CELEBRATING 10 YEARS
Ten years ago, in September 2013, two major things happened: I started GLITCHERS, a game development company, and around the same time, my brother, who I had made games with up until that point, was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.
Celebrating ten years has been bittersweet. On the one hand, it’s a celebration. On the other, it’s a painful reminder of where I came from and the ongoing issues stifling progress in mental health.
“Celebrating ten years has been bittersweet.”
I had to reconcile my career in game development up to that point with a growing understanding of serious mental health issues. A question was swimming around in my head:
How could I possibly create games simply for entertainment now knowing how little we understood about how the brain works?
I decided that GLITCHERS would create games that could make a positive impact on the world. At first, I didn’t exactly know how.
Back when my buddy Rob gave us free desk space in his app company. Thanks mate!
The past decade has been a long and winding road in terms of learning how to create meaningful play and I believe the approach we have settled on is tremendous. It has been incredibly gratifying to build a team dedicated to creating games for good and then see our impact on the world around us.
“It has been incredibly gratifying to build a team dedicated to creating games for good and then see our impact on the world around us.”
We still get to create games, but we only do so with the knowledge that we are contributing to something larger than entertainment alone.
Over the last decade, we have learned how to make the most of game collaborations with experts outside of the gaming industry to tackle some of the world's most pressing issues. By combining our efforts, we can genuinely solve some of these issues - all with video games!
Our first proper studio in Dalston, East London, with our own laser cut logo on the door.
This year we started pre-production on Forest Guardians, our first project dedicated to rainforest protection. The chance to bring a real forest into gamers’ living rooms is an incredible feeling. What we build with Forest Guardians will be a blueprint for future conservation efforts.
Secondly, we kicked off Enhance, yet another tight collaboration with UCL that’s poised to be the spiritual successor to Sea Hero Quest, this time targeted at the 60-80 year old audience Sea Hero Quest couldn’t quite reach. More on that in 2024.
I could go on and on about what we’re up to next; about how we’re not just breaking new ground, but redefining what games are. Sometimes I feel like we’re in an alternative galaxy. We’re doing things with games that most people wouldn’t even think of. It all comes to life through our collaborations with some of the smartest and most empathetic experts we could ever hope for.
“We still get to create games, but we only do so with the knowledge that we are contributing to something larger than entertainment alone.”
I might not be able to build another game with my brother after his diagnosis, but if there is a chance, I hope we would dream up new projects with this renewed purpose. Until then, I’m doing everything I can to demystify the human brain and protect the planet we live on. My hope is that others and people like me will join GLITCHERS in a similar mission; to use the power of games to save the world, a little bit at a time.
