Jasmine kindly wrote the previous blog post giving her thoughts and tips from the time she spent at Glowing Eye Games as she rose through the ranks. With a small company like ours, her departure for new pastures leaves us at a crossroads. Even in these short weeks she has been missed, but it’s not the end of the world and we owe it to ourselves to look to the future.

Armed with her insightful exit interview, along with discussions internally it’s become obvious Glowing Eye Games is changing once again. Our aim is to find future colleagues that have the same beneficial impact to the company that she provided while continuing to avoid the political backstabbing that we’ve enjoyed throughout our history.

Before I start discussing the trials and tribulations that we’re looking to overcome, it’s worth saying that whenever we’ve had new joiners it’s always brought something into the company. Although ideas generally are cheap, having the opportunity to talk and more importantly listen to a colleague and then between you implement and execute them is vital. These collaborations have led to great improvements within the company over the years, and we must be doing something right to survive 14 years now. Our systems and procedures have improved and although I am Director of the company, my previous calling was as a producer. The changes that Jasmine and the rest of the team implemented over the years are better than the working methods that I had used previously. While I temporarily take the reins of our producing efforts, it’s immensely gratifying that my faith in Jasmine has been repaid with an improvement in my knowledge and the evolution of the way we work.

It leads to one thing that’s important to me, personally, while running the company. I get immense professional fulfilment from seeing improvements that we have made over the years. In particular I love facilitating the growth and development of our team, and although I’d prefer if Jasmine had stayed, it’s great that we have the company culture where progress is possible. It makes me want to hire an assistant producer or someone earlier in their games industry career and facilitate their development to a fully-fledged producer. Although I think we all work in a company where growth is possible, on the production side I can be a greater part of the solution of offering a framework that gives feedback and experience in an area where (I believe!) I know what I am doing (mostly).

In the exit interview, Jasmine obviously felt that she was being asked to provide real thoughts to our future, and she absolutely made it clear that marketing is one area where we could greatly improve. It’s something we as a team have thought for a while, but unfortunately, I’ve never quite resolved that issue despite our ever-increasing marketing budget. I don’t want to go into specifics too much, but we currently spend a five-digit amount in advertising every month, just for our games to remain relevant. This is a significant part of the company’s budget that has grown over last few years. With the Covid dividend for digital creators fading, it’s something we need to concern ourselves with again.

The problem stems with me, I’ve effectively coordinated the majority of the marketing operations, and I’m not a natural marketeer. Basic PR elements such as newsletters, social media and cross promotions have been implemented, but could be further refined. Getting our games noticed in general seems to be a weakness for us. Technically our marketing budget is almost completely spent on advertising rather than the time and skillset needed for PR.

Our advertising effort only really uses two sources, we’ve worked to optimise them and based on recent estimates with admittedly a varying quality of data, I have better idea of where we’re successful. Further optimisations are possible. We haven’t tested enough variations of our marketing packs and advertising efforts. One of the reoccurring themes is that digital advertising offers a great deal more options for testing different marketing material. We made a little progress here, but someone who has time to focus on this area could find a host of things to make even better and of course work out what tests we should perform next.

Recently I had a conversion with a friend who is far more marketing orientated, and the vagueness in my answers to his questions horrified me! So, a marketing hire is a must. How I do that is an interesting question and for me I’ve still got to work that out. The goal is in effect simple, to hire someone who can take that budget and improve on our results while fitting into our work environment. If they can’t get through the probationary period, then I failed on the hire. So, the questions I need to answer before proceeding all revolve around working out what is needed to move our promotional efforts to a higher level. That will involve some figuring out, and to start with I’m writing a job description of our current marketing and advertising efforts. That will shine a light on where we are today, the step after that is to research further and see what other competitors are doing, especially those who are similarly sized that appear to have been gaining success.

Now of course with two potential hires, it’s quite easy to have grandiose ideas, but one of the reasons Glowing Eye Games works on smaller projects, is that on a personal level I’ve always preferred working on games with smaller teams. I have had the good fortune to work on a couple of larger projects in my career, but they were never quite as enjoyable to me. So, one thing that always stays in my mind is that Glowing Eye Games has a maximum size, at least while I am running it! For me, I think we’ll start with two and then we’ll see how we get on before considering future options. Of course, if our hires are successful, then more options will present themselves. Hopefully we’ll make it another 14 years!

Here at Glowing Eye Games there’s a lot of love for retro games, I mean really what’s more retro than developing card and domino games anyway! To break up the news of our releases, updates and the insights into how Glowing Eye Games operates we wanted to write about the new A500 mini console (because we really like it, and it’s our blog so we can!).

I won’t dally too long talking about the original Amiga, but when it came out it was graphically and sonically the most advanced machine of its time. It could certainly handle serious software like 3D rendering (the first series of Babylon 5 used Amigas for their 3D graphics), but it really took off when the reasonably priced Amiga 500 was released 35 years ago. Games caught the majority of people’s imaginations, especially in Europe, and it’s games that are the bread and butter of this magical mini machine. You won’t be doing old school 3D renders with this thing!

The A500 mini is an amazing addition to the world of mini consoles. Just like the best of them it’s obviously been made with great attention to detail and contains a solid starting pack of 25 games. The mouse is a beautiful nostalgic reminder to Amiga owners. The plastic Amiga 500 replica shell is just as delightful as the dinky mini SNES, although it’s as big as a VHS tape. The controller is okay (the SNES one was much better!), but despite what some reviews say, getting the diagonals was easy after just getting used to controller. Those diagonals are so important because most games were made with a one button joystick in mind. We’re talking about a system where jumping is usually accomplished by pressing up rather than another button. Having said that I am absolutely devastated that my old Zip Stick joystick (with USB interface) didn’t work properly but overjoyed that my PS4 controller does. Naturally I blame this for my abysmal performance playing the classic Kick Off 2. Damn I forgot how much skill that game demanded, no wonder people started playing Sensible Soccer, it was so much easier to score.

Retro Games Ltd, who made the A500 mini, certainly learned a lot from their release of the incredibly popular C64 mini especially; the criticism of the joystick that came with it. The hardware and controllers absolutely do justice to this system. Also, just like the C64 mini the firmware can be updated and with the support the company gave the C64 mini I expect there will be a few updates for the A500 mini. The creators have also stated if they think there is a demand for it, they’ll create a full-sized version with working keyboard just like they did for the C64.

The games are a good collection of predominantly UK and European made classics from the likes of Team 17, The Bitmap Brothers, Gremlin Graphics and more. Twenty-Five included games was never going to be enough for a machine where people have argued and battled about the top 100 games in their list, so unlike the majority of other mini systems you can sideload games relatively painlessly. As most of those games are abandonware, they are fairly easily obtained online. Technically the original rights holders could stop this, but with little commercial value to them they turn a blind eye so you won’t have to search too hard to find them. Of course, if you own the games in question, then those technical legal issues melt away.

Unlike the original Amiga, one of the most helpful features with the A500 mini is that games can be saved easily while playing them at any point. Given how intentionally challenging games used to be in those days, that’s incredibly useful for an old timer like me with a job, responsibilities, and slower reflexes. It makes these games so much easier to pick up and play than they were in the mists of time. Smashing the leagues of Speedball 2 and burning rubber with Super Cars 2 have been great fun in the few days that I’ve owned it. I forgot how good Stunt Car Racer was, even if the 3D graphics look simple. I’m looking forward to completing old favourites again and trying a few games that have been on my ‘to play’ list.

I’m still amazed by classic games that are fun to play more than two decades later, considering every one of us are spoiled for gaming options in this day and age. For some games it’s true that they trigger happy, nostalgic memories, but for the masterpieces made back then something about the game mechanics, the timing, and the honing mean that they are still pretty awesome to play today. Some games were just born perfect, although it’s not included with the A500 mini, Lemmings is a prime example. It’s just as fantastic to play now as it was back then; it was the first sideloaded game I searched for and I’m so glad I did!

I wasn’t surprised looking into the Amiga forums, that for hardcore fans of the platform, they want a full-sized version with a working keyboard (today!) that can boot into the Amiga operating system Workbench. This machine isn’t that and without firmware updates to allow simulating an Amiga hard disk it won’t even come close. However, it is a fantastic way for Amiga fans to quickly hook up an Amiga games console to their giant TV and enjoy a trip down memory lane. After you download one of our games, you should get it!

Glowing Eye Games has been making games for 13 years now which makes it positively middle aged in the fast paced games industry. This achievement has been made by creating niche card games and board games, with the not so secret idea that we port our games to all viable platforms (and some that aren’t so viable!).

Recently we’ve been working on our more niche games, the games that aren’t super popular but have dedicated fans. The games that just won’t fly but definitely don’t die.

The first one I’d like to talk about is Forty Thieves Solitaire Gold, which we’ve just released for Android phones and tablets. Originally we released it as an online game in 2012, happy 10th birthday! It’s one of the most difficult solitaire games ever made, where even the easy mode we introduced is as tough as dancing on ice in smooth shoes. Despite perennially low download numbers, some folks just love it, they keep playing it. Infact we know some haven’t stopped since it was released. It’s their daily go to game to wake up the brain, just like sudoku for so many others.

From a business perspective, its definitely profitable because its kept on going for all these years, even after rewriting it three times because of changes in technology. It’s a great example of what looks a marginal game, being well worth the effort just because it’s so consistent in its performance.

Android Phones – https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=glowingeye.forty_thieves_solitaire_gold

iPhone and iPad – https://apps.apple.com/app/forty-thieves-solitaire-gold/id584786618

Online Version – https://www.solitaireparadise.com/games_list/forty_thieves_solitaire.html

We sold the online version a while ago to concentrate on mobile games, but its part of our history, so if you’re reading this on your PC or Mac you should totally give it a go. See if you can beat it!

The other game we’ve just brought to Android is The Golf Card Game.

This one is a lot younger released in 2017. We made it simply because we thought we could do better than the other versions of this classic card game that were available. Initially it grew so slowly we wondered if it was going to be worth supporting. It took three years and an effort to streamline the user interface to get it to a point where it was making some worthwhile revenue.

Naturally we respect our competitors because they inevitably provide inspiration, but we absolutely wanted it to be best one out there. We put more game variations in, made it look great and it’s now become another one of those nice, niche games that just seems to keep on going. Frankly I reckon it’s because college students want to practise playing it before using the real life version as a drinking game and now with a return to socialising they’ll get their chance!

Android Phones – https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=glowingeye.the_golf_card_game

iPhones and iPads – https://apps.apple.com/app/the-golf-card-game/id1114415982

Again from a business perspective, it definitely didn’t make its money back in the first year, maybe not even in the second. It did however just keep on growing with a minimal advertising effort, and in its third year started to show its worth.

It’s just one of those games, that keeps on going. It gets new players each year, simply because it fills their need. As far as we can tell, almost every player has played the game in person, and then they search on the app store and download it straight away. Because we tried to make it as best we can, they play for quite a while (months) before the inevitable boredom kicks in and they find something else using the adverts in the game itself.

Both these games show that making games isn’t just about topping the charts, for some games there is a long tail. There are games worth making and playing that scratch an itch. The hardest solitaire game or college student popular card game aren’t the largest niches, but they’re loyal when presented with the right product.

Both Forty Thieves Solitaire Gold and The Golf Card Game, took a while to earn back their development costs but by luck or design they found a specific audience and continue to be supported, updated and ported by us. They offer a little bit of business stability in a world where every developer thinks they have to make a hit. That for us or any game publisher has got to count as a win. Hope you enjoy the games, we know some of you will just keep coming back!