From Rats to Riches
After that brutal playtest at the game designer's meetup in Northern Quarter, I picked myself back up, then kept going, one version at a time, one playtest at a time.
I applied for a student startup accelerator program, and got in!! Met a couple of other entrepreneurs, working on all kinds of cool stuff: a home-brewed kombucha business, a student-internship-corporate social media platform, a 3D CAD modelling design business, etc. And I kept on developing Rats to Riches :)
Rats to Riches: BETA
With the £1500 funding from the accelerator, I made a small-batch print of BETA versions of the game, gave them out for free to content creators, friends, and family, to generate buzz around the game, get much-needed feedback, and prepare for a bigger launch a couple of months later.
But as a result of that buzz, we got noticed by a UK publisher, Accentuate, who offered us a deal we couldn't refuse. We signed with them, and together, published Rats to Riches at the 2019 UK Games Expo!
Me and my baby at the 2019 UK Games Expo
That’s version 78 by the way.
Within months, the game was retailing at John Lewis department stores all across the country. Won a couple of awards. Even Peter Jones tweeted about the game!
Won a £3000 award from the University's business school
