We'll start this story at the beginning, with the graduation of the CEO from Niagara College, and the subsequent creation of the company.
Mitchell, our CEO
Middle Street, Capstone project team
Graduation, Company Creation & Digital Dan
Forming at the start of the global health pandemic that was COVID-19, Slothful Media & Entertainment as it was known at the time, attempted its first title "Digital Dan". The game's story saw the player in a virtual reality "chore simulator". Play as a dad on a lazy Sunday afternoon in Suburban setting. Cutting the grass, cooking burgers, wash the car and clean the house. Stereotypical gender role father tasks. In the characters mind this world is real, and is as it should be, but a glitch has them come to understand they are in a game. With a wife and kids being digital, Dan must escape from this "dream", using a tool most games use today to solve problems; Guns.
After a lengthy first attempt, the game was stable. The mechanics work. Shoot stuff, press buttons, complete with quests and more. As the level itself began to scale, a rift formed between the artist and the CEO. Subsequent issues led to a rift, and the two parted ways. Digital Dan was shelved indefinitely. But lessons were learned, in skills developing code, animation/3D asset creation, and personnel management. Creating boxes and bullets is only half the puzzle, working as a team is the whole puzzle.
Sadly, Digital Dan was later realized not to have any commercial value, as it didn't really have anything that set it apart from the current "shooter" titles, and a gun with a story is still only half the battle. You still need people to play it. So the decision to can the game entirely was decided.
Formative Years & Monster Factory
As the global health pandemic came to a close the motivation was discovered to reinvigorate the ideas that had first started Slothful Media. The artist and the CEO reconvened to restart the company, and a new game title had begun production!
Monster Factory was the first title released under the company banner. It was a simple collider game, which saw the player roll around as a blob absorbing a city scape by colliding with the objects. As it did so, it grew in size, able to absorb other objects reserved for this larger blob. The inspiration from this game came from a character from "Monsters VS Alien", as did part of its title. Original concepts saw the game as a multiplayer arena that required players to absorb parts of the city to create functional ammunition against your opponents. However, it was not possible with the current team to create a multiplayer game in such a short time. The decision to finish the game in under two weeks was grandiose, instead finishing it around 5 weeks of production, not accounting for the work that had already been done prototyping the game over the years as a hobby. It was the spark that started the fire, and we went straight to work.
As production wrapped up we decided to try and sell the game, with 0 success. We posted it on Itch, available for download on our splash page, otherwise you can find it here "Monster Factory" and removed the cost of the game, while also allowing our assets used in the game to be free for commercial use, you can find those here again "Cityscape Assets". It was a great experience, and such a humbling and enlightening experience to finally have a game we created on the internet, something we could point to and say "we made that". Unfortunately it's reach has been limited, and the devices available for even smaller. So some concrete steps need to be taken to get something going.
As the views and hype slowly built, the decision was made to double down on Monster Factory. More on that in the near future.
Branding
The idea to drop the word "& Entertainment" was decided after the fact, with a rebrand and semi relaunch of the company. New logos and a fresh approach to social media marketing and community building.
New Branding
Old Branding
Our Sloth mascot got an upgrade, and a bigger controller! Twitter account, instagram, and all the other socials got a presence, and freelance offers plopped onto Fiverr, somehow this company has to start turning a profit, or at least building a presence big enough to request donations. Any little bit will help.
Next titles & Company Direction
While we find out footing and style we will rely heavily on the community for support. Every play of Monster factory, every comment, and every suggestion will support us on our long journey to become an indie studio and we can't thank you enough. If you've read this far, you are a super star and we would ask if you can donate anything to our cause please try out our game, and pay what you're willing. Monster Factory
Our next title will pay homage to the original Call of Duty World At War Zombies. This game was one of my absolute all time favourite games. Unlocking the mode requires the completion of the campaign, so it wasn't even widely known at the time. Youtube was still in its infancy but word spread fast and the company enabled the game for all without the completion of the campaign.
We decided to do a remake in their honour, but with our own company twist. More to come on that later. We hope you follow for more! You can find us on twitter, instagram, and youtube. Thanks for reading!
Post Script
If you have any issues, questions, or comments about this post please let me know, you can reach me at mitchell@slothfulmedia.com and I'd be happy to engage in a conversation with you about any of the above. Your time is appreciated!
You can find the game here
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