If you play indie games, you may have noticed Strange Scaffolds incredible hit rate. Every single one of the studios games — from Clickolding, I Am Your Beast, and most recently, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown — has ended up somewhere within the “Positive” ranking system on Steam (with several achieving “Very Positive” or even “Overwhelmingly Positive”).
So, how does the studios creative director Xalavier Nelson Jr. ensure his studio only turns out bangers?
To find out, I sat down with Nelson at this past Marchs Game Developers Conference — or more accurately, I sat down with him right outside GDC, as he couldnt afford a ticket to the prestigious (but expensive) game-development networking extravaganza. And even that is part of Nelsons strategy of working within extremely tight constraints, and never trying to do more than exactly what his studio can afford to do. Think the opposite of Icarus: build the wax wings, but then dont fly into the sun. Nelsons business strategy is to just fly straight.
“I feel like its more crucial than ever to make games efficiently and quickly, because as we can see from where the rest of the industry is at, you almost cant afford to do otherwise,” Nelson told me as we sat together on a bench by the Yerba Buena Gardens, a park close to the convention center. “And in our case, I really feel it boosts our creativity. Were making this game [TMNT] for less than $300,000 in 18 months.”
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown<\/em>"" data-modal-id="single-image-modal" data-modal-container-id="single-image-modal-container" data-img-caption=""“Strange Scaffold being this giant floating collection of game developers popping in and out of projects means were learning from each other all the time,” he said. He described a recent “workshop slash symposium” with Dan Pierce, designer for Strange Scaffolds Creepy Redneck Dinosaur 3, about the games match-three elements; Pierce was able to both pass on what he had learned about the genre as well as get feedback from other Strange Scaffold developers on his design decisions.“And so creating a learning and development community together means that we can ship frankly a disgusting amount of projects quickly, and in a way that is at every stage calculated to ask, Is this worth it? Because if the humanity is lost in the process of making the game, then the humans who made the game in the first place dont get to keep making the things that you love.”
So far, Nelson says hes gotten positive reinforcement from developers whove chosen to work within Strange Scaffolds very specific constraints. Its not the same as a full-time staff job within the AAA studio system, to be sure, but that may not be a bad thing.
“The feedback I most often get is, it is refreshing,” Nelson told me. “Were surrounded by environments that say, If this does not succeed, you dont deserve to be here anymore. Strength Scaffold is a place that says, Lets make the best game we can within the time and the budget we have. And make the next one.”
