Nathan Rees

In 2015, my wife and I watched the documentary Indie Game: the Movie. After seeing the success of Super Meat Boy, Braid, and Fez, I got motivated to put my animation skills to work and develop my first indie game. I decided to base my game off of one of the early black and white animated game ideas. The one I chose featured a space marine attacking aliens on some planet. That idea evolved into Rogue Invader, where the player is invading an alien home-world one soldier at a time. I kept the 1-Bit black and white look as homage to my old animations, but updated everything else from smooth controls to epic music.

I am the creator and project lead of Squishy Games. I think the greatest trait that a game developer needs is honesty with both yourself and your audience. For yourself, to push on until the game is done right, done so you are proud of it. And for your audience, to not put out a game that you know is incomplete. Do not lie to your customers. I feel that simple trait is not practiced enough.

We are a team of 6 working remotely, but based out of Vancouver, Washington. 2 Artists and Animators (myself included). 1 lead programmer, 2 programmers, and our composer and sound designer. We've been through a lot of development hiccups as I'm sure all developers go through. It took 6+ years to finally complete Rogue Invader.

Games that give you a fair challenge. My time is limited, so I choose my games carefully. I want it to be worth my time, and that is measured by if it immerses me into the world, give me smart challenges (either puzzle or tactical). And allows my decisions to carry some weight. So here are a few examples of my favorite games. • Xcom 2 • Dark Souls • Alien: Isolation • Homeworld 1+2 • Skyrim • The Witcher 3 • FTL • Total War: Warhammer series

Well, we've only released one game. But clearly, we have a love for retro games, and specifically 1-bit black and white art styles that mimic the classic Macintosh. Love of sci-fi and franchises such as Aliens and Star Wars are also very common among all of us.

When deciding how to jump into the indie game scene, we discussed many aspects of our approach. We liked Rogue likes, so wanted to do something along those lines from the start. We also wanted to stand out (who doesn't)? So, instead of colorful pixel-art games (of which there are many gorgeous ones), we opted to limit our palette to Black and White. We looked at all my old animations I did as a kid, and chose one that would be fun to work on and appeal to the most players. Initially, we were quite skeptical as to whether anyone would like a game that was only 2 colors. But, at that time, Luca Pope was developing Return of the Obra Dinn. Seeing that Mr. Pope was going all in on the 1-Bit, that gave us more confidence in our direction, as we had already been building our prototype for quite a few months by that time.

After 6 years in development, this awards means so much for us. Many times doubt seeps in during development that can be hard to overcome. You can never know if all your work is going to be appreciated until it's finally done after all the sleepless nights and frustration. Very thrilled to have the judges see the worth in our labor of love!

We are telling everyone we can, and proudly posting it everywhere! We hope it helps others see the quality and worth of our game.

The biggest challenge was working a full time job, with a family of little kids, and developing while managing a team all at the same time. My wife was very supportive and helped me through-out the entire development process. I am lucky to have her. In addition, finding the right programmers that are just as passionate about indie games and coding. The programmers that I was able to work with are amazing at their craft. I'm lucky in that regard also. Oh, and funding the entire thing. Having to pitch to investors is also quite a challenge.

Here in the United States, we have a good internet network, which is key to collaboration and communication.

Oh, that would be Unreal 5. As an animator, the tech that has come out of that engine really is a game changer. Lumen and Nanite are like dreams come true for a 3D artist like myself.

1) So much creative ideas and imagination come to life. That is what drives me to make and play my art. 2) Indie developers can take chances that AAA companies are too timid to take. You get so many creative and new ideas from the indie scene. 3) VR and AR. It's young now, but has so much awesome potential as it gets better.

Rogue Invader was built on Unity, as it is solid for 3D and 2D, and easy to pick up. If you are working with sprites (Rogue Invader ended up having over 390,000 separate sprites), I cannot recommend enough Texture Packer from Code and Web. I also would suggest Trello for team management and PerForce for version control.

As mentioned with my comment above, Unreal 5 is a gold standard now that other engines need to build to. I hope to see them do just that. The more engines with that power, the better. I also see VR becoming more powerful as chips get smaller and more efficient. I hope to see wider lenses, and higher graphics capabilities. I hope that all game companies just drop the whole NFT hype. I hope to see that go away.

Like many developers, my father who was endlessly working and serving others. He raised me in Star Wars, Fantasy, and Sci-Fi allowing my imagination to open up. He encouraged me to build my dreams in art and 3D. And my mother taught me how to work hard at everything I do. Taught me to chop wood for our wood fireplace, clean the house gutters, and get good grades.

To reiterate my earlier comment, honesty in all things. Be honest to yourself and others. If you carry that with you at all times, no matter what happens, you can have a clear conscious. That leads you through the stresses and hardships that will come in life.

If you pick up Rogue Invader, we hope that you find it a fun retro challenge!