The Plymouth Mindset

Plymouth is a vibrant city situated by the sea in South Devon, UK. This blog critically examines the creative environment of Plymouth through conversations with those who make up the increasingly diverse creative community.

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Teaser trailer for the latest Remode Studios title Fireworks vs. Aliens.

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Interview with Martin Darby @Remode Studios

by Andrew Sargeant

Martin Darby

Plymouth based video game studio Remode Studios has been in operation since 2007 and in that time has worked with many internationally renowned clients including CITV, Arkadium and Sulake (the company behind Habbo Hotel).  They've also played a major role in the establishment of Extended Play, a monthly community get-together for any and all with interest in the video game scene in the South West and also the Extended Play festival (tickets here) - an annual independent game design and development conference.

Martin Darby is one half of the founding team of Remode Studios.  As I enter the office a nerf dart whizzes past my ear ear and Martin leads me to the meeting shed, a full blown shed in the Remode Studios office.  I've been here before and can instantly recognise Remodes unique atmosphere; blend of enthusiasm and diligence. We take a seat and I plonk my recording device in front of us...

  Me So, Martin, you're Chief Creative Officer at Remode Studios is that right?

Martin That's a corporate title which infers my ultimate breadth of responsibility, yes.    Pragmatically speaking I’m a game designer and director.  I have experience working both by myself and with others at the start of projects to design them and then subsequently managing and delivering them.  

Me Ah, ok.  So you still work on production occasionally, when you're not directing things?

Martin The design specifically yes.

Me How did you get into computer games?

Martin Well if you wanna go right back in terms of being a gamer, as a kid from 1990 - 91 probably the first game I played was Tetris on the Game Boy around the time that came out.  As well as Super Mario (GB) and Sonic for the Game Gear.  So I played a lot of 8-bit games and by the mid to late 90's I had a PC and a PlayStation and I was pretty hardcore into it at that point.

Me So you got bitten by the game bug?

Martin I did.  I was at a very impressionable age and there was a lot of cool stuff happening at that time like the big move from 16-bit games to 32-bit games.  3D graphics and real audio hit when I was 12-13 and I was right in the target audience for those games.

I got into it, I really got into it.  I bought every magazine goingI also had PC games and would try to mod them.  Up until 16 I was heavily into it.  

When the PS2 came out, I started to fall out of love with gaming and I did for a few years until I was about 19, although I did have a GBA which I played occasionally.  I personally felt like the PS2 jump wasn't a great era for games.  It was renowned for being controlled by big publishers, people like EA.  There was good stuff that came out like Resident Evil 4 and Shadow of the Colossus.  Obviously there's highlights of every generation, but there were a lot more lowlights, a lot more similar design patterns from the PS1 games and as far as I was concerned I'd seen that before.  So those guys lost me as a customer at that point.

Then, when I was at Uni and I was 19, I was studying Digital Art and Technology and I was making little games, little side-scrollers, little shooting games, I even made a little Sim where there was a bloke in a flat and he could eat different foods and go to the gym - an educational game.  I started playing more online games and tried a few MMO's and it was at that point that games started to pique my attention again.  With the course as well I started to think this is moving forward, this is different.

Me In terms of game design?

Martin Yes.

Me You mentioned that between the PlayStation and the PlayStation 2 the game design didn't change...

Martin Well the game design did change, but not significantly enough to appeal to my saturated brain until later in that generation, but by that point the Wii and Xbox 360 were on the horizon so I pretty much picked back up there

Me Ah ok, Whats the worst game you've ever played?

Martin Difficult to say! Well on the PSOne they used to have Net Yaroze games which were the equivalent of indie games back then.  Some of those were pretty shocking but I would still play them!

A compilation of some of the more polished Net Yaroze games for the Playstation 1.

  Me Why did you go to Digital Art and Technology, and why Plymouth University?

Martin I realised with my A-Levels that I wasn't a classic academic student.  I just didn’t have the mind-set for it, certainly at that time anyway.  What I mean by that is I didn't want to go to a red brick uni and do a traditional subject and just max the academic path out.  I wanted to do something practical, I wanted to make things and I wanted to get into something that would have high employment prospects.  I’m still (humbly) proud that I owned up to that in myself so early in life and grateful to my father for guiding me in this way.  A bit of a watershed moment in hindsight.

I really liked the idea of doing animation; originally I wanted to do 3D animation.  I knew absolutely nothing about any of this stuff, other than having modded a few games in the past.  In that era it was very simple stuff, compared to what the connotations of that [modding] mean today.  So I did DAT because it had a really good reputation in the UK at that point and because I could dip into all the different areas.  When I got there, there was very little 3D and I actually found that modelling was something I didn't really like.  I got way more into 2D animation as 3D modelling and animation never particularly grabbed me.  So what I really gravitated towards in the course was the design and the production side of things.  Every single group project I filled that role.

Me I did the same course and that does tend to happen, the more you find something you enjoy, the more you do it, the more you get put in that hole whenever you join a group.  So why Plymouth?

Martin It was mostly based on the course.  It was probably also a little based on the fact that my dad lived here in the 1970's and he always said that he really enjoyed it here, which I think subconsciously biased me a bit.

Me So you're originally from Birmingham?

Martin No I'm from Yeovil in Somerset.  So that's another thing, it wasn't too far away.  It wasn't like a 6 hour drive to get home.  So; great course, bias on the location and not a million miles away.

  Me Let's talk about Remode.  

What gave you the inspiration to starting a company straight out of uni, without getting a job in the industry first?

Martin Probably a little bit of naivety and not really knowing what it would *really* take.  Also a little bit of definitely not having anything to lose gave me that push.  And probably a fair bit of, I wouldn't say cockiness, but thinking I knew best.  I'd been through a placement year and I felt like I certainly didn't have all the answers but I had a certain self confidence that I could find them and when I did I would work out the solution.    I also found the whole idea of business tremendously exciting!  So all in all some embarrassingly dubious logic really!

Me Ella is your partner, what is it like starting a company with her?

Martin It was not as scary as it sounds to be honest.  We'd been on the same course, we'd met on that course, we'd always worked on things together and so we kinda had a feel for what that would be like anyway.  In my experience, it's so mentally intensive it can look weird to people on the outside.  I think if you had a partner who wasn't involved they just wouldn't understand why certain things were stressing you out and why certain things were challenges.  Actually, providing you're not the sort of people who get irrationally emotionally charged, it can actually be a benefit.

Mole Control - One of Remode Studios earliest titles.

Me Since its inception, Remode has gone from strength to strength.  Are you pleased with what you've accomplished so far?  How do you feel when you look back on the history of Remode Studios?

Martin I feel like I've learnt a huge amount.  I've had my mind well and truly opened.  I think part of that is a natural part of being in your 20's but being involved in Remode has been a catalyst to the point where I think it's really opened my mind to things beyond what I ever thought it would to start with.  Although I do look back and think that some of the times were incredibly hard.

Me Yes you said in an article on Develop that a lot of blood sweat and tears go into starting a company…

Martin Yeah, and a lot of fear, and a lot of times when you just don't know what's going to happen in a month, you literally don't know.  I don't think you can really understand it unless you've been through it.  What we have at the moment is what I have always wanted, but by no means would I say I'm anywhere near done or that I'm anywhere near finished learning.

Me Has Plymouth had any role in that journey?  How was Plymouth for setting up a business, as an environment?

Martin Well, I haven't set up a business anywhere else, so it's difficult to be too scientific about it.  We had a few freebies in the beginning that certainly helped.  I do think there are some clear cultural difference between here and somewhere like London, that I personally favour.

Dartmoor National Park

Me Like living on Dartmoor for example?

Martin Yes.  I like the lifestyle.  And let’s not forget that it's cost effective here, we're still only 3-4 hours from London which, in something like an international industry such as Games, is nothing.  There are developers in countries all over the world, who travel all over the world to meet each other.  Plymouth's location with Dartmoor and the beaches is uncommercialised and unspoilt.  It's a nice part of the UK and it doesn't have a lot of urban bullshit like high crime and outrageous property prices (*relatively speaking* compared to a big metropolitan area).

Also, I think down here is softer.  If you start [a company] in London you're going to get squeezed and you're going to sink or swim in 6 months.  Down here you can plod a bit longer and you can find your feet.  When you're in your first couple of years finding your feet is important.  I think the reduced financial pressures and overheads give you the room to do that.  Also, don't get me wrong, I like London, but lets just say that while Nathan Barley is a sterotype that sort of thing came from somewhere….  Ultimately, putting style, location and other surface qualities aside, it’s still about trying to look at where the market is going and what customers want. But I do believe that this means looking outwards, not looking inwards at an echo chamber of other people like yourself.

Me You mentioned talent just now.  Obviously Remode Studios has had an important part to play in Extended Play and the growing game developer scene down here.  How has that worked out for you guys?  

Martin It's a kind of crucible of serendipity.  You meet someone who knows someone, and you looking for someone and you find them.  It's great to have that.

  Teaser trailer for Remode Studios latest title: Fireworks vs. Aliens

Me You make games as a service and you make games as your own products  With regards to games a service, how do you start?  Do you get a brief from a client?

Martin Well that's not entirely what we mean when we say games as a service.  What we mean is the game is not put in a box and sold on the shelves.  It means it's put online and runs as a service with a community and it's updated all the time.  

We do two types of work, we do work for hire where a client or a publisher will give us a brief.  Then we do work which is our own IP, which is a game we come up with that we think will fulfil a market need or innovate on what's going on in a certain aspect of games and we allocate resource to that.

Me So how do you come up with ideas?  Do you jam ideas with a few people or are you a solo game designer?  A bit of both?

Martin We have a structure where we have teams.  We've got a design and production team, a programming team and an art team and audio we might outsource or do in house.  The design team will treat the brief first, simply because the other guys are ‘in the doing’.  That doesn't mean we don't sit down as a team, once it's going, take feedback from anyone who wants to give feedback, but the responsibility rests with the design team, that's what they're employed for.  So no, it's not too sporadic, there's certainly a process of research and understanding game design as an art form. 

Me Is it the same for your own IP?

Martin Yes it is the same.  We've recently tightened up our process for this type of thing, going from a sellsheet to a concept doc, then a game design document, looking at the marketability and all that sort of stuff.  We wouldn't just say "we're gonna do this" for no reason.  We've got a game coming out at the moment, which was a very teamy exercise "Wouldn't this be cool…wouldn't this be cool" kind of thing, but at the end of the day, the engine that was built on gave us a technological advantage,we knew the interaction would work very well with touch and we had the game engine prototyped.  So there's always some logic, some anchor point, a reason you've taken a certain trajectory.

Me You mentioned technology, do you find it is difficult to stay on top of current trends and the latest technology being in Plymouth which is geographically a fair distance from the places where it's "all going on" like London and Bristol?

Martin It doesn't matter anymore.  We don’t live in that world anymore.  Back when we started in 2007 I wondered that.  It was something that loomed in my mind for at least a couple of years.  My conclusion now is it doesn't matter, not in games anyway.  There are games companies all over the world and it doesn't matter providing you get your person in charge of business development to the main conferences and they're meeting the right people.  It's an international industry, you could be anywhere.  In terms of keeping up, I get the GI newsletter every day and I spend at least an hour a day reading and researching; we've never been more connected and more able to access that stuff.  Providing someone is physically travelling (pretty much all the time) and doing the face time and then you’re staying on top of the news in your industry you can do it.

Me We already talked a little bit about being a director, obviously you've got responsibilities now as a director, do you ever miss out on things you want to be doing because you're a director of a company?

Martin No, because I want to be a director of a company.  If I wanted a different sort of lifeI would have done that.  At the end of the day I believe I could do most things that I wanted, if I wanted to.  It’s simply a measure of how long it would take and the enjoyment one gets out of it.  This is what I want to be doing right now.

Me Making computer games for a living is obviously an enviable job for computer gamers.  Have you got any words of advice for people who want to get into the video games industry?

Martin Make a game.  Make a game.  It's the simplest thing.  I've been told that in the past and when I actually think back to every time I've learnt to become a better designer and run a project better it's all based on the fact that I've finished projects.  That's the other thing, make a game and actually finish it.  Don't be one of those people that's starting this or that.  It's about balance, like a lot of life is, you've got to get that balance right between being creative and starting and having the follow through to finish.  You've also got to get that balance between really thinking hard about what you're trying to do and not over thinking and under delivering.  It's got to be a follow through and every time you do that you learn more.  You get an oversight of the whole thing, and that is really important when you get a bigger team and have to manage other people taking over parts of that process.

I would also say don’t underestimate the human side of things.  A lot of newcomers who are actually talented and in with a shot think that it is all about skills;  Skills (and an extremely high standard at that in games) are crucial.  Without them you are wasting your time.  However if you have them but your attitude, maturity and personality aren’t right then these are things that will hold you back and no amount of skills will compensate.

Me Have you got anything else you want to say about Plymouth?

Martin I wish there were more companies like us down here to be honest.  I think the culture here is really conducive to the sort of thing we do.  It's laid back, it attracts the chilled out coder type and I've seen the city pull itself up a fair bit in the 10 years I've been here if you actually look at what has changed.  I wouldn't say it's quite there yet, but it's moving in the right direction.  Union Street and the bottom of town clearly needs demolishing but the overall location you can't beat really.  Personally this place has really grown on me over time.  I think everyone I know who is here it's like that.  Even if they're from here, they come back here because it is somewhere that grows on you over time.

You can view more information on Remode Studios by visiting their website: http://www.remodestudios.com/

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Plymouth Mindset had the opportunity to examine Drew Turner's major project from his final year in Graphic Design at Plymouth College of Art.

The portfolio of work demonstrates Drew's unique combination of interest in nature, the demo scene and technology.

Take a look at more of his work at drewturner.co.uk

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You don’t necessarily have to move anywhere else to do the kind of jobs we do...the works here, it’s just how much you want it. You’ve just got to stick at it and don’t stop!

Drew Turner (June 2013)

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Interview with Drew Turner @Royal William Yard

by Andrew Sargeant

Drew Turner

My first interview is with local entrepeneur and artist Drew Turner.  We sat on the rocks at Royal William Yard gazing out to sea during our collective lunchbreaks.  Though it had been sunny recently, the day was overcast.  With the cloud cover slightly miring the view across to Drake's Island, the scenery was still picturesque...

Me  What made you decide to do graphic design and illustration?

Drew  I was 21, I think, and I worked in various places, kinda left school and did computers.  So, I wanted to be a network administrator, which sounds ridiculous, but I couldn't get a job in it after I got qualified.  How fucking ridiculous, I don't know why, I was young, whatever.  So after I couldn't find a job, I just worked in places.  I worked in Maplin for ages and then eventually I started making flyers for bands and making t-shirts.  I had no idea what I was doing so I applied to go to uni.  First of all I applied to do electrical engineering and they gave me a conditional offer, which I turned down.  So then I applied to do a graphic design BTEC the year after, but because I was 21 the admissions team suggested I do the full degree.  They let me straight on.  I started  in 2006 and graduated in 2009.  I really struggled in the first year as I'd never done a graphics course before.   

Me  So you didn't need to show them a portfolio?

Drew  Oh I did.  I showed them the flyers and artwork I had been doing.  That was fine.

Me So you did a degree in Graphic Design at Plymouth College of Art.  What happened after you graduated?

Drew It took me a while, but I wanted to find a job straightaway.  I wouldn't settle for anything else, no part-time job, no stop-gaps.  It actually took about 6 months from when I graduated to actually getting a job at TwoFour.  I got the job the February after my graduation which was in September.

Me So that was a pretty hard winter?

Drew Yeah it was really difficult.  I was sleeping on friends sofa's and stuff, it was pretty intense.

Me But you had your goal and you just stuck to it…

Drew Yeah.  At one point I went to MDeck, the data entry centre.  I thought I just need a job, I can't do this anymore.  I went to a training session. I think I lasted about 2 hours and just walked out.  I said "I can't do this, I'm going, goodbye".  I went back to the job centre and told them I didn't want to be anything else apart from Graphic Design.

The job centre was adamant after 3 weeks of not getting a job that I should be looking for a different career to Graphic Design.  They don't really care what you're looking for, so long as you get a job.

Horse by Drew Turner

Me So you're freelance at the moment.  What happened to instigate the transition from working at TwoFour to freelance?

Drew I didn't really know what I was expecting when I actually did get a job.  I was at TwoFour for all of 9 months, not very long.  I left TwoFour mainly because it wasn't really a creative job.  Even though I was a graphic designer, I was a junior at the time. I had some fun things to do, but not a lot of fun things.  It was mostly resizing images and designing websites which I thought it was quite bland.  I was restricted with my creativity, and also if I did something my name would not be on it.  It's not gonna be recognised as yours, it's going to be "TwoFour".  And when you do make something it goes through so many different changes it ends up totally different to what you originally designed.

I left because of a book by Paul Arden called "Everything you think, think the opposite".  It's a really short book, Tom Platten-Higgins gave it to me, just saying "read this".  So I read it and a couple of days after I wrote my notice and gave it in.  That was a really dangerous book.

Me So then you decided to setup your freelance company?

Drew Yes

Me Did you decide to set it up in Plymouth based on the industry here, or did you just want to stay here? What were your main reasons for setting it up in Plymouth?

Drew Well I've lived in Plymouth all my life.  At the time, I didn't really want to move away.  I ensured I had a couple of jobs lined up before I left to make sure I would be secure.  I haven't really looked back since.

Me How do you go about getting your work?

Drew Luckily enough I haven't had to promote myself yet really.  I've mostly had work come from people I know, or through the internet.  The internet is the best tool for it really.  Freelance is such a variety and a mix of different work.  I do my artwork and illustration, those are my projects, as well as client based work such as websites, branding and more traditional graphic design.  They either get pulled in because they see my artwork and they want something similar to that for something like a CD cover or vinyl case.  Alternatively they see a website I have done and get back to my site through a link at the bottom.

Space Elk by Drew Turner

Me You're artwork is quite distinctive.  Is there a way you would describe your particular style?

Drew I'm really inspired by retro-future things.  I'm heavily 80's inspired.  

Me The way that the 80's imagined the future looking?

Drew Probably before that, but then it was hugely stylised during the 80's.  Look at something like Tron for an example.  I came up with that style originally for my final major project [in university], it happened by accident.  I wanted to make a magazine full of the things that I liked and I wanted to put my friends in it.  I did a couple of artwork pieces, retro-future styled.  Space Elk (pictured above) was one of them.  My research was around the "Demo Scene".

Me Demo Scene?  What's that?

Drew Demo Scene originally came from crack intros.  You used to get ilegally cracked games on the Atari and the Amiga so that you could copy them.  There was usually a piece of 8-bit chip tune and some scrolling text, and cool graphics that go along with as an intro created by the person who cracked the game.

Because it was all computer generated through programming, people really wanted to show off what their capabilities were and to push the computer to its limits.  Instead of doing it illegally where they would have to crack a game, they decided to just make demo's and have competitions to see who could make the best demo.  Making the most outrageous chip tune music, and making polygons spin and showing how many pixels they managed to get on the screen without fucking everything up.

That was 80's, early 90's.  From that I started looking at computer game artwork from that era, which I really liked.  At the same time the magazine was based around mystery and animals.  It all just came together, and I started making these artworks.  It's been going since.

From the video 64 Legendary C64 Crack Intros

Me So you mentioned some of your inspiration came from animals and nature.  Has that got anything to do with your surroundings with Dartmoor on your doorstep?

Drew It must have some sort of influence.  I always went on Dartmoor as a kid, having adventures, getting lost for the hell of it.

Me So you do your own artwork, which you do for fun, to get your name out there...

Drew That's right.  Also clients buy into that.

Me So it works as a promotional tool as well?

Drew Yes.  I treat it as two separate jobs.  At the moment on my site is purely my own work.  I get jobs through that, but I also make clothes, wall art and soft furnishings and such.  

Me Do you make many sales?

Drew Yes.  It trickles in.  I also work with resellers.  I'm hopefully doing some more work with Urban Outfitters who will sell a lot more than I can on my site, and I get a kickback from that.  Oh Dear are really good at the moment as well.

Me When you come to design a t-shirt or a print, how do you approach the blank page?

Drew If the client has asked for something specific, for example a specific animal, then I'll start researching by looking into that animal and looking online for images that are going to be suitable.  I usually use stock photography which I buy to avoid getting bitten in the ass and to give something back to the creative community that's out there.  I'll start composing how the image looks.  I'll paint light in and paint colours in.  For example if there's a glow coming off the floor I'll paint that into the animal.

Me So during the initial concept stage of the project you work completely solo, or do you discuss with friends or other graphic designers?

Drew For artwork, no.  I found that when you start introducing people into your ideas they might have a different take on it and you may not like that.  I've sent things to my friends before asking their opinion, but it really puts me off, I'll end up not doing it or doing something else.  When I first start a piece of work it will look very different to when I finish it.  I keep moving stuff around, pulling things in, taking things out, until I've looked at it for 8 hours straight and think "Fucking hell", but eventually you come out with a piece of artwork that you like and your proud of.

Me So it evolves over time?  The artwork comes from the process itself really, revisiting it rather than attempting to draw something from your head?

Drew Yes.  Sometimes is comes quite quickly and I can do it in a couple of hours, other times it can be quite hard.  Really depends where your going with the image.

Me So how about the other side of your coin.  The graphic design.  Where do your clients come from?  Plymouth?

Drew Anywhere.  If I do get them from Plymouth it's through people that I know or they've seen something that I've done and they want it themselves.

With regards to the internet, I've got a few jobs from being blogged.  I was in the alumni of a "Just Us" design collective who were a group of people in my year who made a design collective as their final project, and I was in that.  It got a feature on thefoxisblack.com, a really popular blog.  My work was featured on the desktop wallpaper project.  From that people started blogging that around.  I've got quite a few clients from that.  

Me That's fantastic

Drew Well that's how the internet works.  It just puts you out there.  So if you have the opportunity to be on design collectives do it, or contact people that do sort of thing.

Me Do you get unexciting projects as well?

Drew I call those ones bread and butter.  You take the rough with the smooth.  You can't have amazing fun projects all the time, well you can, but you have to be more established with a larger more renowned client base.  Websites are fun to design, and I can develop them also if the client needs it developed as well, but web development isn't as much fun as something like game development. 

Me Game programming can be quite creative, but there are some really boring bits of that as well.  There's nitty gritty bug fixing, all of that sort of stuff.

Drew Yeah but you get an amazing result at the end of it, something you can play.

Me Yeah there is that.  So what is your favourite bit of your job?

Drew Having the satisfaction of it being solely mine.  I've come up with these designs and I've made this work.  Working for another company you don't feel like the work is yours.  Working for yourself you don't care about how long you work, you can work a 15 hour day without thinking "Oh I want to go home" because of that satisfaction at the end of it.  You just do it, that's your job and that's what I like.  Every other job I've had has had this massive unsatisfaction [sic] thing where your never quite content.  You end up watching the clock on those ones, whereas now I look at the clock and think "Fuck! I've got to hurry up".

Me Whats your least favourite bit of your job?  Is there issues with work/play balance?  Or finances?

Drew Because I'm a freelancer I don't expect to massively rich, I'm not.  I get by with what I need, and that's it for me.  It doesn't strike me as really important to get loads and loads of money, as long as I'm happy in what I'm doing then that's fine by me.

Time can be a problem, usually I end up working too hard.

Taxes, for fucks sake, and paperwork is a complete pain in the ass as well.  I spend sometimes half a day sat there writing invoices, or writing contracts, or reading their contracts and their terms.  But other than that it's great.

Me Is there any aspects of Plymouth and the South-West that affect your work?

Drew It helps being in a group of friends that are very creative, there's a hell of a lot of talent here, more so than people generally think.  Obviously it's an amazing surrounding, you've got the sea right here and everything looks great.

Me Have you got any other comments or other things you want to say?

Drew You don't necessarily have to move anywhere else to do the kind of jobs we do.  Everyone thinks you have to move to London or go to a bigger city, but the works here, it's just how much you want it.  You've just got to stick at it and don't stop!

You can view more of Drew Turners work at drewturner.co.uk.