How does Streamline find the inspiration to create their games?
The inspiration to create the games that Streamline creates comes from anywhere and everywhere. “We’re just a group of people that love making games”. A group of people who specialize in the technical challenges, creative challenges and designing challenges coming together to create something that does not already exist.
“You’re trying to pull something from the air, you can’t see it, you can’t touch it and you can’t taste it but you believe it’s there. So you have to somehow find a way to bring it into this world.”
- Alexander Fernandez
The process for Streamline to start creating a game begins with a bunch of people just sitting around brainstorming ideas to the table. According to Alexander, it would start from each person coming up with an idea to working a way around the ideas and then turning it into the concept of ideas, descriptions and art designs then come together to be experimented a few times.
“It’s like baking, you have all these ingredients to be mixed together and the next thing you know you baked a cake. Then you wonder whether it tastes good or not, but you’ll never know until people try it to tell you how it tastes.”
- Alexander Fernandez
The inspiration would come from a combination of internal inspiration to a group dynamic and then to a group inspiration as the inspiration just comes from the people being together. “That is why we have so many people under Streamline”. According to Alexander, Streamline Media Group has 45 nationalities and 25 different languages at the production studio to get the best ideas from each one of them to create a game.
“Humanistically we all understand what fun is, unfortunately we can’t describe it, all we know is that it’s fun, so then you have to go find it.”
- Alexander Fernandez
How long does it take to complete a game?
Game development is not an easy process, it can take up to months and years to complete a game. “Final Fantasy took 10 years to make”. Streamline would always estimate to finish a game within 24 to 36 months, but there is no set rule to complete a game within a set time because there are games that take a very long time to complete. The amount of time to create a complete game would also depend on the platform. “Mobile games could take about a year while console games such as XBOX, PlayStation and Nintendo can take a very long time even with hundreds of people working on one console game”.
Does Streamline have game nights?
Game night is very much a thing for Streamline since the company started. Before the Covid-19 Pandemic, Streamline would have game nights at the office every 6 weeks. Even during the Covid-19 Pandemic, game nights were held virtually to play multiplayer games. Game night is when the company just gets together on a Friday night after work to have a meal together and play games together at the office.
What is the difference between Streamline back when it first started and Streamline now?
There is a big difference between Streamline back then compared to now. “We started off with just four guys in a house with a dream of doing something without any proof of succeeding and 20 years later… it worked”. Now Streamline is filled with 200 employees around the world, each having the same dream as the four guys that founded the company. “It went from four dreams to 200 hundred dreams”.
“It is the strength of those 200 dreams that made this company succeed.”
- Alexander Fernandez
Photo by Bake ‘n Switch
What is Streamline’s most recently released game and what is it about?
Streamline Media Group recently published ‘Bake ‘n Switch’ , a game developed by one of their studios, Streamline Games. It is a 1-4 player couch co-op and a party game that was released in August 2020. ‘Bake ‘n Switch’ is a game where you beat up dough, merge them together, roll them and bake them in the oven. ‘Bake ‘n Switch’ is available to download on the Nintendo Switch and on Steam, with free-to-play demos on both platforms. . “It’s a great family-friendly game, I even play with my young daughter.”
What advice can you give to those who want to become game developers?
“It is a long road, it is not a straight line and it is going to be hard. But, you can’t just give up. You will have to keep believing that it is going to happen.”
“Put the work into it.”
- Alexander Fernandez
By Dephyn Chew