Welcome to our Ultimerse
- Who: Our core creative team is 6 game developers. We have a trusty crew of a similar number of contractors who help us out in a pinch. We’re looking to get our next game published, and when we do, we’ll get a bit bigger, but I don’t suspect we’ll ever get too big to share a bus.
- What: We’re an indie game developer.
- Where: Melbourne, Australia.
- When: Founded in 2017.
- How: With a song in our heart and coffee in our sippy cups.
The Games!
Ultimerse’s first game was a super colourful, light-hearted, VR firefighting game named Paper Fire Rookie. “You’re a rookie firefighter in a papercraft world, look out!” Oh, there’s some naughty humour. It won the Australian Game Developer Award in 2019 for Best AR/VR Game.
Our next game is still colourful and goofy … but it’s very different. I came on at the start of game two, and I wish I could talk more about this screwy, over-the-top, creation.
If there’s a common thread between it and Paper Fire Rookie, it’s a love of the weird and wonderful. For us, it’s about looking into new worlds and dragging along as many people as we can, be it into a riotous papercraft town just waiting to combust; or exploring what lies under a cursed bar in an iconic city in an iconic time period.
Dev Party Make-Up
This is the core development team, as seen through my nerd filter. Just be glad I did 5e and not Pathfinder. Or, maybe Gamma World… oh yeah, actually … [Snip – Ed].
Aidan McKeown – Code Conjurer
@AidanMckeownDev
A man of many talents, Aidan builds epic scaffolds for Ultimerse games.
Delaney King – Art-ificer/ Dark Cleric
@delaneykingrox
Mistress of the dark Arts. Tech art, concept art, storyboards, illustration, 3D art, sculpture, pipelines, animate dead, oh my….
Lucy Mutimer – 2D Art Warlock/ Ranger
@LucyCrimefightr
Concepts, illustration, graphic design, cute critter design and resident criminologist.
Tea de Souza – Narrative AI Enchanter
@eelstork
Designs game brains, is a technical wizard; really wants to make cute anime characters procedurally talk about what they want to do on their holidays.
Thomas Safarewicz – Gameplay Code Rogue
Sneaks in, builds tools, gets characters battling each other, throws smoke and steals hearts.
Timothy C. Best – Creative Cavalier/ Bard
@timothycbest
Smooshing stories and systems. Directs on-field charges. Talks too much in stand-ups; still waiting for Bardic Inspiration to kick in.
Plus Special Guest:
Hannah Vorlicek – Bard/ Light Cleric
@hanlousim
Our Socials Queen. We share her expertise with our collaborators, Creativa and 7-YM, so she’s not on the front line battling code, but she’s often with us sharing light and memes (and secret birthday videos).
What are we about?
A studio is more than games and people. It’s about the alien signals you have deciphered and … oh, wait. Values. It’s about values. This is what we’re about and how we want to treat people.
- Respect: Everyone deserves to be treated with respect and dignity, regardless of race, gender, sexuality, etc. Abuse is a no-go and the more sensitive the subject, the more care needs to be taken. Everyone should be made to feel comfortable and welcome.
- Diversity: Everyone who upholds the spirit of our values is welcome. The more the merrier. People, views, stories. Be cool, be kind, have fun, and help everyone else do the same.
- Honesty: We will not circulate false information, and endeavour to be as honest, transparent and authentic as possible. With great socials (maybe one day) comes great responsibility.
- Positivity: Is it kind, necessary and true? Sometimes we’ll settle for two of those if it’s also fun. We aim to put more fun and good vibes into the world than we take out.
- Feedback: We welcome feedback. Small note: honesty shouldn’t be brutal; let’s agree to take five and try a different adjective like “considered”, “gentle” or even “wry”.
- Privacy: We respect people’s privacy. Under no circumstances are the private lives of community members or employees fair game. (People get to determine what and how they share things).
- Zero Tolerance (of People Trashing the Place): Being a good host means looking after the people enjoying the space and contributing to the vibes, more than people stirring trouble, acting with ill-intentions or starting fires in the corners.
The Power of Three
While we have the boutique indie thing going on, we are also lucky to have the support of two other great digital creative companies. We share a director and a working space. While we do the games, Creativa does the video content and 7-YM handles apps and business enterprise software. We help each other out, but, most-often, we just wave across our cute-warehouse office (pandemic permitting).
Oh, we also get to borrow some people like the group’s Content and Brand Coordinator (affectionately dubbed the Socials Queen), Hannah, to help us do some cool stuff that’d be super tricky for a small studio otherwise.
I mentioned the director who brought us all together. That’d be Anthony Scoleri, seen here playing an Xmas carol on a LEGO piano he built. He’s a mix of practical engineer and dreamer artist, and it seems to be a good starting spot to understand what sparked this studio.
That’s A Wrap
Thanks for staying with us this long. I’ll wrap this up.
A games studio is more than just people and history and technology. It’s about how people built things and the spirit behind it all. I’ve worked hard since I’ve joined to really live up to the values we’re banging on above. I’ll keep you up to date how that all goes along with our zany misadventures actually making the game over on Twitter. You can follow us there @Ultimerse
There will be a couple more blogs about the studio to come (you know, for when they make the movie), as well some tech articles, and dev logs.
Welcome to our Ultimerse, please enjoy your stay here. (And follow our fun on Twitter)
