In hindsight, it turned out well enough that no outside investor or publisher had stake in the game because any cuts in revenue may have led to a more lean return after launch, and we may not have been able to sustain ourselves. We submitted to Indie Fund, but were turned down. In the instances where we did look for funding, the game wasn’t as together as it should have been to warrant the attention of possible investors. This meant that of the 8 people working on the game, the weekly average time spent on its production tended to be closer to 20 hours a week, meaning that Dadliest Catch could possibly be equated to 4-5 people working fulltime for 2.5 years.
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Collaborating on ideas was never quite as involved as when the majority of us lived together, but we managed pretty well.ĭuring the course of the project, the majority of the team had either full time jobs or part time jobs to pay for living expenses and student loans. Over the years, team members gradually moved further away from each other throughout the city of Chicago. The first year of the project together we decided to have 6 of us on the team all live together in a large apartment to save costs and collaborate better. What Kickstarter was unable to pay for, unfortunately, was living expenses. Still, it served its purpose as an excellent kick off point and enabled us to cover our initial costs. It also might have helped to wait for Kickstarter to mature as a platform, as game projects were able to raise significantly more in the subsequent years. We should have accounted for international shipping, should not have offered making 30 handmade plushies, and perhaps should have waited until we had more of the project to show. In retrospect, we made a few mistakes with the Kickstarter. What this allowed us to do was really cement in our minds that we were in this project to completion and give us a real starting point to gather around. We were able to raise $24,320 with 608 backers. At the time, Kickstarter had become a serious way to get some initial funding and gauge interest. Our team was made up of 2 programmers, 2 artists, 3 designers, 1 sound designer, and 1 PR/business person.Īfter the school year finished up, we were ready to create a company and start on Octodad 2. Because we knew each other well and could monitor each other’s work, this system worked out well.
Additionally, we decided to pay the working members an equal hourly wage in lieu of profit sharing, though the wages would not be paid until after the game launched. Those shares would be used to determine the percentage of dividends received later. Going forward, those who were working full time on the new game would receive additional shares based on hours worked throughout the project. It was decided that each of the original members would still hold 1% of the shares. We made the decision to pare down the team from 18 to 8 since it was too risky and unsustainable to have so many people. It was at GDC that we decided we wanted to take a shot at turning Octodad into a commercial endeavor. Most of the students were pursuing degrees in Computer Games Development at DePaul. We eventually decided on Octodad as our project and spent the remaining 5 months creating the game. We spent about a month pitching different ideas, before narrowing down and prototyping our favorites for a few weeks. A quick background about the student version: The team of 18 was put together at DePaul University as an extracurricular summer project under the direction of Scott Roberts and Patrick Curry. We achieved our goal by being one of the 8 student showcase winners in 2011. The original Octodad was a student project with the purpose of competing in the Independent Games Festival (IGF). Although I was primarily a programmer on the team, I carried a lot of production responsibilities like scheduling, researching business decisions, and ensuring that the game actually made it to release.
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