Closure

Halfway through college I dropped out to go do art and animation for a game in San Diego with a friend, Tyler Glaiel, I'd never met online until we started winning awards for our Flash version of it. We were good friends with the Newgrounds folks and that relationship helped us get funding from The Behemoth, creators of Alien Hominid and Castle Crashers.

We first developed a Flash game called Closure, started gaining traction online, winning some awards, and were featured in IndieCade's booth at E3. Tyler and I decided to bring the game outside of Flash so I got to work on art for the new game. Tyler's uncle, Chris Rhyne, did the sound and music and together we produced this game over a couple years. We released on PlayStation 3 and Steam for PC and Mac.

It wasn't all easy. There were plenty of ups and downs. How do you know if your game is good? If the art is good? If people would like the characters? You're pouring your heart and soul into a thing without knowing any of this. We didn't have the skills or experience to know with data or marketing, so we went with intuition. I went through several different art styles (yes, all within black and white color scheme), trying to get the art to look great with a limited palette and work with the design of the game.

I learned that I just had to keep drawing. A lot. Keep experimenting, and keep going, and eventually it came together. It was hard to believe we'd get such rave reviews and win the awards we won. I knew people enjoyed it at conventions, but it also wasn't a viral hit.

The new version of Closure was featured in IndieCade and won a Design award, won GameStop's 100k prize Indie Game Challenge, nominated in the PAX10, nominated for Technical Excellence at Indie Games Festival, and won the Audio award at Indie Games Festival. IGN gave us an 8/10, and the creator of Invader Zim had nice things to say about it on Twitter.

Big YouTubers even played our game, such as NorthernLion, TotalBiscuit, and Markiplier. Check out a video here!