New UK developer Pretty Cool Games founded by Human: Fall Flat developers

It’s not all doom and gloom in the games industry at the moment, as a new UK developer sets itself up in Leeds, led by two developers behind indie hit Human: Fall Flat.

The news from the games industry has been nothing but depressing and infuriating for the entirety of this console generation, and especially in the last couple of years, with endless layoffs and company buyouts.

News of new developers is rare, but it does happen, as people leave larger companies, looking for more control over the games they make and more protections for their staff. The situation with Pretty Cool is different though as, for one, it’s based in the UK but it’s been founded by two of the original developers behind Human: Fall Flat.

Released 10 years ago, the indie hit has sold a staggering 58 million copies, and now Sitara Shefta and Will Dudley have founded a new studio, with financing from a Chinese investment initiative making their first move in Europe.

Pretty Cool Games is based in Leeds and, unlike most video game companies at the moment, is hiring. They haven’t announced their first game yet but it’s an AA title with physics-based gameplay, so perhaps with still a hint of Human: Fall Flat about it.

Co-founder and CEO Shefta has previously worked at Sumo Digital and Dream Reality Interactive, on games including LittleBigPlanet 3, Dead Island 2, Disney Infinity, and Arca’s Path. Fellow co-founder and chief creative officer Dudley has worked on games including Transformers, Fable The Journey, and Kinect Sports Season Two.

We had a quick email Q&A with Shefta, where she discussed the difficulties of setting up her new company and the current state of the UK games development community.

Q. How do the current problems of the games industry, particularly the constant layoffs and the increasing costs, affect you as an indie developer? Does it bring opportunities or do all the issues trickle down to you as well?

It’s worrying. For an industry that is so lucrative, it’s a real shame that there are so many layoffs and closures as it creates so much uncertainty. This is partly down to the over-hiring trend we saw as a result of the pandemic but has also been because investors have become more risk-averse making funding more difficult to secure. Expectation has increased, particularly within the industry – you need to make a game that’s going to perform well to a good quality level, but you also have to do it in less time with less money.

Instead of a pitch deck alone, publishers, investors, and funds now want to see the idea proven out before they’re willing to back it. We had to bootstrap and were lucky to have received grant support from the UK Games fund – we spent a hard few months developing a prototype to prove out the idea, and thankfully this was received really well resulting in the partnership we have formed with Coreblazer. The challenge here is about making smarter decisions, streamlining processes and working together with a team that is conscious of this too.

Q. Do you anticipate there being more indie studios like yours being announced in the coming years? The ones that do happen at the moment, at least the ones in the US, seem to concentrate on teams making AA, or even AAA games, which seems like many are trying to run before they can walk.

I really hope so, having many small studios is great for stimulating creativity and innovation. I think the industry benefits when players can find a small game perfectly suited to them, rather than everyone playing the latest AAA colossus.

As we’ve seen investors become more risk averse, and games with enormous budgets fail to connect with audiences, it makes sense to me for investors to roll the dice on smaller studios, where the budget is lower and the possibility for being successful much easier to attain.

We are focused on making an AA title, but for us that means finding a good middle ground maintaining quality and budget, whilst still creating something innovative and novel.

Q. What’s your view of the health of the UK development community? For decades now it’s seemed grossly undersized given the size and education of the population, and the country’s dominance in the earlier years of the industry. Why do you think that is and is there any way to turn things around?

The UK video game development studios have always had an outsized impact on the games industry in general. There has been consolidation where indie studios have been bought out by larger corporations, resulting in less reach. Work-for-hire models are great options for sustainable, profitable studios, but the industry was borne on innovation and risk taking; building from teams working in sheds and basements to large studios like Rare, Psygnosis, and Bullfrog. We believe that a return to the principles of the founders of the industry, while riskier, will allow UK studios to drive innovation to benefit players and investors alike.

To support the industry for the future, education needs to improve at a school level; initiatives like BAFTA’s Young Game Designer really help to support reaching and nurturing talent at a younger age. In addition to investors, there needs to be more long-term government support and investment in studios that develop their own IP, build their own tech and knowledge, which will eventually lead that studio to its critical success point.

Game 1 is not always going to be the one that’s a success, so being backed by people that can see the realistic long-term success goals rather than the immediate term. Look at Nintendo – they make a great point that if they lay off their developers because the company has generated less profit, then they ultimately lose their wealth because they are losing the experience and knowledge of those developers which is often built up over years. The more unified and long-term your team is, the more likely you are to create something truly novel which eventually reaches success.

Q. Women and people of colour are still rare to see in development in general, let alone a leadership position, so does the underdeveloped UK scene make it even more difficult for them? What problems have you experienced personally in your career and in setting up this new studio?

Even when at the very top of my career, it’s funny how some things never change – you’re still the only woman in a room sometimes, and coincidentally the only person whose ideas are repeated by someone else. I have experienced conversations which were uncomfortable because I wasn’t dressed like, didn’t speak like or look like other people in the room. But equally those were the same conversations I knew I no longer wanted to be a part of.

Whilst this wasn’t true the majority of the time, there are still some people who look at me and presume I must be young, naive, not a business person, but also not a creative person – but this just drives me even more as I like to prove them wrong.

Being independent means we can decide who we want to work with, and that’s ultimately people we share similar values with and get on with. We’re fortunate that the two directors who we met and really championed us from our investors were both also women of colour. So, it was great to see women in decision-making roles championing other women.

We make games, it should be fun and we want to collaborate with talented people that want the same. It’s a risky business for us to be selective when it comes to funding, but what’s the point of setting up our own studio if we end up working with jabronis.

Q. Indie developers are often dismissed as only creating niche titles but Human: Fall Flat has sold as much as Super Mario Bros. and almost as much as Skyrim, but it and other indie hits never seem to be in the conversation when discussing the most played or most popular games, why do you think this is?

Indie development covers such a wide range of titles – I think it’s easy for the broader media to forget the massive achievement of games like Meccha Chameleon, Peak, Mina The Hollower, especially in the year that GTA 6 will be released. The massive marketing budgets associated with AAA naturally will ensure that more gamers see and know about these titles through either traditional gaming media or social media platforms where algorithms will push the games with the most interest to the top.

Development teams are not the only ones to have been impacted by layoffs, the media have too, so it is absolutely impossible for them to cover every single game that comes out each week. These outlets need to cover the biggest stories and games to entertain their readers, so it is understandable that indie titles do not get the levels of attention of a AAA. Indies such as us need to be more creative to reach our audience, by building communities not only through traditional gaming media, but also through social and other fun tactics that will build word of mouth.

Q. Given that, what are your plans for your first game from your new studio? What is its budget and scope and will it be a reaction to current gameplay and commerical trends in the industry or something completely separate?

We aren’t ready to share details of our project, but our games focus on playfulness, creativity and imagination – we want to be different, unique so that it makes our IP memorable. We have been inspired by games that we were playing as kids, and also games on the market today.

We look and learn from trends, but we shouldn’t ever follow them. By creating something that is unique we will stand out from the crowd by creating new experiences that set the trends and put us at the forefront rather than following.

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