MANIFESTO

1 – GAMES AS ART

our games don't exist just to present a reflex challenge or give a quick spike of psychological reward. Every frame of every game is deliberately designed to be worthy of printing and hanging on your wall. Deliberately provoking unique combinations of emotion is always at the front of design.

2 – ALL KILLER, NO FILLER

going hand in hand with the first principle, the principle of No Filler means that we respect the value of our audience's time and their expectations of entertainment. Audiences are more sophisticated than ever and very aware when they're being fed hastily made content just to create an illusion of depth. This does not mean that every second of gameplay is non stop action, rather that all pacing is mindfully constructed and every part of the game is created within the context of the sum of its parts.

3 – EXCELLENCE

cutting corners is not acceptable when it means dropping standards. Once standards are dropped, it's almost impossible to bring them back up again. Our reputation is of utmost importance and it only takes one slip to lose our audience. The creative world is cuthroat with competition and continues to grow in scale, and this means that we can not – and will not – let our products fail to meet the highest of expectations within the scope of each individual game.

4 – ORIGINALITY

we are not here to re-invent the wheel. If it's been seen before, we're not interested in adding to a market of clones and asset swaps. This doesn't mean ignoring conventional genres and widely accepted mechanisms and tropes, but always ensuring that there is significant markers of originality that are recognizable on an instinctual level to the audience.

5 – REFUSAL TO SELF CENSOR

in a world full of major studios catering to the lowest common denominator, and indie developers desperate to appeal to as many people possible, the game industry generally has taken a safe approach to the market, with a few exceptions of extremely violent games. As a result, games in general simply do not have the creative depth, edginess and boldness that has been seen in other forms of art, from fine art, to punk rock, gangster rap, exploitation and cult films, and transgressive literature. This does not mean employing shock value for shock's sake, or being sloppy in communication. Rather it means holding to the integrity of artistic vision even when it means offending or disturbing a large share of the market. We aren't here to appeal to the lowest common denominator.