In fact, it feels exactly like that to me after just a few seconds – a simple video game. I jump, run and swing the sword as if I were playing a top-view video game. Controlling the little hero via the stick controller works smoothly. I can move freely around the table, oversee the playing field from above, or view the action up close. Looking through the headset, I discover a three-dimensional landscape with trees, buildings, and a medieval fighter with only a white table with a shimmering silver overlay. Yes, at first glance, Tilt Five is something special. A successful Kickstarter campaign ensured a budget of almost two million US dollars in 2019. The former Valve engineer has been working on her augmented reality board game for the living room for almost ten years. We were greeted by Jeri Ellsworth herself. Ten years for a single piece of hardware – and it’s finally ready for the market We had found the booth of augmented reality company Tilt Five. Perhaps fitting, as the product on display there creates a vivid 3D world on an otherwise blank surface. In the otherwise colorful exhibition halls, this stand looked like a whiteboard. Three empty white walls, two small tables, and a desk. Between larger-than-life Bowser figures, a wrestling ring, and numerous colorfully decorated game booths, it’s easy to lose track of what’s going on.ĭuring a brief orientation break in one of the crowded exhibition aisles, I find myself standing with my colleague Ben in front of an inconspicuous booth. I’ll be interested to see how that works out.The exhibition halls at Gamescom 2022 quickly become a labyrinth. I’m going to try partnering with a publisher for the first time for my next project, which is something we always avoided in the past. I’m in the middle of overcoming a challenge of my own, at the moment. Investment earnings from Tilt to Live money have paid for some of our sound budgets and help pad my income when things aren’t great. It’s much better ROI than a bank, and might be a better ROI than your next game. Invest in low risk index funds if you have some savings. Make it fun for them and you’re on the right track. Watch people play your game as often as possible. Ignore that too, you’re just over exposed. You’ll probably hate your game as you near the end of development. Twitter will make you feel like everyone is doing way better than you. Don’t just believe in yourself, be ready for anything. Keep a close eye on your finances, and know what your worst case scenarios are. Know how much money you need monthly, what you’ve got, and how long it’ll last. Also, sticking to a niche or style might not be a bad idea. So don’t expect lightning to strike twice. Our second game, Outwitters, didn’t reach the same heights. We left Tilt to Live out of boredom and made a game in a totally different genre, which we couldn’t really market to fans of the first game. Our first game hit, and if we had stuck with it we would never have had to worry about revenue again, since we didn’t scale up the company. How did you launch? How has the reception and feedback been? Once the game was well received, we kept the ball rolling by adding game types and new weapons. The original feature set for the app was a single game type, like 20-30 achievements that unlocked weapons, and some third party leaderboards. After that the game was featured pretty regularly, which played a huge role in its success. If I remember correctly, we shot up the charts virally, got covered by a big outlet called Touch Arcade, and that got Apple’s attention. Streamers weren’t a thing yet, all apps were paid, there weren’t millions of games on the App Store. The marketing budget was zero, but we did build a huge mailing list of news outlets for regular press releases. Fundraising adds a lot of pressure for delivery and commitment to features, I’d avoid that temptation for your first game. Since our only real expense was stock music, about $50, we didn’t need to do any fundraising. We hadn’t committed to a firm release date and we both had income, so that helped keep the pressure off. My full time job was as a freelance graphic designer, so I just carved out a bit of my usual work day for Tilt to Live. Neither of us was married, and we were much younger, so finding the time and energy to work was easier than it would be now. The music was 100% royalty free cheap stuff. We had some middleware to handle the leaderboards and player accounts. I did all of the artwork, Alex built the engine himself, and we collaborated on UX and game design. We’d have meetings every week or so to discuss weapon ideas and whether the UI was intuitive, then part ways and do our tasks when we could find time.
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