Noel Watters gives some advice to those starting out in the growing NI game dev scene
“Shamelessly self-plugging yourself, saying hi and introducing yourself to people is honestly all it takes.” - Noel Watters
The Games development scene in Northern Ireland has seen a tremendous amount of growth in recent years.
Noel Watters has experienced this first-hand. He’s been in the local Game development scene for almost ten years and has seen it evolve over time.
“In the beginning there was a few small companies, people that had come over from America, who had already made their name and were beginning to set things up over here,” he said.
“That was a tight knit group. The only way you could get a job was through word of mouth. Nowadays you’ve got the likes of Game Dev Network, NI Games and The Pixel Mill. The number of companies has swelled massively over the last decade. Just going to some of the events you can see its really grown into a community, it’s really nice now.”
Noel would advise people in Northern Ireland who want to get into game development, to attend local events and to ‘put themselves out there’ by joining the NI Game Dev Facebook pages and Discord servers.
“Shamelessly self-plugging yourself, saying hi and introducing yourself to people is honestly all it takes,” he said.
While many of the events, which you can learn more about on the NI Game Dev Networks website, had been put on hold due to the pandemic, more recently the events have been held digitally via Zoom.
One of the events Noel recommends checking out is the Global Game Jam at Farset labs.
“You meet everybody and even if you don’t have a team you get added into one,” he said.
Noel also believes that having a strong portfolio of work is the best way to get into the industry.
“Qualifications don’t really matter,” he said. “Prove to me that you enjoy what you do. Depending on what facet of game development you want to go into, you might not be able to code, you might not be able to draw but it doesn’t matter. Just make what you’re good at good, show it on paper, have it on some sort of demo reel so that I can see you’re actually interested. That will go far beyond some degree or thousands spent into education you’ll always be behind,” he said.
Previously Noel had been working on Paleo Pines, the game which made history back in 2019 after receiving £218,000 in funding from NI screen. Its biggest investment in a single video game. Paleo Pines is a simulation game where players become dinosaur ranchers.
Noel left the project along with artist and animator Jordan Bradley to form their own company, Ambertail games and are currently working on their own dinosaur game.
“It’s going to be a dinosaur world where the player is a shopkeeper. Imagine animal crossing but POV, your Tom Nook,” he said.
While the game is still in the early stages of development, a short prototype gameplay demo was posted on the Ambertail Games Twitter account.
“Ten years ago the biggest things in Northern Ireland games wise was Evil Dead: Endless Nightmare and the only other thing of note was that Billy Goat Entertainment had HMS Spiffing on Kickstarter, but at the time there was nothing else of mention,” Noel said.
“Whereas, versus now you can go down to the Pixel Mill and there’s like twenty different titles being worked on by people you have never heard of.”
Rory Clifford the Interactive Manager at Northern Ireland Screen runs the Pixel Mill, which is based in Belfast.
“The Pixel Mill is a free co-working space for studios, it helps developers keep a clear headspace as they don’t have to worry about things like rent,” Rory said.
“I also run a studio accelerator called Platform which is a programme which gives three companies £60,000 over twelve months and a bunch of support to go build a game.”
Currently eighteen studios have gone through the Pixel Mill or have worked in it at one point or another.
“Over the last two and a half years we’ve probably provided over seventy five days of free mentorship and we run a bunch of workshops,” he said.
Rory believes that the local industry will only continue to grow as time goes on.
“In the last four years we seen the first million-pound game in Northern Ireland which was Paleo Pines. We’ve seen other studios sign publishing deals, we’ve seen more studios becoming sustainable and we are starting to see more interest in the games industry here as a whole.”
About the Author
 Auryn is a student journalist who enjoys video games. Follow him on his Twitter @auryncx |
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