Braindead Ape

Braindead Ape

TalentScotland spoke to Nikodem Goszczynski, founder and managing director of Braindead Ape Games.

Tell me about the game

I’d finished my Masters in Interactive Entertainment and wanted to take some of the ideas I’d been working with onto a more commercial footing. The initial concept was to sell a series of connected mini-games, all featuring the same cast of homeless characters, and have them tell a story over time.

Since then, we’ve decided to get things moving with a single game, just called “The Bummer” and then follow that up with the broader “Show Me Your Bum” platform.

We’re self-publishing the game and haven’t taken any equity investment. We have faith in the concept and, since we didn’t have any revenue coming in, investors were asking for a very large chunk of the company. We wanted to keep control over the direction.

I’ve been very lucky to find a team of 13 who really believe in what we’re doing. They’re all very high-calibre individuals, from a number of different countries, who could probably have been making more money elsewhere during development!

Why have you chosen Scotland as your base?

Scotland’s great because you have what feels like a family of games companies. They’re all very helpful. Even though we may technically be competing with some of them, they all remember what it was like to get that first title out of the door.

More broadly, this is a hugely exciting time for the Scottish industry. The ecosystem of games companies and the universities are bringing in bright, creative, ambitious people for all over the world and creating a real melting pot.

Although the effort on the platform started in Edinburgh and is still very much focused on Edinburgh, we only have three Scots in the core team! The industry also has a history here, so you have that expertise you can draw on and other small like-minded companies we can collaborate with.

Do you have any recruitment plans?

With revenue coming in, we'll definitely be looking for more permanent developers, because the games will have to be constantly cared for.

Creativity is a really important thing that we look for when recruiting. One issue is there's a real need for more developers - particularly in Edinburgh - and if people were aware of that need I'm sure they'd head over. And just being based in Scotland is now an advantage from a marketing point of view. If you can say a product is made in Scotland, that's become a brand that attracts people in this industry.