Made in Manchester

Made in Manchester

2017. My first year at the University of Manchester.

I joined a volunteering society, where we taught finance to secondary school kids.

But struggled to find volunteers. At its worst point, it was literally just me and another guy, and we had 14 classes of students to teach.

So I thought: ‘could we make something that would teach finance without us being there?’

That seed of an idea led to Rats to Riches!

 

Of course, the journey was tough. 1 year of constant rejections - failure after failure, day after day.

I remember my very first playtest. I brought the first ever prototype of Rats to Riches to my uni friends, convinced it was going to blow their minds."

It did not.

That first playtest was 4 hours of sheer torture. Except halfway through, my friend Ravi—he just stood up and stormed off. Didn't say a word.

Everyone else stayed. Out of politeness, probably.

That was one of the most humbling moments of my life.

Barnes Wallis Student Hub: the location of the first ever playtest of the game that would eventually become Rats to Riches

A couple of weeks later, I walked into my first game designer’s meetup.

I was 20 years old. Everyone else was at least twice my age. Some of them had been designing games longer than I'd been alive.

I showed them my game. Version 8. Eight rounds of changes since that first fateful playtest where Ravi stormed out.

I thought the game was ready.

I thought I was ready.

But these guys SHREDDED my game to bits. 'They told me straight up: “Nobody would play this.”

I forced out a smile. Thanked them. Took notes. Then I walked outside.

Northern Quarter: meeting other game designers for the first time. Imagine this, but 11pm at night, cloudy, drizzle rain.

Cold. Gloomy. December in Manchester weather.

I just stood there. Life drained out of me, thinking: 'What am I doing?'

These guys have game design degrees. Some of them TEACH game design. Who the hell am I?

It took me over a week to pick myself back up. But I finally did. Opened up my laptop. And started version 9.