This is just a rundown of how Glowfrog Games got started & how Pieced Together was funded, in case any of its useful!

My career path (for context)

• 2010: While studying Game Art & Design degree, I won a student game dev competition (Dare to be Digital), resulting in BAFTA nomination & co-founding a company.
• 2011: Graduated degree in Game Art & Design. Game won Welsh BAFTA.
• 2012: Released game, technically published by Xbox LIVE (on Windows Phone).
• 2012-14: Faffed about failing to fund a second game (just me - team had dissolved), doing retail work and freelance odd jobs (Wordpress websites, illustration, 2d game art).
• 2014-17: UX design job at a couple of app startups, including Hopster, an app with TV shows + games aimed at preschoolers.
• 2017-20: Game Designer upgrading to Game Lead making social games at Mojiworks.

After that, I took a bit of a break, moved somewhere cheaper than London, and started doing contract/freelance work. This mostly leaned towards kids’ and educational games, I think because of my work at Hopster and the casual/broad audience vibe of my portfolio.

In 2022, I was accepted onto a programme called Astra Fellowship (no longer running), which was a fantastic opportunity - essentially an 18 month grant covering a reasonable wage, to develop my own skills and projects focusing on puzzle games. Most of the stuff I made is on my itch page.

During that time, I found it challenging to work solo, and towards the end of the programme in early 2023 I was determined to find someone to partner with. I started doing casual game jams with collaborators I was mostly finding through Reddit (r/INAT), spending a week or two working on an idea with each.

How Pieced Together started

The final game jam I worked on was with a senior programmer in the industry, and we were experimenting with scrapbooking related mechanics. Not too long after, in June 2023, we were accepted into the Wings Elevate grant programme. This set us on the path to turning Pieced Together from a rough idea to a released game, and started Glowfrog Games.

Funding + development timeline

For most of the game’s development, which spanned 3 years in the end, we were working in a stop-start manner, depending on grants, sometimes alongside freelance work. We also had team members come and go through the project, with 3 different lead developers and 3 different narrative designers touching the game at one point or another.

• pitching