Kyle
Have you ever wanted to build your own video game? Maybe you’re a gamer and thought you’d love your own game but didn’t know an ounce about programming? Well there’s a UK startup that’s come up with a do it yourself platform for creating video games. The startup is called Scirra and their product is Construct 2.
Through Construct 2’s easy to use interface you’ll drag and drop your game characters, game play moves and more to make a fully workable video game via HTML5. After that Construct2 gets you ready to export your new game to a variety of devices and a variety of platforms.
The system that Ashley Gullen and has brother have created makes it possible for people with no programming experience whatsoever to produce “awesome games”.
Construct2 creates Windows based games and was the follow up to Gullen’s 2007 game creation tool now dubbed “Construct Classic”. The classic version allowed people to create games in the DirectX 9 platform.
We got a chance to talk with Ashley’s brother Thomas Gullen. Check out that interview below.
What is Scirra?
Scirra is the name of our startup company. We develop software (namely Construct 2).
In layman’s terms, how does it work?
Construct 2 allows anyone to make their own computer games without needing any programming. Through click and drag you can put a game together. It also allows you to export your game to a variety of devices and platforms in a couple of clicks. Even though the engine doesn’t require you to do any programming it’s still a powerful engine that has produced some awesome games!
Construct 2 builds your projects into HTML5. We’re HTML5 evangelists and really believe in it’s future!
Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?
Ashley Gullen started everything. He spends most of his time actually coding and developing Construct 2. He graduated in sound engineering – not something you might expect!
I graduated in computing for AI, and develop the Scirra website along with administration of the business.
We’re very luck to be brothers and both have skill sets that perfectly compliment each other for running a technology startup.
Where are you based?
We’re based in Twickenham, south west London. We like south west London a lot, and it has easy access to central London if we ever need to go and meet people there!
We originally started out in our bedrooms at home, fortunately we have since grown into our own offices. Working from home is all well and good, but there is a limit to how long you can keep it up for!
What’s the startup scene/culture like where you’re based?
The building we are in has a lot of other small businesses. We’re not aware of many any other technology based startups in Twickenham (we jokingly refer to ourselves as the #1 HTML5 based startup in Twickenham).
We are however involved in some capacity with the wider startup community in London. We frequently engage on Hacker News (a tech news based website) and attend Hacker News:London meetups which are brilliant.
We think it’s important not to spend too much time with the culture of it all though. For a startup like ours the main focus is spending time writing code and getting new features rolled out as quickly as possible. The culture of the startup scene for us is more for the social benefits – not really especially for business development or networking.
How did you come up with the idea for Scirra?
It all started back in 2007 when Ashley and a few friends decided to write an open source project “Construct Classic”. It was very popular and downloaded hundreds of thousands of times. However, as it was their first large software project it did suffer from some stability issues.
Construct 2 started development a couple of years ago by Ashley and has been written from the ground up. It’s aim was to address the stability issues and to incorporate HTML5 as the primary export platform. Ashley invited me shortly after he started on Construct 2 to join him as a startup.
We’re at a distinct advantage – this is the second game engine Ashley has written. It allows him to avoid all the mistakes he made in the first iteration and to end up delivering a superior game engine.
How did you come up with the name?
Originally we wanted to call ourselves “Scirrus”, as in the cirrus cloud with a sci- prefix. The name was taken by some huge corporation though, so we tweaked it and went with Scirra.
What problem does Scirra solve?
There’s a lot of people out there who want to make their own computer games. Everyone has an idea in their heads (the next Angry Birds perhaps!) However most people think that the barrier to entry is too high for them and too intimidating. Learning to program can be laborious and time consuming. We remove a lot of these barriers and try and show people that they can make their own games right now!
What’s your secret sauce?
Our secret sauce is our community. They are absolutely awesome and we try and do everything we can to make everyone happy and foster a caring and helpful community.
Are you bootstrapped or funded?
We received a small amount of angel investment before we started selling. We’ve been selling for 14 or so months now and we were bootstrapped. I think we both agree now though that we’re through the bootstrapped stage – things are going better than we expected.
What’s one challenge you’ve overcome in the startup process?
Everything is a big learning curve. You have to approach a startup with the right attitude – work hard and learn fast. The most significant and frustrating challenges we have had to deal with is press and marketing. Neither of us have a background in this or started with any relevant connections. I think we’re doing OK though, we’re noticing a steady growth in popularity. It really is one of the hardest and often most disheartening aspects of running a startup.
Who are some of your mentors and business role models?
Paul Graham has written extensively about startups and his writing is always of interest to us. We’re also lucky to have a family friend who’s been very helpful in directing us with some decisions. The building we’re in also has a lot of helpful and experienced people who we can go to.
We think having access to good quality and trusted advice is important – but we also think doing it your own way is also important. You need to strike a balance sometimes!
What’s next for Scirra?
Hopefully inclusion on the Steam platform (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=103246571) – we’re very excited by this as it could reach a vast relevant audience!
Other than that, more features coming to Construct 2! We’re hoping to establish ourselves as the leaders and believe we’re well on the road to do so.
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