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Press Play's Rune Dittmer

The Max and the Magic Marker developer talks self-publishing ahead of this year's Nordic Game

Formed with the intention of making better Flash games, Denmark-based studio Press Play has evolved over its four year existence to offer consulting, make contract games and now, finally, release its first self-published WiiWare title Max & the Magic Marker.

Ahead of his session at this year's Nordic Game, in which he'll discuss the processes behind bringing Max to market, studio co-founder Rune Dittmer spoke to GamesIndustry.biz about the indie scene in Denmark, how the team managed to fund its first title, and what it was like working with Nintendo to publish it.

GamesIndustry.biz Can you start off telling us a bit about Press Play and what the team has been doing up until now?
Rune Dittmer

We formed the company in 2006 and we formed with the ambition of making much better Flash games than we thought were out there at the time. But then we changed that slightly to a consulting focus, and from 2008 and onwards - on and off - we worked on Max & the Magic Marker, which was released in January. We are about ten people now and we were three when we started.

We did some game consulting and we also did a lot of hired work, which was convenient to make some money. It was kind of a two-part plan. We did a lot for the national broadcast channel - kind of the equivalent to the BBC in Denmark - doing games for television shows.

GamesIndustry.biz As you say, that sounds like a good way to get funding before doing your own game...
Rune Dittmer

Exactly. It was always our ambition to make our own stuff. But we did the hired work in order to survive and be able to make the first demo.

GamesIndustry.biz And you part-funded Max yourselves but also received money from the Nordic Game Development Fund?
Rune Dittmer

Yes. We actually received the support from the Nordic Game Development Fund and from a Danish support scheme they were trying out in 2008. It was called New Danish Screen and we were getting some funding from that as well and from EU MediaDesk.

GamesIndustry.biz Those are relatively new schemes for developers in Nordic?
Rune Dittmer

They were developing that back in 2008. They were testing it out to see how developers reacted to it. And we just applied in the first round they had.

GamesIndustry.biz And how easy was the process to gaining the funding?
Rune Dittmer

The way it worked, we did an initial prototype of Max & the Magic Marker - we did that in Flash and we did it because we had been playing around with a lot of 2D physics engines and stuff at the time.

Then we came up with the idea and we had this prototype and made some videos that described the concept. Then you just apply. And it definitely helped us that we were, at the time, already an established company so we did have quite a bit of a track record - not on the consoles, but all the television games and other work we'd done previously. As we had some turnover, so we had the resource to make proper applications.

GamesIndustry.biz Is Denmark a good place to be a games developer, in terms of support and funding?
Rune Dittmer

Yes. I think we're in a transition right now because there's a lot of evaluation going on with support schemes. And there are putting into process right now in Denmark, to see if we should establish a more permanent support scheme for initial support of games. And I think it's necessary.

But it also reflects on the state of Danish game development right now - there's a lot of small companies that kind of need to have something to believe in their project, to get them going. And perhaps to see all these alternative forms of distribution and types of games that are opening up - digital download, internet, Facebook and all of that.

GamesIndustry.biz Does it feel like the indie scene is growing at the moment in Denmark, and that it's a good place to be?
Rune Dittmer

I think that it is and there are quite a lot of us. We're based in Copenhagen and there are ten companies in this building. I think it's very helpful for us that we inspire and help each other. In that way it's like there's a small scene right now.

GamesIndustry.biz Can you tell us a bit about your talk at Nordic Game and what you'll be discussing?
Rune Dittmer

I'm going to be talking about the difficulties building titles on your own unfunded - how to manage that and how to get it out, and get it out on as many different platforms as possible in order to collect enough revenue to make it all worthwhile.

GamesIndustry.biz What bits of the development and publishing processes were the most difficult for a small team to manage on its first game?
Rune Dittmer

There were, of course, technical issues we had. Like it was a difficult process for us because we still had to make money on the side making other games. So it's like a focus problem, which also reflects on development - it took us two years to develop a game that, basically, if you took all the man hours out it's not a two year project. But we had to spread it out to remain alive.

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