Nyamakop’s upcoming platformer\u00a0Semblance<\/strong><\/a> is set to launch on Steam and the Nintendo Switch on 24 July 2018, and is the first African-developed IP to launch on the Nintendo platform.<\/p>\n The duo said that being an active developer and constantly working to improve your craft is key to building successful games.<\/p>\n “Just start. Where? Anywhere. Be it just concept art to a small prototype,” said Kimani. “Be active on Twitter, share your work, get feedback, and ask for help.”<\/p>\n Building a title with unique features and replayability can also help you stand out from the crowd of indie titles.<\/p>\n “With making financially-successful games, you want to try make something aggressively fresh and new – you need to stand out from the swathe of other works coming out,” said Myres.<\/p>\n “Ideally, you should try make a game that has replayability, can support a community, and has an innate virality to it.”<\/p>\n “You want people to evangelise and share your game.”<\/p>\n Myres also stressed the importance of marketing a title while it is still under development.<\/p>\n “You should think about marketing way before you release – people need to know well in advance that you’re making this thing,” he said.<\/p>\n Signing with a publisher can help developers to boost their marketing and plan their development more easily.<\/p>\n “If you can, at least for your first game, I would try sign with a publisher like we have with Good Shepherd Entertainment.”<\/p>\n “They can augment your marketing, PR, development, and so many other aspects.”<\/p>\n He added that developers should ensure they sign a good deal, and augment the work their publishers do.<\/p>\n Myres said the difficulty in building successful games in South Africa includes a lack of funding, physical distance from necessary contacts, and a small community.<\/p>\n “I won’t lie – it’s a bit of a cliff face to get over initially,” he said. “You struggle to find funding, meet press, and have contacts at publishers and platform holders.”<\/p>\n “Moreover, the community is small so you lack game design, business, and marketing advice.”<\/p>\n To overcome these obstacles, local developers need to travel to meet international contacts, and join local communities like Make Games South Africa – who can help with feedback and contacts.<\/p>\n Myres noted that once these obstacles are conquered, making games in South Africa is relatively cheap compared to international titles.<\/p>\n “That cheapness is boon when talking to overseas funders and publishers when looking at comparable games,” said Myres.<\/p>\n “If they’re choosing between two games and the South African game is significantly cheaper, they’ll likely go with you rather than someone in the West.”<\/p>\n South Africa lacks a large pool of game developers and talented game design graduates, though, so Nyamakop is actively scouring top universities to acquire talented developers.<\/p>\n “We’re looking to university courses like the Game Design programme at the University of the Witwatersrand – which we both graduated from – to net skilled graduates,” said Myres.<\/p>\n “However, we’re also looking at skilled people in other industries: animation, film, IT, and so on.”<\/p>\n “If we can transition those people into games, it would be easier than always integrating and training new talent,” he said.<\/p>\n MyBroadband spoke to Nyamakop cofounders Ben Myres and Cukia \u201cSugar\u201d Kimani about their trade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341028,"featured_media":264151,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[52599,52371,52349,35,52367,52351,75,3602],"class_list":["post-268069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gaming","tag-ben-myres","tag-cukia-kimani","tag-game-development","tag-headline","tag-nyamakop","tag-semblance","tag-south-africa","tag-steam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268069"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341028"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268069"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268069\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":269311,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268069\/revisions\/269311"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Stand out<\/h3>\n
![\"Nyamakop](\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Nyamakop-Myers-and-Kimani.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nJoin communities<\/h3>\n
Now read:\u00a0Warframe is coming to Nintendo Switch<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"