Alumni Profile: Caoimhe Roddy
Cold Sun Studios - 2016 Team
Tranzfuser Project Description
Tome Travellers was a colourful, physics-based, co-op RPG where you played with characters that couldn’t control their arms. Players would have to frantically control the arms manually to fight enemies and solve environmental puzzles.
Quick Q&A
If you could turn the clock back, would you do anything differently?
We ended up being awarded funding for Tranzfuser so what we did in the actual competition isn’t something I would change. I wish we didn’t take ourselves so seriously in the aftermath though by hiding our work away. Knowing what I know now about building communities around games I would have kept working with Tome Travellers and iterated on it with community feedback! It was definitely a title that needed work but it had a great core experience that connected with people on the EGX show floor!
What made you want to take part in the competition?
We were looking for something that would really help us standout at graduates in the games industry. Our university course always encouraged us to show an active interest beyond our assignments to show we were passionate about creating games and Tranzfuser seemed to be a really great platform to showcase our interest.
Why should the up-and-coming game dev talent of tomorrow apply to Tranzfuser 2021?
It’s a great way to get to know what running an indie company and working within a team is really like. If you team up with a group of self-driven people you’ll be able to create something incredible together. I was in awe of our work at the end of the summer compared to submitting our assignments only a few months before. It was like we stepped through an invisible veil and became real, professional game developers along the way!If you’re keen to put your skills to the test, Tranzfuser is a great platform to find out where you can shine in the games industry. I know a lot of people who are now running their own studios or have joined big developers to bring their skills to AAA titles.
What benefits did Tranzfuser bring to your game dev career?
When I first went in to Tranzfuser I was primarily focused on art, although I wasn’t that confident with the specialty. The application process was very pitch and business focus. It required a lot of organisation and a light production plan. It was the first time I had been introduced to handling a game in this way and throughout the summer as we started figuring out how to work as a team there was a lot more organisation required. Although I barely knew what a producer was, I took control of the production and business plan. It was an amazing learning experience and I left Tranzfuser feeling like there was a corner of the industry I belonged to and I was excited to learn more as a producer!
What are you doing now?
Now I’m an External Producer at Chucklefish. We kept working for another 12 months or so as Cold Sun Studios doing contract work and working on internal things but in the end we all wanted to go and learn from other experienced developers. I freelanced as a producer for a while and ended up working on INMOST in 2019 with Hidden Layer Games. After that I joined Chucklefish and help all their publishing teams with their day-to-day needs!
