I often say “we” when I talk about Tenor Games. In reality, when I mean “we”, I meant three of us in the team – me, myself and I.
Tenor Games is an army of one. I design the game, I write the code, I draw the graphics (or steal them from the internet), I make my own coffee. In other words, this is really a labour of love with profit far away from my mind.
Is my livelihood dependent on making games? Nope. I have a full-time job which pays me what I need. I am happy and while I believe that a long-term sustainable financial model is always owning a business, going independent at this stage of my life, is not yet urgent. I will probably start writing commercial games when I know that my games have a certain level of quality that people will be happy to pay for it. For now, if anyone wants to give any support, I’m happy to accept donations. A cup of coffee will do just great.
I have always wanted to write games before I hit teenhood. Back then, there was no internet, and my city’s local libraries had very little books about programming. All I did was fantasise the hacks I used with old binary hacking tools (I cannot even remember the name of these tools!). When I was studying for my diploma in computer systems (which involved lots of programming), I asked the top student in my course if we should get together to write games. He suggested that we completed our exams first. I think I have waited way too long after our exams, so I finally started to write my own games — two decades later.
Moving forward, I look to share my journey of game development. You will see quite quickly how much (and little) I know about making games. I aim to write independent games that people enjoy, and I hope to enjoy the process of making these games too.
If you are a fellow independent game developer and want to say hi, just hit me up here, or on Facebook or Twitter. I look forward to hear from you.
