No one, I reckon, really wants to talk about David Johnston, the one-man dev team behindSmudged Cat Games‘The Adventures of Shuggy. That’s because his four years of development hell illustrate most of the systemic shortcomings of the modern game development landscape.
Shuggymade his debut at the 2007 Dream. Build. Play competition. “The time travel mechanic was there, the rotation was there, the rope swinging was there,” Johnstontells Edge. ““It could have done with a bit of polish – but not three and half years’ worth.”
Johnston penned a deal with Sierra Online to publish the game on the Xbox Live Arcade, but the cash flow stopped when Activision Blizzard acquired the publisher. “Things went quiet” during this time, he says, until his contract was finally terminated, at which point he was free to find another publisher. This was in late 2008, and it took him almost a year to find Valcon Games and another two to finally publish.
During that time, other games with similar mechanics — Johnston mentionsBraid,The Adventures of P.B. Winterbottom, andLazy Raiders— had been successfully published and had gained a lot of traction, both in the games press and within Microsoft.
Conversely,Shuggylanguished on the platform,despite strong reviews. Its release date — chosen by Microsoft — didn’t help: the game was released alongsideMagic: The Gatheringin June of this year and couldn’t compete with the powerhouse franchise.Shuggynever appeared on the Xbox Live Dashboard.
Johnston’s story hits all the beats of the perils of game development — games need stable publishers and strong advertising, and Microsoft seems particularly inept at pushing new, independent content. This, despite the express purpose of Xbox Live Arcade and the Xbox Indie Games channel being to promote independently developed games.
But Johnston takes solace in the fact that Sierra Online’s initial payments were enough to float the entire project and thatShuggyshipped before the birth of his first son.
Humble indie fumble: an XBLA horror story[Edge viaJoystiq]
