Get to Know Your Indie #3: We The People by Small Indie Company
Welcome to the third installment of the Get to Know Your Indie series! Today we present a first-person tactical survival shooter called We the People, a creation from the studio Small Indie Company.
I talked with Drew, Founder, Creative Director, and Developer at Small Indie Company, about all things related to this exciting new indie game.
Get to Know Drew from Small Indie Company
Drew has always had a preference for multiplayer games. “I started getting heavily involved in competitive FPS through Counter-Strike 1.6, eventually finding my way to games like Tribes, Halo, CoD, Arma, and Escape From Tarkov.”
From being a player to becoming a dev, Drew has been motivated to leave his mark in the video game industry. As he told me about the studio’s two current projects — We the People and Fear and Fealty — he added:
“I feel an overwhelming need to take what I’ve learned from them and apply it to something new and exciting. I’ve had the intention to leave my mark on both of these genres, as it seems the gaming industry has regressed in many ways, seemingly forgetting what made games ‘great’ in the first place or progressed in other ways that don’t align with the ‘gamer’ in me. My goal is to ditch the predatory business practices being infused into the industry these days and solely focus on making games worth people’s time and effort.”
A man with goals and with experience — note this! Drew and other members of the Small Indie Company team are military veterans, so you can expect their professional experience to be reflected in We The People, not only in how immersive the game is but also in the reliability of weapon customization, gameplay, and other elements. Drew says:
“It’s important to us that we capture a certain level of realism and immersion with everything we do in the game. Whether this be a level of accuracy in the gunplay, the variety of customization choices for firearms and gear, or even the verbiage used to build and present our world. Our team takes what we’ve learned in our past lives and brings it into everything we do in game development. This is especially true when we consider the level of cohesion and collaboration necessary to create a game on the scale of We The People.”
Creating We The People
Based on the experience of Drew and the Small Indie Company team, you can expect that We the People will be an awesome creation. But let’s dive into the game a little more so it becomes more clear. This game is at its core a post-apocalyptic extraction shooter, so expect a lot of zombies. Objective: survive! But bear in mind that there will be more than zombies trying to kill you. Drew said in another interview:
“We know that wanting to be immersed in a world that tries to kill you in hundreds of different ways is definitely for a niche group, but finding a way to balance our game design to be more applicable to a broader audience is our goal.”
A pretty interesting concept, right? But there’s more. Drew also said:
“[We] love the extraction shooter genre, but feel they miss the mark when it comes to making (the games) ‘hardcore.’ You’ll find in most of these games that the gunplay, movement, and survival elements are done exceptionally well, but the user accessibility and UI/UX are done poorly. To us, the only thing that should be ‘hardcore’ about our game is the gameplay itself. We want to use elements like our weapon customization systems to alleviate some of the bloat that comes with the tactical hardcore FPS and survival genres.”
Check Devlog #1 below to learn more about this game.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ud8dz907cs&ab_channel=WeThePeople
By Gamers, for Gamers
Focusing more on how the studio Small Indie Company has come to life, I asked Drew how they embarked on such a journey. Well, can you guess? The studio's name is like a meme but with much truth and thought behind it. According to Drew:
“[The idea was] pushed around the internet by gamers who were ultimately fed up with receiving less than polished games from large AAA’s continually raising the prices of their games, or injecting more monetization tactics while seemingly caring less about the heart and soul of their franchises. Like anything else, sometimes the best way to show your discontent with something is to poke fun at it and commiserate with others through comedy. I decided there was no better way to signal to the gaming community that not only do we not take ourselves too seriously, we’re gamers to the core and want to put the respect for our community above all else. Making games of the people, by the people, for the people.”
Building video games is always somewhat of an endeavor, and it’s an even bigger task to build an indie game of this magnitude. But that didn’t stop Drew and his team from showcasing every step of creating We the People with their community.
“Our intentions are to be very transparent throughout our development process, showcasing step-by-step iterative progress through a Devlog Series on Youtube. We want people to see the ‘good,’ the ‘bad,’ and the ‘ugly’ every step of the way. So our community has an intimate understanding of where we started, where we’re headed, and ultimately they will be there when we reach certain milestones during this journey. Although we’re essentially playing the game on ‘hard mode,’ it has provided us with an awesome opportunity to receive very meaningful feedback and allows us to pivot where necessary.”
It is in these small (but significant) things that we can acknowledge how much of this game values transparency about the project and demonstrates that We the People is being made by gamers for gamers. Building a community around the game before launch is an early win, and the benefits can only be measured once the game is fully out there to be played and enjoyed by everyone.
Drew has been thinking of ways to protect this community that he is building, and, of course, he has to think about the possibility of cheaters and player toxicity in the game, and how to combat it with solutions like Anybrain anti-cheat technology. On that topic, Drew says:
“In my view, mitigating bad actors is one of the most important aspects of building We The People. Some of our favorite games and biggest competitors have been ravaged by cheaters, so it’s something we’re looking to get ahead of. We believe at the heart of any multiplayer FPS is a healthy spirit of competition. It’s the driving force for player interest, excitement, and continued engagement. When that competitive spirit is snuffed out by cheaters, it ruins the experience for everyone and kills motivation to continue progressing. That is why we’d love to utilize a service like Anybrain, something that works in tandem with a traditional anti-cheat but manages to provide unmatched real-time analytics to allow us the ability to run interference with those wanting to ruin competitive play. We want to restore players’ faith in the genre and set a precedence for how to handle these issues moving forward. The only way to achieve that goal is by getting creative and thinking outside of the box.”
Indie Is the Future
For the last part of the interview, I was curious about what drives Drew in this line of work and how he does it. The answer was quite simple and, at the same time, quite amazing.
“I get to exercise my creative muscle every day; that alone makes it worth waking up and getting after it. Working with an awesome team is probably the most important aspect of this whole process, though. I am very aware of my own limitations, so it’s important that I surround myself with skilled technical and creative professionals who can help bring my ideas to life.”
This passion for creating games is felt in all his answers in the interview. When I asked him how he sees indie games in a world of big conglomerates, he said:
“I think indie is the future. We can see quite clearly that it remains king in the present day, in many cases outperforming AAA with passion and drive alone. I imagine that will only continue as technology progresses and the disparity between large and small studios narrows. We’ve had a number of people from very prominent studios reach out and express their support and love for what we’re doing, and I think that is an example of where the public sentiment is at-even among those working at these large AAAs. Ultimately time will tell, but I would suggest for everyone to keep an eye out for more indie projects popping up who are looking to shake things up and bring fresh ideas to the space.”
For you who are reading this text and have that little voice in your head saying, “Start your project! Start your own indie studio!” Drew has some words for you:
“Take the plunge. It’s an arduous yet rewarding journey. It never hurts to create and express yourself through an artistic medium like video games. Make an effort to ditch the critique inside yourself and take the risk of putting something out for yourself. My one caution would be to separate yourself from politics and the overwhelming need to preach to people or tell people what and how to think. Instead, make something that allows players the luxury of distancing themselves from the tumultuous realities of life and gives them the ability to explore a new and exciting world that you thought up. Video games are a safe haven for those who still maintain an imagination, so it’s on each and every one of us to respect and maintain that light in an otherwise dark world.”
I can’t wait to play We The People and see some other future creations of Small Indie Company because there are more things in the oven. As for future projects, Drew adds:
“We are also developing an open world RPG with the working title ‘Fear & Fealty.’ This has been a large focus for our art team and will continue to be developed over the course of the next few years. The intention being to create a love letter to each respective genre we journey into.”
We The People’s next phase is early access on Steam and then a full launch on all platforms! So, support the game by wishlisting on this link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2261560/We_The_People/