Alumni Profile: Brad Smith
Miracle Tea - 2016 Team
Tranzfuser Project Description
“We made a game called Ruya for Tranzfuser. Ruya is a meditative puzzle game about dreams and motherhood. You visit surrealist landscapes, decorate yourself in flowers and introspect. It’s a calming minimal experience with juicy interactions and cool colour combinations to make you feel at ease.It launched on iOS in 2017 with great success on the App Store and positive reviews the press.”
Quick Q&A
If you could turn the clock back, would you do anything differently?
With the build, I would’ve spent less time crafting the later stages of the game and more time focused on refining the first 10 minutes of gameplay. It perhaps would’ve resulted in a stronger slice for the EGX demo, and allowed us more time for testing to iron out usability and readability issues beforehand.With the pitch, I would’ve worked on projecting more to the entire room to assert a level of confidence. Also, avoiding apologetic language when discussing the game might have been useful. With networking I to be more assertive when seeking out the people that could help us achieve some of the things we needed at the time.
What made you want to take part in the competition?
As a team we simply wanted to form a game company to create the kind of games we think have value. There was also an element of me that wanted to compete in a more serious and professional capacity. To see what we could do and where we sit relative to the rest of the industry. I had entered a lot of game jams in the past but Tranzfuser was a big step up with tangible rewards and greater stakes at play.
Why should the up-and-coming game dev talent of tomorrow apply to Tranzfuser 2021?
We took part in Tranzfuser to make running a video game company a reality. It’s the best way to show the games industry that you’re serious about what you do. Tranzfuser was for sure the best thing we could have done for our careers coming out of education. If you don’t try it you’ll never know what you’re capable of.
What benefits did Tranzfuser bring to your game dev career?
Tranzfuser opened a handful of opportunities in the industry that otherwise would have taken us years to understand and achieve. How Miracle Tea pitch our games today is built upon how we pitched to Tranzfuser back in 2016. Only with more confidence!Tranzfuser gave me a shortcut to a certain level of confidence and growth that I never knew I had. As a result of that growth, I’ve been asked to mentor students at my local university, be a judge for game jams in my community and asked to speak at conferences overseas.
What are you doing now?
Miracle Tea have been running for over 3 years now since competing in Tranzfuser. We are a remote studio and our list of working contractors is growing. Ruya launched, it won a handful of awards that have given us studio recognition. We are now working on our new game Alula that was recently awarded the UK Games Fund round 5 grant. We aim to launch next year.
