Welcome to our newest interview, today we speak with Ashley Ringrose, co-founder of SMG Studio.
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Ashley Ringrose. Late 30s, father of two and husband to one J. I started SMG along with other team members out of a company I had run, since 2002, called Soap Creative.
Growing up, were there any defining moments that led to you wanting to pursue a career in the video game industry?
Growing up (in the ‘80s) I never even thought you could have a job in the gaming industry. When I played on my C64 I never even considered that someone made Wizard of Wor. I do remember buying a magazine that had a “write your own game” in which I typed it out on the C64, reading it from a printed page, only to have it do nothing. I think I gave that one try!
However, I think my path to games came when someone told me about Flash: “It’s like illustrator, but you can animate it” so I tried that and happened to have a job at Kinkos working the graveyard shift. So I learned to code in Flash AS1 then AS2 in the middle of the night. I then made tiny little games like Memory and expanded from there. I then basically had my career as a “flash dev” and made lots of advergames. I’d probably personally coded 60 myself and worked on around 250 total.
Although SMG Studio was formed only five years ago, the studio has put out some addictively fun and creative titles across multiple platforms, that we will get to in a bit, in that short amount of time. Could you share some insight into the history of SMG?
We formed as SMG in 2013 after receiving government funding. We were one of ten companies who got funded including Defiant Dev (Hand of Hate) and we were the only “new” company. We immediately started working on OTTTD and like all studios our first game was too ambitious. It did OK, but we spent way too long on it for the return. Our next game, One More Line, did much better and basically funded the studio to continue to expand and create new games. We’re now approximately 20 people, so quite large in the Australian industry and have a bunch of projects on the boil.
Let’s first talk about Death Squared, the first of two titles to make the “switch” to Nintendo’s newest console. In Death Squared, players can play single or multiplayer where the objective is to navigate colored robots to their respective goals. Simple, right? Wrong! This is a game where you will die…a whole bunch of times! It’s challenging, humorous, and a great pick up and play title, but don’t take my word for it. Let’s ask the experts! How did Death Squared come to be?
Pat (one of the SMG founders and someone I worked with at Soap for almost 10 years now) actually created the prototype for the game at a game jam. We loved it and just wanted to expand on it. It was almost 2 years later we released as in between that we had Thumb Drift (Pat’s creation) and a bunch of other games release.
Moving to the publisher’s side of the business, SMG worked with PREMO Games to bring their title, Super One More Jump, to gamers everywhere! SOMJ is an intense arcade platformer that has “speed-run” written all over it! Could you describe the process of working with PREMO Games and other indie developers in general?
I had spotted the game that would become Super One More Jump just as a gif and thought wow that looks cool. I then reached out and the guys were keen to have us help shape and craft the game with them. It was our first time publishing a game too and working with external devs. We just worked with them like they were in-house. The Premo guys had never made a game before so we helped with a bunch of things even down to the UI design, but they were great to work with. We’d discuss feedback, make changes with them, back track on those, but hopefully all for the better.
If someone wanted to reach out to SMG to pitch a game, what are the criteria that you look for?
We’re like everyone else in that we want a game to be eye-catching, fun, workable across multiple platforms and smallish in scope as to not take several years to finish. Polish is another factor too. However, devs need to have a reason for wanting to work with a publisher. If it’s purely just the money then they might as well go to a bank. They need to be open to collaborate. Publishing is not a larger part of what we do as we have too many game ideas and half-done projects ourselves. If we see a game we like, the developer who wants to collaborate and needs help with the right things is where we can really make a difference.
A fun fact that many, but not all, may know is that Death Squared received a limited “physical” Switch release in Australia and at conventions. That is to say, an official autographed and numbered Switch case, along with goodies, a digital download code and a pin were available for a limited time. What made the studio create this now highly sought after edition?
It was mainly a test with EB Games to see if it’d sell at retail. We didn’t make much money on them at all as retail has a lot of other costs you don’t get with digital. We also made 100 or so to sell at PAX’s as something for the hardcore fan. We had the plushies and pins, but the demand for the cases were high so thought we’d do that. Our game wasn’t a huge hit (we did OK) so we didn’t expect demand to be that high. I hope we can rectify any issues we had with the small run by doing a proper Cart Based Physical edition soon.
For those Switch gamers and collectors who live outside Australia or could not make it to the shows when these were available, are there ways to still purchase one?
We did an Ebay auction and raised $1,200 USD for Childs Play. We’ll probably sell the rest that way and donate to various charities. It’s the only way to not feel guilty if someone pays a high fee for what is a collector’s item.
Could SOMJ or a future title see an official physical release?
I don’t think so at its current price point as it wouldn’t make sense.
Are you able to tease SMG’s next project today?
We’ve dropped a lot of hints on our social channels, but we have many projects in the works at various stages. I’m hoping we can get more on the Switch. We have a large mobile game tied to a film franchise, we’re expanding on our RISK game with some awesome “new to RISK” features and polishing up some old prototypes we’ve had lying around since 2015! Oh and we’re pitching some pretty cool games too to platforms. So yeah lots going on!
Finally, is there anything else you’d like to share?
Thanks for the support and I hope we can continue to make fans of the studio with future releases. Also, if you like a game, reach out the devs to say hi and that you enjoyed the game. You have no idea how much that makes the team smile to get nice emails or messages on social media. Oh and tell your friends to buy those games! Small studios have very tight budgets and those extra sales go a long way.
Follow SMG Studio
https://www.facebook.com/SMGStudio
https://www.youtube.com/user/weareSMGstudio
