Well, hello there!👋🏻
It seems like an eternity that we have been working behind the curtain, but now it’s time to slowly and humbly reveal what we have been working on!
Let’s start with the fact that I became a father this year. Therefore I will share more of this journey and the parallel of being a full-time game designer! I am honored to be a dad to this fantastic little guy. Little Loukas brought joy and a lot of happiness to our lives but also created new paths within my creative mind to imagine more, make more, and be ready for more. He is such an inspiration!
Enough with the daddy talk for now; I promise I have more! Let’s get to the central part of this message to you all!
We are proud to announce that our game is ready to be named! Please make room for the amazingly humble, tiny, but super brave “Lott“! This is our game’s name, our main character’s name, and our very own little passion that we have been tirelessly working on realizing both directly and indirectly.
And let me explain that.
Being an indie studio is hard work! Very engaging, passionate, creative, challenging bloody work!!! We have been managing due to our small but highly talented team (thank you all ❤️ – I am keeping it low-key as I know we will introduce each one separately within a few messages down the line). I talked about direct and indirect work toward our passion. What does this mean? Well, it means that at the start of 2022, we had to slightly pivot our strategy and embark on a journey of creative support to other studios. This allows us to be agile, learn more, and support unique projects. At the same time, it helps us fuel the development of Lott while still being self-funded, sustained, and looking for a suitable investment and/or publisher partner for our project (no, I am not going to turn this into a pitch post, I promise).
Since the start of 2022 (even before our official founding date), I have been assisting with Creative Direction and Game Design in multiple large and smaller studios, working on an MMO’s game design, engaging in educational mobile games for children, and more!
We’ve launched a unique mobile game that teaches young children to learn Maltese! It’s a fantastic, complicated, super fun language that is very dear to my heart (I married a Maltese, love Malta, and so on). We felt an incredible honor when our partner selected us for this project. We are making an impact with our games! This is priceless!
I’ve also engaged in helping a couple of substantial mobile casual game titles, which I will talk about separately in another post, along with some details that the game design and game dev aficionados might greatly appreciate!
However, the only constant parallel to all the above has been Lott. Our beloved tiny ballotra is never out of my mind. Whatever I do, I make sure I do it so we can keep working on it, even when we are not doing it so in total capacity due to the fantastic support we can provide our partners.
But, good news! Gamescom 2023 will be when we reveal the first glimpse of what we have been working on. VERY tiny glimpse (fitting with the small game protagonist – see what I did there?). Furthermore, as the year proceeds and reaches the end, we plan to start sharing even more, and a very promised (on Discord, too) game dev diary is coming, with both video content and writing for the ones who still prefer to consume in any way possible! Apart from that, while on the Gamescom thing, I wanted to extend a very warm invite to every single one of you that will be there at Gamescom this year! Whether you are a gamer, an industry friend, a new friend, an indie publisher, or an investor, and you are looking for an incredible game or just want to say hi, I would LOVE to meet you and shake your hand! Let’s connect! We will be at the “Gaming Malta Foundation Booth | Hall 03.2 | Stand D041g – C040g”.
Oh, I almost forgot (come on, ADHD, please help me be more concrete in my storytelling!!). We also have a podcast coming out in early October! And then weekly episodes of it! Game industry professionals, fun talks, game design, tech talks, and more!
And another whimsical local expo: Playcon is soon upon us; we will be there too!
Woah, a very busy last few months of the year, right?
Well, for now, that should be it, as I need to prepare my bags for Gamescom and I swear that I can’t, for the love of me, find my power bank anywhere… Would it be charging one of the many electronic toys we have gotten Loukas…?
Remember, you can chat directly with us on Discord: https://discord.gg/hasoo.
See you, everyone; take care, play games, and keep dreaming!