Game Design isn’t the first thing that springs to mind when South Africa is mentioned but I know one studio that is on its way to change that. Studio Bolland is a quietly brilliant animation studio located in Cape Town, tucked into a nook in Muizenberg. While their animations are definitely something to admire (so good, in fact, that brands such as Superbalist, Oreo and MTN have worked with them), their game prototypes are just as worthy of praise. By combining their ethos of “we don’t know what the hell we’re doing” with the advice from industry professionals, they utilise the rapid prototyping method when designing their games.

Instead of putting all their effort into making one big game, the studio produces multiple prototypes and iterations that are available to play on itch.io The idea behind this is to mess around with different game ideas until one sticks. I interviewed Richard Bolland about what the game design process looks like for his studio and found his answers to be very reflective of the work I’ve seen the studio produce- colourful, playful, and crafted with great care and attention. 

Nadia: “As a creative, one of the things I find most difficult is separating my feelings from feedback. What is the process of prototyping in that regard for you? Do you often develop attachments to ideas/mechanics in your prototypes that don’t end up working?” 

Richard: “Yeah all the time. I think the most common pitfall is thinking that a player will just intuitively understand how to play your game. So when we get a comment saying they didn’t understand X, it always reminds us that we didn’t focus enough on player feedback, signposting or tutorialization. I’m often adamant that players will understand how to play our games because we’ve designed it intuitively. Turns out that our assumptions are often totally off and we should have spent an extra couple of days on upping the player feedback, added some more UI to help the player or made a small tutorial. However, I will say that it totally depends on the type of game you’re making and how much that genre is understood by players.” 

N: “Game design is a collaborative process and involves balancing different ideas from team members in various roles. How do you and your team manage to settle on one idea and deal with conflicting interests?” 

R: “At the start of a game jam we brainstorm ideas as a studio. Usually we end up with 2 or 3 decent ideas and then myself, Ash & Simon pick which one to prototype first. The 3 of us usually fulfil the roles of game designer/artist, programmer and producer but we sometimes open this up to the studio too. Our usual approach to dealing with conflicting ideas is usually: (1) If both ideas are not expensive (time-consuming, resource-dependent) then we’ll try both and see which one is better. (2) If one idea is cheaper to pursue, then we usually start with that one. (3) If both are gonna be expensive, then we’d deliberate internally until we land on something. We usually side on what will be the least programming headache-inducing.” 

N: “From your current prototypes, do you foresee any of them evolving into a larger game? As a fan of party games, my favourite prototype was ‘Yeah I’ve Seen That’.” 

R: “Yeah I’ve Seen That is probably the only one we’d be able to self-fund to completion. All our other prototypes run that inherent risk of ploughing too much time into them without validating their success. If we saw a prototype hitting 10,000+ downloads then that’ll be enough validation to evolve them into a larger game and it’ll most likely mean publishers would be willing to back it up. But sadly, our only prototype to get anywhere close to those numbers is Idle Sands which has roughly 8000+ browser plays/downloads on itch.io and for an Idle/Clicker game, those metrics aren’t great. We launched it on CrazyGames and it got over 15,000 players on there but from what we could tell, those were pretty low metrics too. The rest of our prototypes haven’t seen enough downloads/browser-plays to indicate that they’d be worth pursuing into a full game.”

N: “Idle games are a clear interest of your studio. What other genres are you hoping to pursue in the future?” 

R: “I think our next prototypes are going to focus on some of the popular indie genres like I’ve mentioned above: roguelikes, deckbuilders, bullethells, maybe even some horror, but funny horror. We’re going to focus on something that fits quite nicely in a genre instead of a mix of genres and see if that makes any difference.” 

N: “South Africa, and Africa in general, is not particularly known for game design. When you think of your target audience for your prototypes, does this come into play?” 

R: “We generally design our games for international audiences. That’s not to say we avoid African inspiration or elements of South African life in our games, but I think it’ll be hard to find commercial success for a premium PC game if one focuses solely on the African market. Mainly because it’s so heavily mobile focused and most of the commercial markets are in the US and Europe for the types of games we’ll be making. There are strong audiences in Asian and Australian markets so that’s why we’re aiming to make games with an international appeal.”

N: “Following this, the South African industry is growing, but due to the digital divide and the legacy of apartheid, it is still difficult for people of colour to situate themselves in the industry. What advice would you give to aspiring game developers, especially those from underrepresented groups in the gaming industry, looking to break into the scene?” 

R: “My advice, after getting advice for the last 2 years, is to start making super small games. So often people want to make big open world, MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game), multiplayer dependent games which are nearly impossible to make as a solo developer or small studio. Make a game that people can enjoy for 5 minutes. Small, quick ideas often lead to a stronger portfolio and allow you to learn much more quickly than a large project. The EASIEST way to make quick, short games is to join Game Jams and industry events. There are lots of amazing meetups and communities that one can be a part of and start their journey in the industry.”

N: “Game design isn’t a process where you’re likely to get everything right and score gold immediately. What motivates you to push past all the constant failures and prototyping?” 

R: “You have to enjoy the process of making games. There are certainly hard times but the experience as a whole has to be enjoyable. We have made so many wrong decisions and choices when it comes to game design, art, programming, sound, themes, mechanics etc… but every time we learn how to do it better and have fun in the process. The industry as a whole is super friendly, kind and a safe space. So that part of making games has also been a joy because we get to hang out with cool people.”

As a participant of Africa Games Week where the studio got to meet with publishers, investors, and showcase their games to people from all over Africa, Studio Bolland is more than equipped to take on the challenges of being a South African game developer. Their animation studio provides them with a safety net of funding to create their prototypes as well as an upper hand in making sure their games have an aesthetic appeal. Studio Bolland are also as smart as they are talented and it’s clear in the thorough research they conduct in the market before producing their prototypes. Though the niche market they aim for is difficult to thrive successfully in, they’re not one to back down from a challenge. I know I will be tuning in to see when (and yes I mean when, not if) they strike gold.