Why, hello there
My name is David, one of the founding members of Noodle Cat Games, and I’m excited to introduce us to the game development community. After twenty years of experience as a designer at companies like Cryptic, BioWare, and nearly a decade at Epic Games, I decided it was time to tackle a new challenge. Joining me on this journey is a collection of veteran devs from Epic Games, PopCap, EA, and more. Together, we’re searching for better ways to make great games.
I’ve worked with amazing teams and helped make games that entertained millions of people across the world. In the process, I saw passion, tough decision-making, craftsmanship, and collaboration lead to success. Teams that expertly weave in the feedback and overall player experience into their own vision can achieve far beyond what they imagined at the start of a project.
Yet, with each passing year, while the industry makes great forward strides in technology and creativity, I do not see matching improvements in how we work day to day. Our industry is notorious for demanding immense personal sacrifices in order to get a game to the finish line. Usually, it’s not malicious. The time pressure and fleeting nature of financial success make it easy to stack one seemingly minor sacrifice on top of another. I’ve seen this grind too many coworkers to dust. In one heartbreaking case, I lost a friend and mentor to heart failure far too early in his life, due to overwork.
As a designer, it’s hard not to contrast the advancements in applying broad psychological principles to our games with the lack of progress in how we work. No game is perfect, but I’m proud of the work I did over many years on Fortnite, the numerous innovations it contains, and the positive impact it has on so many people. Why, then, don’t we try to apply the same iterative improvements to how we make games?
Does our industry’s standard operating procedure lead to better products? Even if they do, does that justify the human cost? These questions gnaw at me every day. Earlier this year, I left one of the best jobs in the industry, at one of the most respected companies in the industry, to search for those answers.
Noodle Cat does not, and never will, have all the solutions, but we are committed to approaching this company as we would any good game mechanic–with research, experimentation, patience, perseverance, and iteration.
We offer:
Fully remote 4-day work weeks
Flexible work hours
Equitable, transparent compensation
100% covered health insurance, ranked among the best plans on the market
Personal ownership of company-supplied equipment (earned over a period of time)
A relatively flat organizational structure that supports individual autonomy and growth
Building a healthy, creative and collaborative culture directly aids our goal to make innovative games. I believe we'll produce more creative games, at a more rapid pace, than the industry norm. I hope that there are others out there who feel the same way, and we’re looking for awesome, experienced devs to join our pursuit to create amazing games while building an example of how the industry should work.
