Chartboost University Alum: Where They Are Now - Glitchnap

Continuing our special blog series, Where They Are Now, this week we spotlight CBU alum, Glitchnap! This four man Copenhagen-based team met each other as students in 2011 and bonded through their shared passion for multiplayer games. Glitchnap has since participated in many game jams, spoken at conferences and even built complete arcade machines...all while honing their craft.

Chartboost:?What games have you developed, and are currently developing?

Glitchnap:?As individuals, we have a huge pile of projects, but as Glitchnap we all stand behind four games and one installation. Our first game LAZA KNITEZ!! is a four player arcade deathmatch game about four ultranoble warriors jousting to the death in the technofuture. It did remarkably well and has become somewhat of a cult classic, having been exhibited in over seven countries. To accommodate this game we built an arcade machine, The Buttfighter, which we use to bring LAZA KNITEZ!! to conferences, events and parties.

Our Nordic Game Jam game Press X To Give Up was an attempt at the profound, and was very well received considering the game deals with a peculiar issue. The entire game is a metaphor, a poem about a struggle. A matador must fight a bull, althought neither the matador, bull or the players action are what they seem. We experimented with topic, disorientation, and abusive game design.

Currently, we are developing our first commercial mobile game, Zumbie: Blind Rage. Zumbie is a game about surviving the zombie apocalypse with the help of your friend(s). You play ?as the shooter, who is a blind and limping but luckily has an endless supply of shotgun shells. The shooter must hold a mobile device and should not be able to see the screen (preferably with a blindfold). The phone will act as a gun. Your friends must give you directions and help you survive as long as possible, and they do this in meatspace, without any devices, simply by yelling. Your rotation will match the rotation of the shooter. Press the screen to shoot, and shake the phone vertically to reload.

Chartboost:?How did you learn about CBU and why did you apply for it?

Glitchnap:?Mikkel Faurholm, the artist of the original Zumbie prototype mentioned it to us after seeing it appear on Twitter. We immediately jumped to the opportunity. A two week seminar in San Francisco, with other developers from around the world, with a chance to be able to stick around for GDC, with reimbursements? It sounded too good to be true. We thought we wouldn't stand a chance, as we don't consider ourselves to be a traditional game startup, but we made it anyway and have no regrets whatsoever. We took the time making the videos, trying to look our best without compromising who we are (they were pretty silly videos), et voila, we were in San Francisco.

Chartboost:?Where are you guys today?

Glitchnap:?Since CBU, and subsequently GDC which we were able to attend thanks to CBU, we feel for the first time that we actually have an idea of what the gaming industry looks like. Indirectly as a result of many of the talks, we realized Zumbie needed a more robust foundation than the one we had for the prototype and started working with Unity. Up until then we were making games in Flash and Processing, but seeing how the other CBU attendees managed their projects got us inspired. It also had a complete graphics overhaul, and we were proud to present it at the Roskilde Festival last month in Denmark, one of the biggest music festivals in the world.

One of the most striking takeaways for us was Matt Coombe's talk about tool creation and production pipeline. We've been educating ourselves in more efficient ways of getting things done and using less hacky solutions.

CBU and GDC got us very well connected, and made it possible for us to put our games in front of dozens of interesting people. I've been asked to speak about my experience at my university, in sort of a "the road to San Francisco" talk. One of our side projects was curated into the Wild Rumpus in London, and LAZA KNITEZ!! is still being picked up in new places even though we are not actively developing on it. We know who to talk to whenever we have questions or ideas, and more importantly how to talk to them.

Chartboost:?Do you have any advice for game developers in general?

Glitchnap: Apply for CBU, stay for GDC, and in general try everything. Enter contests, apply for grants, showcases, prizes, etc... Even if you don't get selected or win anything, people will remember your name and might contact you if something relevant pops up. Use Promoter Calendar (http://www.promoterapp.com/calendar) to stay up to date. Attend local events and if you can't, save up some money to go to the nearest one, or organize your own. Go to game jams, participate in game jams online and jam with your partners, kids, parents, grandparents and pets.