Hello Martingrove readers and future Silver Shrimp gamers. Silver Shrimp Studios is my emerging video game design studio, focusing on storytelling, art direction, and connections to real-world problems. Read on to learn strategies I used to start the venture, insights into my first game, “Phytopia”, and plans for its expansive future.
Starting the Business
For a while now, I’ve had a deep interest in 3D modeling, illustration, VFX, and other fields in the digital art world. I enjoy seeing unique worlds and characters come to life, especially by my cursor. I believe this drive is what unites artists across the world. At the same time, I’ve developed various programming and computer engineering skills, through school and online resources. I treated these as separate spaces until January of last year, when I jumped into the complex and STEAM-centered community of indie game design and combined my interests and skills. I quickly became engaged with game design because of the extent of flexibility and opportunities that stem from it. Through experimentation, I created several straightforward games based on core concepts. Although enlightening and unique, they were not for sale. Then, course selection for this year was upon me.
I enrolled in our Entrepreneurship: The Venture Course, taught by Mr. Goldberg. One of Martingrove’s great qualities is its great variety of opportunities, as is offered by this course. With Mr. Goldberg’s guidance, I built a marketing and management toolset as parts of my business plan. For those looking for tips with a new venture, here are a few key concepts I found useful:
- Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
- Demonstrates to the customer that your business is different. Your method may not be faster or cheaper, but the unfamiliarity will attract attention. A Silver Shrimp USP: A connection to real world challenges, such as climate change, in each game.
- Competitive Analysis
- Obviously, this will help you gauge your environment. More importantly, it helps you form statistical aspects of your venture. Phytopia’s price will vary based on the price of similar indie games, and the number of development hours.
- Marketing and Financial Plan
- Often overlooked aspects of a business venture. Determine where and how both people’s money and attention will flow and focus.
- Executive Summary
- Focusing your ideas across your business, so you can pitch it to potential investors, or write articles like this one.
After semester 1, I found enacting my plans wasn’t all smooth sailing. An entirely digital business contains no billboard signs nor posters for customers to walk by, as a coffee shop might. Rather, space on the World Wide Web flows in the very different way of clicks and shares, and is expensive to direct. That’s why I’ve branched out into physical mediums, such as this article, word of mouth, and posters. I’ve also optimized my online advertising by targeting only interested customers, and focusing on a few direct platforms, my website and Instagram, making updates easier.
Based on all these factors, I’d attribute my venture’s success so far, and the keys to starting one of your own, to an interest in experimentation and embracing wonder, participating in a community that provides opportunities for growth, and the pursuit of those opportunities no matter what challenges or doubts you face. I’m looking forward to creating amazing art with Silver Shrimp, and I hope you’ll join me. This starts with Phytopia, an adventure as a time traveling explorer.
Phytopia
Based on the Player Survey, you are most interested in an action and storytelling adventure with engaging combat. Therefore, Silver Shrimp’s first game will be exactly that, with themes about the environment, and even time travel. You’ll follow a misdirected and ingenious soul who breaks free from regulation, to find the world is not as straightforward as it appears. It’s turning out to be a detailed story with a cartoon, using a 3D art style that is best for picturing a variety of landscapes. However, an indie developed game will change drastically over the development period based on feedback and new ideas, so stay tuned for new features and changes to Phytopia. Development logs for programming, story creation and more will likely be bi-weekly.
Seeing as you’ve reached the end, go check out the Silver Shrimp website at https://www.silvershrimp.ca/, or the instagram account: @silver_shrimp_studios. Here I’ll post game development logs and much more detail on the topics I’ve covered in this article.