Team17's co-founder Debbie Bestwick var til stede ved dette års Gamelab, hvor vi havde en chance for at tale med hende om at udvikle til flere platforme samtidig og om at hjælpe andre udviklere opnå deres vision.
"I think two parts. People often ask how do we choose the games that we choose? I can be really honest, right: we look for great games. Games that we love playing, games that are fun [...] Overcooked, it's fun, it's laugh out loud moments, it brings friend and families together in couch co-op gaming. These are the kinds of experiences that we are passionate about," Bestwick told us.
"In terms of the way that we help teams, I think a real good example [...] take Yooka-Laylee. We helped Playtonic. We helped them by creating some of the mini-games on the PC version, but also the key thing for independent, indie developers, is to focus on making the best game possible. Nothing, absolutely nothing, is more important than creating the best game possible."
"If they don't have the resources or they don't have the skillset or they don't have the focus to consider console at the same time as they're making the base game, they're going to struggle to do a simultaneous release, and it's important when you're building new IP you have a simultaneous release across all platforms, not just as a gamer - I want to be able to play my game on any platform that I choose to - but from launching new IP it's really important in terms of getting the method, the loudest noise [...] so what we do with developers in particular is we work with them while they're making their creations (which is highly unusual), we have coders work with their coders and whatever else is needed, and where it's required we will make the game alongside them on consoles, and that can be on PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, even mobile at times."
"This is simply about helping our partners. They don't have those resources. When I say we open up our entire development resources, we open up our entire development resources. You can take Chris [Davis] on The Escapists, a very well-known game and franchise - Chris is one guy, and Chris is a huge inspiration to anyone out there making games. Chris was a hobbyist game creator, he was working on a construction site putting roof tiles on buildings, and he was passionate about making games in his spare time. We spotted his game and we reached out to him and we started work together. The game was written in Fusion, it wasn't ideal for cross-platform development, and so Team17 put a team alongside him that helped him. We rewrote the game for him in Unity. We took that game across onto PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. We did the Switch versions, the mobile versions, but also we put a designer alongside him to help him execute that game vision and design, because he's not been trained to be a game designer."
