It is time to write another blog post. I am continuing from my previous post My journey from 2004 to 2008.
These years were probably the most time consuming and hectic times in my life as I knew nothing of what I was getting into. During this time I was being an intern, owner, advisor, jury, studying, traveling and helping out other game companies. It all started with…

Agenius Interactive AS

Agenius was owned by my first mentor who was also my teacher when I was studying Game Development. Since he was familiar about my ambition, skills and drives he gave me an opportunity when I came back from UK after completing my bachelors. So, for the next year I learned a lot about Educational Games and game development start up.

QA Manager

I helped organize, set up and create questionnaire of our play testers. We would play test in our office building after working hours due to parents and kids being available after school hours. In other cases we would be allowed to play test in schools. These files needed to be organized, studies and used to iterate for the next play test and then the next play test after that.

3D

Occasionally we did some 3D work so I would create simple things such as animated 3D statistic.

Assistant Producer

At times we would require translators, 2d artist and other contractors in which I was responsible of locating, interviewing, managing and tracking.

Translator

Due to it being a educational language game I also did the base translation between English and Norwegian to help the translators speed up their work for French and Spanish.

Localization

I was responsible for ensuring the localization was correct and completed by the translators. That means I also was in charge of the XML list and Excel list that tracked and was used by the programmer to implement the words into the database in the game itself.

Game Design

I was responsible for doing minor adjustment to the game and ensuring its layout and design was good enough based on feedback from playtesting.

Content Developer

I was responsible for putting together the strict user manual required by Nintendo to become validated for the e-shop.

Summary

In short, in just a year I had the opportunity to learn several roles and be part of something very amazing due to picking the right mentor and opportunity for myself. What is important to remember is I did this unpaid for a whole year. I got about 25 dollars a day from the government that went into my bank account. They got about 100 dollars a month or something for having me. That is why I state that if you really want to make it you need to put in the work and hours. After this I decided to do multiple things but I will pick out that I did help another company also with advice, qa testing, marketing and was offered to be general manager of the company. However, the team had already burned out by that time. Below is the video of the game that was released before they went on to other things.

Yes, this was one of my first trailers that I put together.

FatCow Games AS

I eventually decided to build my own brand and start on my own. So for the next couple of years I tried many things, failed many times and had to learn how to be extrovert, negotiate, business and so on. So, these are some of the things roles I learned to perform.

CEO

I learned a bit about the responsibility and workload that comes with running a company and including other people into it. I learned about strategy, branding, marketing, finance, funding, pitching, public talking and much more. I was able to acquire funding on first attempt, try and build up department, do freelancing, complete a game and learn from all of this.

Producer

I learned more about being producer. I learned about planning, task management, risk, recruitment, interview, interpersonal relationship, communication, public talking, pitching and so on. I was able to hold talks, be in a jury and travel the world to learn from Square Enix, Sega, Nexon and so on. I learned to research trends and was one of the first onto Unity, iPhone and doing what people do today in social media.

Public Relations

I learned to manage the customers, clients and PR such as dealing with press release, press kit, interviews and social media. Dealing with publisher opportunities and so on.

Social Media Manager

I was one of the early adaptors of Content Marketing and understood Social Media and how it works. I built a community with engagement in which today I am friends with some of my own customers at the time. I was in charge of making sure the content was out there, engagement and so on. I was early adopter of facebook, twitter and so on.

Game Designer

I learned to play a lot of games and research what was trending. I studied psychology and learned how to create an addictive game. I was one of the first who took endless runner into a different angle by introducing endless jumping, powers, boss and a stronger theme.

Outsourcing Manager

I learned to build international small teams to developer and manage freelancing, local web design, game development and other bigger clients. I learned the hard way of spreading out thin too early.

Summary

In short I learned a lot, I did a lot of mistake and I failed a lot. During this time I probably lost projects worth around 1.2 million krone and lost over 12 staff members. My game was pirated over 112 000 copies. I had many hats and many other roles during this time. Below is my own video trailer of the game that I did manage to complete eventually.

I hope you enjoyed some of my key experience and moments during this time. Be sure to like, subscribe and watch my upcoming interview at Elderblaze for even more details. Lastly, if you need mentorship I do provide it. You can look me up in one of my social media if you want some.

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