Founded in 2020, Doom Turtle is an independent game development studio located in London, Ontario. Our core focus is to create memorable gaming experiences where we deliver maximum fun for the player to enjoy.
Tell us about yourself?
I was always a gamer. Back when I was in the third grade (decades ago, ugh), I used to write ideas down on paper and mail them to Nintendo, without a stamp or address, of course, because I was a kid and didn’t know better at the time. I just always wanted to make video games. Fast forward to my high school years, I picked up the pursuit of making games in my spare time, not knowing it was a real career path until my college days. I was fortunate enough to join a game studio in London, Ontario, in 2003, working on a game called Battlefield. In 2008, I started my first game company and have created two additional companies since.
If you could go back in time a year or two, what piece of advice would you give yourself?
A year or two is pretty short-term in the game development world. We were still working on our game, Ember Knights, at the time. Now that it has launched, I would advise myself to just keep our heads down, focusing on what we know, fun.
What problem does your business solve?
In the highly competitive world of entertainment, we provide a good value proposition for the consumer with a highly replayable video game experience for a reasonable price (less than $30).
What is the inspiration behind your business?
While I like sound business fundamentals, video game development was purely a passion pursuit for me. I’m fortunate enough to have created a business and livelihood out of it, employing over 100 people over my tenure of owning the businesses.
What is your magic sauce?
This is a tough one – the entertainment field is incredibly competitive. We try to just do our best and stick to making sure as many moments as possible are enjoyable for the players. One of our trademarks is charm. We insert little fun moments in spots that you’d least expect it.
What is the plan for the next 5 years? What do you want to achieve?
We just want to keep creating fun games that we’re proud of and enjoy making. From my experience, chasing trends or markets that aren’t core to your team’s capability is a risky and unsatisfying venture.
We would feel great if we delivered another game or two that is critically received in the next few years.
What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far?
Standing out amongst the competition. Every day, there are hundreds of new games being released across all the platforms, so standing out amongst the noise can be incredibly challenging. There really isn’t a special formula other than trying to solve the ambiguous question, what is fun?
How can people get involved?
Check out our latest game, Ember Knights, on PC Steam and Nintendo Switch! You can learn more about the game and our company at www.doomturtle.ca.