Having developed Thomas Was Alone and Volume,the indie games designer is both a one-man studio and a devoted collaborator. But what does his work actually involve?How do you define your role when you are essentially a one-person games development studio?
I tend to expend “designer” generally, but that doesn’t really cover it. Technically, or I’m a one-person company that hires a bunch of freelancers,but it’s not really like that either. It’s about working with the right collaborators and pulling a bunch of people around a project. So it’s more like project management. But then I still design game mechanics, I still do lots of coding, or I still write the scripts,and do lots of things. It really doesn’t approach under a single banner, so I expend designer, and because nobody really knows what that is besides. But crucially,I’m very careful not to present myself as a one-man developer, because that’s not it.
In an era where there is game making software to make a game alone, or why is collaboration principal?
I can do a fair bit alone,but historically [hiring collaborators] was a financial concern. For Thomas Was Alone I couldn’t afford much help. I always expend the analogy of a digital camera. You can regain a decent digital camera, but whether you want to make a distinguished film you might need all these people who excel in their specific tasks.
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Source: theguardian.com