
Another late one! Things are really ramping up now, with the launch happening in just two days, yikes, is that right? ANYWAY LOADS OF TIME, IT’S FINE.
7 – What’s changed since the last alpha?
6 – How big is this game anyway?
5 – Who are all these enemies you’re fighting anyway?
4 – What inspired Dicey Dungeons?
3 – What’s it like working with a team?
2 – Have you ever made a game like this before?
1 – Launch day
Today’s question:
Here’s a big thing that’s new for me about Dicey Dungeons: it’s not a solo effort. For the first time in my life, I put a team together to make a game.
Dicey Dungeons is being made by four full time creators – myself focusing on design, Chipzel on the music, Marlowe Dobbe on art, and Justo Delgado Baudí doing the programming. We’ve also got about a half dozen other people contributing part time – including Holly Gramazio, who wrote the script, and Dana Trebella, who’s helping us with PR and Marketing (we don’t have a publisher!). (The rest: Philippa Warr helped us out with copyediting, Lars Doucet implemented his polymod library into the game, and Niilo, Adriana, Jules and Will did the game’s voices.)
By a lot of people’s standards that’s a pretty tiny team, but from my perspective, after a decade of mostly working on my own or with just one other collaborator, it’s a huge operation, and a huge change, personally.
It’s been an adjustment – I value working on my own a lot! Being in control of every little element of a game is a wonderful thing, and after Dicey Dungeons, I do plan to make more small solo stuff – but gosh, it turns out working with a team is really great as well.
A big part of it is probably who I’ve been lucky enough to work with – everyone on this project really gave it their all, and cared as much as I do about making it into something special. It’s a really amazing thing to be able to just rely on people to do great work – when you have a team like that, you end up with a project that is so much greater than just yourself. It feels like an obvious thing to say, but the version of Dicey Dungeons I would have made on my own would not have been on the same level as the thing that we have now.
So proud of this thing we made. Go team <3
A useful analogy from my personal perspective:
I learned how to play music, and then write music, but it took a long time for me to realize the artistic leverage of playing with a band. To realize what synergy can achieve is both a humbling and a liberating experience. Suddenly, things that were only in your imagination have a life of their own. TC: If you can surround yourself with people whose work you admire, and who admire your work, there is no end to the creative and technical heights that you can achieve. I am so happy for Dicey Dungeons to finally go mainstream! Instant Classic! Congrats to everyone involved. I am so happy for you all to be involved in such a great game.
Cheers!