What is your opinion of the mobile games market for indies right now? Life is too short to be miserable at work. Success is also enjoying the process of making a game. Success as an indie for me is being able to pay collaborators, recouping investment in a game and being able to make more games. I make quite unconventional games and it’s a struggle to get funding for those. The biggest challenge is to make the financial side of things work. What have been the biggest challenges you’ve faced so far as an indie? I spend the rest of the day doing a mix of game design and creative direction, with the occasional look at our budget and schedule. Then we talk about whether there are there any fires, like critical bugs on our released games that need putting out. We discuss the state of our current project, completed and outstanding tasks, and immediate next steps. Then I hop on a Skype call with my technical director Phil who lives in the Philippines. I usually start out by making a ‘to do’ list that I would like to get done during the day. What is a typical day in your life as an indie? I quit my job a few months later and founded my independent studio Nyamyam. Jennifer Schneidereit: I started out my career as a programmer and game designer working on triple-A in Japan and the UK.įive years into my career Apple released the first iPad and I saw this as an opportunity to bring high-quality games to the mobile space. PocketGamer.Biz: How did you get started as an indie games developer? Set in London during the 1500s, the game shows a new direction for the company, but one that has begun to bring in similar praise to its predecessor.Īs part of our Indie Spotlight series, we spoke with co-founder and creator Jennifer Schneidereit about her transition into indie games development after beginning her career working on triple-A games.

The studio’s latest release arrives in the form of the comedic story-driven Astrologaster. The duo has grown the studio since then, releasing the atmospheric adventure title Tengami in 2014, going on to receive numerous nominations and awards.

Though nothing is guaranteed, joining a studio can be seen as a safer way to ensure job security, so venturing out from this to create your own studio is always a brave but risky move.īritish-based indie studio Nyamyam was founded in late 2010 by Jennifer Schneidereit and Phil Tossell, after the pair crossed paths while working on Kinect Sports at Rare.

Tengami reflections youtube