We've Been Framed!

It’s on newsstands now and available online for free from a variety of sources, just head over to the Wireframe website to get all the details.

It may seem odd for us, a VR game development team, to be included both in a magazine that is ostensibly for Raspberry Pi, but also in such illustrious company as Shahid Kamal Ahmad from Ultimatum Games and Shane McCafferty from Rocketship Park. But the article is about distributed development.

The Critical Charm team generally works from the office. That’s not required though. Everyone can and does work from home when they want or need to. It’s made for a pretty relaxed production overall. It helps that we’re constantly refining our production methods and trying to be as communicative as possible.

Communication is everything in production, especially in something as complex as game development. Only solo developers can afford to not talk to anyone or everyone. But then it begs the question - how will they gain an audience? That’s a question for another blog post. For us, communication is key. It’s what makes remote working a possibility.

Of course we’re right on track with the rest of Finland in this regard. Just take a look at the impact the Working Hours Act is going to have on Finland. So we’re not doing anything special. We’re just trying to build a company that recognize the reality of the people who work for it. What helps is Greg having a child and Minna have a dog. In both cases they have hard outs everyday, as they have someone else they have to take care of. So it swiftly helps create a culture and an expectation within Critical Charm about what’s important - family.

Our Chief Happiness Officer won’t allow us to crunch either, but neither will our production methods and planning. While VR game development may be quite resource heavy, we do benefit from our small size, as it means all the programmers can take a VR kit home. It’s small things like that which make life easier. Along with the phenomenal internet Finland has.

If you want to read more about distributed development, then be sure to check out the latest issue of Wireframe! And if you want to stay up-to-date on our production methods be sure to signup for our newsletter on our website. Also, don’t forget to wishlist A Giant Problem on Steam!