Visiting Groningen – Dev Blog 15
Greetings and welcome to this weeks development blog. A bit of a different one today – we’ve been in the Netherlands this week, meeting some interesting folk, as well talking a lot about Fringe Planet. It’s been very crazy and very busy – but also a lot of fun!
We have been accepted into the Indietopia accelerator program – a fantastic program that has been working with us behind the scenes, providing both advice and opportunities. This week we finally flew over to their HQ in the beautiful city of Groningen – and met the Indietopia team, as well as the other really talented teams that have also been accepted into the accelerator. For those that don’t know what an accelerator program is – it’s basically a lot of learning that will turn a great idea into a workable (and scalable) business. Getting advice from successful business owners, as well as from industry experts is an incredibly useful resource – so we were honoured when we found out that we had been accepted.
Aside from the social side of things (meeting the Indietopia team as well as the other startups that were accepted) it was a great opportunity to give a pitch to a room full of very knowledgeable people – and get feedback on not only the Fringe Planet concept, but on how we pitch the game.
We started the day by visiting Indietopia HQ – located in an impressive looking building off . After finally meeting the folks we had just skyped and emailed with for the past few months, we were given a tour of the offices, as well as the huge new workspace that they are going to be moving into over the next few months.
After that, we headed over to the Zernike Campus of Groningen University where we met folks from VentureLab North. This was our opportunity to pitch Fringe Planet to a panel of very knowledgeable folks – industry experts, publishers and our friends at Indietopia. The audience was incredibly attentive and the Q&A session after the presentation was an incredible mix of very insightful questions, as well as fantastic feedback on both Fringe Planet and how we presented the game to our peers.
It was fantastic to talk about the game with such experienced people and get such incredible insight on the pitch (with more feedback coming soon as well!). It gave us some great understanding of both Fringe Planet as a game, as well as running Sigil Initiative as a successful business.
The presentation went down well, and started with a brief introduction to ourselves and then we went into detail about Fringe Planet – the amazing simulations, the deep lore, the importance of accessibility. After all that we spoke about the more business side of things – how we are marketing the game, plans for distribution, future plans for the company. We can’t show the entire presentation yet (spoilers) – but if anyone is interested in the generic template we created, feel free to get in contact and we can provide it (bonus it has an EyeBird progress bar!)
The Q&A was very intense – with questions about both the business side of Fringe Planet, as well as more specifics into the game itself (our favourite memory of it was explaining peon bowel movements in a very English fashion (including hand gestures)).
Overall, it was a thoroughly useful experience – a great deal of learning to be had, as well as great opportunity to meet people. We would like to thank everyone involved (Indietopia, the panel, VentureLab North) for giving us this opportunity!
We also very much look forward to our next visiting to Groningen!
p.s. EyeBird progress bar!
There is a lot more to read about Fringe Planet… why not try: