London Games Fest 2023!
Wow, what a week! I've only just managed to sit down and organise my thoughts.
I started the week with an invitation to the opening night of the London Games Festival. Having been a part of the 2022 London Games Accelerator I was excited to go along to see the official selection and to celebrate the opening LGF an amazing 10 days organised by Games London.
Sally at the London Games Opening Night
The event was hosted at the big and bright Coutts office in central London. I also managed to bump into my Limitbreak mentee Robin Milton whose game 'Brewess' is part of the official London Games Selection! How exciting - well done to her and the team at Fairer Games.
Robin of Fairer Games and Wyrdren Director Sally Sheppard
Wednesday I had the delight to head on over to Game Dev London Expo which will most certainly be going on my list of annual game dev events not to miss! I was honoured to be asked to speak on a panel discussing "How diversity fosters innovation" a topic I am incredibly passionate about. Thank you to our packed-out audience and, to those who listened from the corridor it was mind-blowing to think that so many of you wanted to hear from us!
Friday I spent all day Lecturing at the University of West London which is fast becoming my second home. I had the pleasure of teaching Maya and an introduction to Unreal Engine 5 this week to our first-year game design and VFX students. Being able to teach the next generation of game devs has been one of the highlights of my year so far, I am so excited by the progress they are making and can't wait to see them flourish in our industry.
Saturday was a super fun one as I ventured over to the Truman Brewery to go to W.A.S.D. I took Spellbound: The Magic Within to this event last year and had an amazing time both on the show floor and at the Games Finance Market. This year was much more relaxed for me as Wyrdren didn't have a booth while we squirrel away to work on our next title, although I'm looking forward to potentially having one next year. This meant I got to actually enjoy many more of the games on show including BAFTA award-winning games and lots of Indies! I was also invited over to see the Creator Lounge hosted by Neonhive. A super chill space for content creators to hang out and re-coup during the convention, a great idea I would love to see more cons have these chilled-out breakaway areas for industry, press, creators etc to utilise.
Amongst all of the running around this week I also managed to get a little work done for my own studio Wyrdren Games and I am hoping to have some exciting updates very soon! Ontop of that I have also been working this year as part of the Limit Break Mentorship Committee to help with the program of events that we will be announced very, very soon - eyes peeled for applications opening April 12th. So a lot of work has been going on behind the scenes.
This industry is filled with so much talent, creativity and passion - It makes my heart full. I love this community I have found myself in and I can only hope it continues to grow especially with the aptitude and drive we have for making world-class games right here in the UK.
If you’d like to keep up more with my Game Dev adventures, I post over on Twitter and Tiktok short-form video content of what’s been going on, feel free to catch me over there or read the blog posts here as they come out!
Thanks again for the support, stay Wyrd!
Game Dev London Vlog
Blog post written by Founder and Director Sally Sheppard
Here’s What’s Coming Up!
Hello again everyone! With the Spellbound:TMW’s release date getting ever closer, things are busy busy busy here at Wyrdren! With everything going on, we thought it would be nice to share with you some upcoming events taking place over the next few months, as well as a little catch-up on things here at Wyrdren.
If you’re interested in what we’ve been up to recently, check out our July Developer Diary! In it, Sally goes over things like our new trailer for Spellbound: TMW and the status of our text-to-speech functionality.
There are quite a number of events happening in September (other than Spellbound’s release) that we’re very excited about.
The Women in Games Festival (Sep. 6-17 https://www.womeningamesfestival.org/ is a fully online event held by the organisation of the same name. This organisation is very near and dear to us at Wyrdren, not only because Sally is an Ambassador, but because their cause is one we strongly support. This festival will feature opportunities for networking, and to hear some amazing talks.
The next event coming up that we’re really excited about is the Gayming LIVE Online Indie Festival (Sep 9-11) https://gaymingmag.com/gayminglive/. Wyrden will be taking part in their “speed-dating” event on Steam, where they will stream a playthrough of Spellbound: TMW. We’ll also be featured in a Gayming Magazine editorial and be added to their list of games to play. Very exciting indeed!
The last event coming up in September EGX London (Sep 22-25) https://www.egx.net/london/en-gb.html! This year’s EGX is extra, extra exciting as Sally will be giving a talk on the Rezzed stage! Her talk is going to be about founding an Indie company and all the super fun stuff that goes into it.
Wow, busy times ahead indeed! If you’re attending any of these upcoming events, let us know! We hope to see as many of you there as we can, and we’re so excited for what the future holds next. See you soon, and remember to stay Wyrd everyone!
Blog post written by Annie Durwood
Community and Relationships Manager at Wyrdren Games
Hello to our amazing community.
I wanted to put out this update to let you know about a change in the release date for Spellbound: The Magic Within. Spellbound: TMW will now be released in September 2022 approximately 30ish days after its intended release date.
There are a couple of reasons for this change and at Wyrdren transparency is important to us so we thought we would keep you in the loop.
Number one, due to some very overly cautious calculations when planning our budget, we now have some spare funds. We have a couple of places this can be reallocated and improve the game and want to take the extra month to really add some finesse.
Number two, we do not do crunch, we never have and never will. The extra pieces we want to polish up could have been added before the original release date but this would have been with increased pressure on the team. Our team is very, very small even for an indie. We have one person working on game development and one on socials and community, crunch would be detrimental/impossible for the two of us to take on without serious consequences and it’s something I as director am unwilling to put onto the team. I want a sustainable workplace so that we can bring you even more games in the future.
I know that our community will understand us taking the extra month as it will mean an even better game. Both Annie and I appreciate all of the support you have been showing us on social media and at events. We are both gamers and we know how disappointing it is when a game's release date is changed but we hope that you will understand that we want to keep the team from burning out and to bring you the best adventure possible.
Thank you again for all the love, Stay Wyrd. xx
Wyrdren Games Turns Two!!!
Time really does fly, Wyrdren just turned two!! These last few years have been a bit of a whirlwind, but we couldn’t be prouder of how far we’ve come and what we’ve achieved. To celebrate our second birthday and how far we’ve come, we thought we’d highlight a few of our favourite and more notable events!!
June 2020 - Wyrdren Games is founded, and development begins on Spellbound: The Magic Within
Founder & Creative Director Sally Sheppard registers Wyrdren Games with Companies House, launching the one-person studio. Development begins on her project Spellbound: The Magic Within. See our earliest blog post for a full timeline of 2020-2021.
Wyrdren Logo and Branding Kit Created by the talented Callum mitchell
https://mitchellcreative.net/home
October 2021- Wyrdren goes to EGX with a Spellbound: TMW demo
The very first demo is made available at Wyrdren’s first convention EGX London. The amazing response from players and the press helped shape the direction of what Spellbound: TMW will become.
January 2022- Wyrdren receives grant funding from the UK Games Fund and hires its first employee
The grant funding allows Creative Director Sally Sheppard to expand her team and makes her first hire a Community and Relationships Manager.
January 2022- Founder and Creative Director Sally Sheppard becomes a Safe In Our World champion
Founder and Creative Director Sally Sheppard becomes a Safe In Our World champion to help further the cause of creating and fostering worldwide mental health awareness within the video game industry.
February 2022- Wyrdren becomes a #raisethegame pledge partner, goes to PG Connects London & pitches at the Big Indie Pitch
Wyrdren becomes a #raisethegame pledge partner which aims to help make the video game industry a more welcoming and inclusive place to everyone to thrive in!
Founder & Creative Director Sally Sheppard and Community & Relationships Manager Annie Durwood head to London to attend PG Connects London and pitch Spellbound: TMW at the Big Indie Pitch. We receive lots of valuable feedback and use it to help Wyrdren and Spellbound grow.
April 2022- Wyrdren takes part in the London Games Festival and the WASD Convention
Spellbound: TMW is chosen as part of LGF’s Official Selection, and wins the Narrative Excellence Award. Wyrdren then heads to WASD at Tobacco Docks and showcases the latest demo of Spellbound:TMW. People and the press express how much they love the new & improved Spellbound: TMW and provide us with invaluable feedback.
May 2022- Founder & Creative Director Sally Sheppard appears on the She Plays Game podcast
During her episode, Sally covers topics such as starting and running your own indie studio, AAA vs Indie, and how to manage your workload. If you’d like to hear the episode, check it out here.
Wowzers, that is quite a lot!! This really has been an incredible journey, and we feel so fortunate to be able to do what we do. We really couldn’t be doing what we do without our truly amazing community, and we’re so excited for what comes next and to share it with you all. As always, keep your eyes on all our socials for any new Wyrdren news and updates. Here’s to another year, stay Wyrd everyone!!
Blog post written by Annie Durwood
Community and Relationships Manager at Wyrdren Games
A new Q&A video!
The latest and greatest news is we have a new video, a Q&A with Wyrdren’s Director Sally Sheppard! We asked all of you to send us your questions through Wyrdren’s social media, and wowzers, did you all respond. This video covers such things as game development, the future of Spellbound: TMW, and that most important of topics, how to get into the industry.
Thank you all for submitting your questions, we are always so eager to hear from you and provide as much information as we can. We hope you enjoy the interview, be sure to follow us for some even more exciting information coming out soon. Happy gaming, and stay Wyrd"!
Blog post written by Annie Durwood
Community and Relationships Manager at Wyrdren Games
Another blog takeover from Sally!
Our community manager Annie has been a little under the weather, so you’re stuck with me again writing for the blog this week. I wracked my brain on what I could show you or talk about for this blog and realised I could show you some sneaky behind the scenes stuff while there is no one here to stop me!
Some of you will have been following along with the journey of our newest NPC who we recently introduced on our socials. But, what you haven’t seen is the process I use to design characters and I thought I’d share all my secret (no so secret) tips on character design.
The way I started designing was a little different because the community chose what our character would look like. Thank you to everyone who filled in the survey you made some amazing choices and this gave me a great place to start from. Taking the results of the survey I used the features chosen to create an NPC mood board, this contained styles I liked, specific facial features that I wanted to reference and even just some aesthetic images to tie it all together.
Here is a quick snapshot of what I ended up with on my Pinterest board:
Then I began sketching out the base figure, staying very loose and rough not worrying about if the anatomy or form was correct but just getting a feel for the shapes, height and curves that would make up her figure. Then I coloured her in figure in and started sketching in her hair and clothing.
The community voted overwhelmingly for 90’s grunge inspired clothing so I tried to emulate that style but with a modern twist. The 90’s are iconic for the more about oversized clothing items but given you all voted for her to be mid-size/curvy I didn’t want her to look like she was covering herself up too much. The sleeves cut off an old cropped Nirvana tee and the fishnets showing through the rips the baggy low-rise jeans are to show how comfortable she is in her own skin. Because the characters in Spellbound: TMW change outfits to fit the occasion I always draw over the top of their bodies and use a different colour pen for each layer or item so that when I colour block in I can see where I want things to sit
When thinking about how to clothe her I knew she needed to be dressed for work given that in the game she spends most of her time on her feet running around making coffee at Ari’s café. She couldn’t be too dressed up but also Ari is pretty relaxed with what their staff wear to work as long as it’s comfortable to work in.
Lastly I worked on her poses and facial emotes, given that she is an NPC who doesn’t have a main story route I knew she didn’t need as many as some of the other characters. She did on the other hand need some that were unique to her. So I made sure she had one of her holding a tray of drinks a couple of tea’s, a coffee and a cup of cloudy apple juice made from apples freshly collected from near Theo’s house.
The best tip I can give when designing characters is don’t just think about the character in isolation, think about where they work and live. What they do for hobbies and what they enjoy. Think about the character and their full spectrum personality - what is their vibe? What do you want the viewer to know about them?
I hope you like her design, I was so excited to have the community involved in this character’s creation as your feedback has been so valuable in shaping the direction of the game. Be on the look out for her while playing Spellbound: The Magic Within.
Thanks for reading and stay ‘Wyrd’ - Sally x
Blog post written by Sally Sheppard Founder and Director at Wyrdren Games Ltd.
A word from our Founder and Director…
Sally Sheppard
It’s been a while since I wrote for the blog, and it’s been a whirlwind few months behind the scenes getting ready for the London Games Festival and W.A.S.D Live in London.
I wanted to jump on and write to you now that the Games Festival is over as it was such an amazing experience. I had some of the best conversations I’ve ever had over the three days at our booth on the W.A.S.D floor. Some of you shared some very personal stories as to why Spellbound: The Magic Within and its representation matters so much to you, and I’ll admit I cried more than once when talking with some of you. I wanted to first and foremost say thank you for sharing. When I started Wyrdren and began work on Spellbound I knew I wanted to make the games as accessible as possible, I knew some people would see this inclusion and shy away from the game play itself, seeing the diversity as some sort of gimmick. I worried about how the game would be perceived and if the inclusive features I added would somehow overshadow the game and if I got any of it wrong. All I have ever wanted is for people to feel seen and included in gaming. It’s something that has brought myself so much joy and I know from my own experience that it can be heart-breaking to feel like you are an afterthought, or like a game is excluding you.
My worries it turns out where completely unfounded, the response from you all at W.A.S.D was overwhelmingly positive. You used the character creator to it’s full potential by making beautiful pastel characters who’s aesthetic could rival a sailor scout, all the way through to a mish-mash bit of everything designs. I loved seeing you laugh at some of the more out-there fashion choices (the monocle was a big hit), and I loved seeing some of you nodding your head in appreciation when you saw that we included binders and hearing aids. It was such a lovely experience to see so many of you enjoying the process of making yourselves (or not yourselves).
It can be hard to decide what parts of the game to show at conventions, especially for narrative games that involve you solving a larger mystery. I wanted to showcase the gameplay, but I didn’t want to ruin the story or ending for anyone. Taking the first chapter was a little bit of a risk, it’s not as flashy or fast paced as some of the other games on the floor or around us, but it is an introduction to the world and the characters. The later chapters as you’ll find when playing do involve a lot more investigation and choices making especially when nearing the end as the story branches depending on the way you have chosen to play. I’m so happy that so many of you decided to play the full 30 minutes and told me how excited you were for the next chapters. It was great so see the story so well received even if it was only the introduction.
I’ll be taking your feedback from the show on board, there will be a 3.0 update to the character creator coming, text-to-speech as promised, and we will be looking into adding potentially some voice acting here or there. As most of you know this project has been a labour of love, and the idea that eventually it will be out there in the world was a little scary to me at first, but the pure excitement you have shown for Spellbound and its story, features and everything else in the game has really solidified how worth it all the hard work has been.
So really where I want to end this blog post is just with a thank you. Thank you to everyone who has been supportive online, thank you to everyone who stopped and played the demo and thank you to everyone who shared their experiences with me and let me know how important it is to be seen in games.
Release day is coming up so fast! I can’t wait for you to experience the full game.
Thanks for reading and stay Wyrd! - Sally x
Blog post written by Sally Sheppard Founder and Director at Wyrdren Games Ltd.
Highlights of March
Spring is finally here, and all the clocks have finally jumped forward, apart from missing out on that extra hour of restful slumber, March has been filled with lots of happenings at Wyrdren. The biggest undertaking has been a complete overhaul of the Character Creator in our upcoming game Spellbound: the Magic Within.
New Character Creator options
The new Creator now has heaps more options for you to choose from, including things like, hearing aids, tattoos, vitiligo, and binders. These options were very much driven by you, our community, and your ideas. Because of your suggestions, we have been able to create a more diverse and inclusive experience for players of Spellbound. As always, thank you for all your comments and feedback, and keep them coming!
In other game-related news, we now have button mapping for Spellbound! This means that for those who wish to use a controller on the PC, they can now do so. Mouse and keyboard are still available on PC as well, we just wanted to ensure that all accessibility options are available per your comfort and preferences.
This week we will primarily be focussed on preparing for the upcoming London Games Festival, which begins on April 1! If you read our previous blog post, you’ll know that Wyrdren will be at the Trafalgar Square Exhibition on the 1st, the Next Level event on the 4th, and at WASD (at Tobacco Dock) from the 7th-9th. We are so, so, so excited to be able to see you all there, and be sure to drop by our stand for a special surprise…
Last in our highlights is we reached 10k followers on TikTok!!! As a thank you to all of you, and to all in our Discord community, we have let you all design a new NPC for Spellbound to work in Ari’s cafe! Your design ideas were genuinely amazing, and we will be revealing the new NPC to you all very soon. We always share new designs, ideas, and other wonderful things with our Discord community, so if you want a sneak peek at things, head on over to our Discord!
We hope you’ve enjoyed reading this month’s highlights, please reach out with any comments, questions you may have. And as always, remember to stay Wyrd!
Blog post written by Annie Durwood
Community and Relationships Manager at Wyrdren Games
Wyrdren Upcoming Events
Exciting things are happening at Wyrdren, including some opportunities for all of you to come and see Spellbound: the Magic Within in-person!! To make things a bit easier for you, we’ve created a run-down of all the upcoming events Wyrdren is participating in.
First on the list is that Wyrdren & Spellbound: TMW is going to the London Games Festival (which runs April 1-10) and will be exhibiting at WASD!! As you saw in our last blog post, we have been selected by the London Games Festival to be part of the Official Selection in the Narrative Excellence category. This means that you will have the opportunity to see Spellbound, as well as over 40 other titles, IN PERSON!!!! We could not be more overjoyed at this, and are so excited to show you all the new & improved Spellbound!
The London Games Festival kicks off on Friday April 1 with the Trafalgar Square Exhibition, an outdoor showcase that will include (amongst other things) videos of the Official Selection line-up, and showcases of “new talent, diverse voices, and creative artworks”. Our founder Sally will be there to document Wyrdren’s showcase, so if you attend be sure to keep an eye out for her signature pink hair! The showcase runs over three days. if you attend be sure to tag us on our Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook!
Following that, we will be at the Next Level event on April 4th at the Royal Institution. Next Level is a one day “face-to-face conference and networking event” that offers us the opportunity to meet with other gaming companies, as well as potential investors and publishers.
Next up, Wyrdren will be at WASD showcasing Spellbound and all the new changes we’ve made to the game! WASD runs from April 7-9, and is located at Tobacco Docks in London, and will include titles from Sega, Team17, and Thunderful! Wyrdren will be running a special in-person event for those who attend WASD, so be sure to come by our booth and check it out! We’d also like to thank all of you who entered the WASD ticket giveaway we ran over the last week, and a massive congratulations to our winner! We look forward to seeing you at WASD, and hope you enjoy the convention! For anyone still wishing to attend WASD, tickets can still be bought here.
Last but certainly not least, Wyrdren will be attending the in-person Games Finance Market (April 7-8), which runs in conjunction with WASD and LGF. This is an opportunity for us to meet with investors, other game studios, and publishers to help Wyrdren continue to grow and expand.
We’re massively looking forward to all the upcoming events, and we hope you are too! Let us know if you’re attending WASD or have any questions or comments for us. Thanks so much for reading, and remember to stay Wyrd!
Blog post written by Annie Durwood
Community and Relationships Manager at Wyrdren Games
Spellbound: TMW Update
Good news everyone! We’re back with a major Spellbound update, as well as some other exciting events taking place. First off, we want to say a massive THANK YOU to all of you who watched or took part in our Women’s Day Steam Stream event last week, including our amazing community at the Wyrdren Discord and TikTok. With your help, over 130,000 people viewed our stream, and we more than doubled our Steam wishlist’s!!! We cannot believe the response we received, and we are so amazed and immensely grateful to have such an amazing & caring community. So from all of us at Wyrdren, thank you so, so much for being such amazing people. 💜💜💜
If you’re interested in adding Spellbound: TMW to your wishlist, you can find the Steam link here. For those of you not able to catch the stream, don’t you worry you can find the video here and on our YouTube channel!
Since our last development update, we’ve been undertaking a complete overhaul of the character creator. We listened to all the thoughts/comments/suggestions you all have been making on our TikTok, and as a result we have added options for hearing aids/devices, skin markings, and vitiligo. We’ve adjusted the way your character is viewed to be mid-chest, and have added in an assortment of body shapes and binders for you to choose from. Lastly, we’ve created an assortment of “witchy/magical” items for you to add, including an assortment of witch hats! Your ideas and suggestions were so helpful, and we really appreciate all the time & effort you all have put into making them. If you’re interested in adding more of your suggestions, why not join our Beta testing? Hop on over to our Discord to let us know!
We also wanted to share with you that Spellbound: TMW has been selected for Narrative Excellence by the London Games Festival. This is a prestigious honour and means we are part of the London Games Fest Official Selection (and we get a cool laurel as a badge of honour). We are so thankful to our community for joining us on the journey so far, it’s only with your love and support that we have managed to keep on growing and thriving!
Some more exciting news is that we’re going to be at WASD at the London Games Festival next month!! As part of this, and as a thank you to our community, we’re doing a giveaway of two free tickets to WASD!!!!! Find out how to enter on our Twitter, and if you win, come on by the Wyrdren booth to grab a photo with us!
Thank you all again for your support, and for your suggestions, we could not be doing any of this without you! Thanks for reading, and remember to stay Wyrd!
Blog post written by Annie Durwood
Community and Relationships Manager at Wyrdren Games