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Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year to everyone =)
As 2006 arrives, you will all be seeing alot more from StarCave as we brave into the commerical sales aspect of the Indie games business compared from the just only in – games development we have had in 2005. So on this day i write here for the Gamedevelopers.ie community as i have done with the GarageGames community with our amazing roller coaster ride, journey of 2005…
Star Cave Studios is one year & half years hold of a company, it is an Irish company along side our highly talented USA studios which are Cellien Studios & Single Cell Games. For 2006, StarCave is entering out of the last small private investments & our survival is based on for the new year, will be the buying gamers & fans of our upcoming games. It is a nervous & exciting time which if it is anything like 2005, each day is never the same, never a dull moment (good or bad!).
This time last year, we have finished the beta of Camelot Galway – City Of The Tribes with the Torque Game Engine, developed in Ireland & we had no other teams or support at that time apart from the GarageGame community. Below you will see a screenshot of Camelot Galway 2004.
Click Here For: Camelot Galway WebsiteSince Camelot Galway is our first game to done & very near to its public release i spent a bit more time talking about it here compared to our other games & events that unfolded during 2005.
In March 2005, I headed off to the GDC where i met in person for the first time a few of the GarageGames crew as well hocking up with the crazy fun daily aftermath parties in the Irish camp during the show. It was great to get back out there & showing off (only Camelot Galway) to publishers, press & making plenty of contacts. GDC is a great show & i remember how top-rated GarageGames was at the show with their stands and presentations which is always good to see in action from the leading Indie game companies.
In April 2005, StarCave acquired Cellien & Single Cell Games. This gathering of the few Indie game developers helped position StarCave further than it could have gone today with the talented people in all 3 teams. The meaning of StarCave changed as we were no longer held within the Irish game development scene but now we have spread across the world. The best part of this is that when all 3 teams merged under the StarCave banner was that each person found their own position and got on with each other quite well. The future looked very bright, along side the 2 new game titles of Illumina & Terra: Formations. The new management included Ian Roach (Single Cell), Matt & Blake (Cellien) & myself in shaping the new future of StarCave.
In May 2005, Matt, Blake & myself set out to invade E3 which we were armed with posters, demo boxed DVD’s, T-Shirts, Laptops & our tickets! E3 is different for everyone, we went out there and did what we could with only the 3 days of the show to round up the publishers interest with our 3 titles & contacts. Again we met up with GarageGames at the show & once again the Irish mobile bar traveling around LA after the end of each show day =)
StarCave also at the show had the support of Enterprise-Ireland to help us track down contacts, meetings, and using their booths for meetings which helped a great deal. Overall, E3 is an experience not to be missed but its harder to do business at times with the noise, crowds and scope of whats going on with so much media craze packed into a few days!This time we had a camera with us but we did not get much time to even take many pictures with so many meetings happening.
Click Here For: Illumina-Online.com WebsiteTerra: Formations has been on the back burner for most of the year due to heavy focus on Camelot Galway & Illumina but during the later half of 2005, the title is getting a good bit of attention to which good results that is leading Terra to becoming one of our biggest titles yet. Here is a screenshot of Terra early in 2005..
Click Here For: StarCave Launch!And so that is the brief low down of what happened with StarCave in 2005. I hope you have enjoyed reading about us, having a look at our titles and we hope to see you all in the new year. =)
Best wishes during the holiday season!
Keith Killilea
CEO – ProducerStar Cave Studios
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cheers for the insider info, that’s always useful (for guys like me in college, anway) :)
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nice to hear about the year gone by. definately sounds like ye’ve been busy in the trenches.. good good. just one thing, you mentioned ye’ve got publishers for the games. do they not mind you showing screen shots etc? Doesnt it kind of let the competition know whats in the pipeline? Other than that, look forward to give some of them a whirl.
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A lot of people were not too sure what Starcave was all about at the beginning of the year, your updates on GD.ie has gone a long way to changing all of that. I think all Irish developers should post their progress on the site for both developers and fans to check out.
Well done on completing the year and best of luck in 2006.
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Indeedy, its great to hear how you guys are getting on and as philippe said, its also very encouraging, from a student perspective anyway, to hear how you guys are taking on Interns and really getting them invovled in the development process despite the fact you’re still a relativly young company. :D
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Many thanks for posting the info Keith!
It made for a great read, I might do something similar for CanDo in a few weeks time ( we’re currently working on another 3D game for a new movie ).
Mal
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Sounds like you are having problems with managing projects. Very haphazard. Very very dangerous for cash-burn, especially with 12 people drawing a cheque every month. Hope you are here this time next year with good news. Best of luck.
BTW…whats with the sunglasses? Living up to a sterotype? :wink:
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Keith,
Thats great stuff. It reads well, and it would make a great case study as well as rallying call for the Irish Game Industry.
Seriously, you guys at StarCave should consider a whistle-stop tour of the various 3rd level institutes in Ireland, showcasing your stuff, and inspiring the troops of tomorrow! You should, of course, start off in the Letterkenny / Derry area… ;)
Merry Christmas & Best of luck to all in the New Year,
Brendan.
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