Usually when a studio is dropped by a main writer, it leaves them in dire straits. The story is all too widespread and typically ends in layoffs or outright closure.
Not so for Guildford-based Glowmade. The corporate’s on-line multiplayer title King of Meat shut down earlier this 12 months as half of Amazon Sport Studios’ shifting focus. The developer’s co-founder and studio head, Jonny Hopper, tells GamesIndustry.biz that the break up was “very amicable”.
Glowmade owns all of its IP, and Hopper says that the studio was cautious to not burn via the tech and retail large’s money whereas the partnership was in impact, leaving it with a warfare chest to fund it via the coming years.
The truth is, Hopper believes that Glowmade is in the strongest place it has ever been in as a firm. “We have got a great crew. We have got money in the financial institution. We have got financial independence, and we have got a crew who know easy methods to ship video games,” he says. “That’s a actually sturdy place for anybody to be in. I am not sitting right here worrying how I will pay folks. They’re exterior of my workplace making cool stuff for me. That is a very nice place to be.”
Hopper says that the firm was “accountable” with the money Amazon gave it, making an attempt to stability paying Glowmade’s employees good salaries and offering advantages whereas additionally seeking to the future.
“It’s worthwhile to take into consideration what’s the enterprise long-term, what occurs for those who get an absolute rug pull?” he says. “We weren’t essentially anticipating it as a result of I feel everybody needs their sport to succeed. However when that does occur, you need not freak out since you’ve been planning for this. That is why we’re really in a actually sturdy place proper now.”
With King of Meat and Amazon in the rearview mirror, Glowmade has been working on a new title, a single-player sport referred to as Rogue Fortune that marries a Hades-esque roguelike with a Tetris-inspired stock administration puzzle sport. The baseline replayability of most important sport pairs with the selection provided by the stock administration: choosing up Tetris-piece relics and slotting them into the participant board in completely different combos grants the participant completely different powers and skills, to typically excessive impact.
“The thrilling bit is when gamers play this and they go, oh man, I’ve damaged the sport as a result of I’ve out of the blue got massively overpowered,” grins Hopper. “The purpose is you are alleged to turn out to be strolling Armageddon as you go round, and all the pieces’s on fireplace and exploding and the unhealthy guys are all combating one another since you forged a spell on them.” The branching choices are what elevates the replayability past the procedurally-generated maps, and after the participant’s inevitable dying – that is a roguelike, after all – ranges, unlocks and weapons persist.
Improvement began in January – a month earlier than Amazon introduced the King of Meat shutdown – with a intentionally restricted scope.
“I despatched fairly a small prototype crew off at the begin of the 12 months and mentioned: ‘Let’s have a look at what we are able to give you in this type of area, however you’ll be able to’t have any artists’,” Hopper explains. “There have been no artists on the crew for about three months as a result of we wished them to only completely focus on mechanics and constructing out this type of thought.”
Rogue Fortune is the polar reverse to King of Meat by design. Glowmade’s earlier mission was initially pitched in 2020 focusing on a September 2021 launch date. “Clearly that did not occur,” Hopper laughs (the sport finally launched in October 2025). Rogue Fortune was introduced at Gamescom 2026, and Glowmade is focusing on a 2027 launch date.
“The concept is that that is a palate cleanser; how can we do one thing that is actually enjoyable that we’re actually in, but in addition not make it take ceaselessly or price the earth,” Hopper continues. “After we began out this course of, I mentioned to the crew: ‘Let’s construct an concept that we are able to do in 12 months’. That wasn’t essentially as a result of I wished to do it in 12 months, as a result of issues all the time take longer than that, nevertheless it’s extra like constraining the considering and giving these constraints and focusing the thoughts on we’re not going to construct an MMO or one thing huge. We’re not going to try this. We’ll attempt and have a small thought that can clearly increase a little bit.”
Amazon instructed Glowmade at the begin of 2026 that King of Meat was going to be shut down. Hopper and the relaxation of administration instructed the crew internally at that time, which means that the studio might “quickly begin altering our focus”.
“It was undoubtedly a bit bumpy as a result of we have come off the excessive of ending a sport, transport it, and then having to take care of these lows,” Hopper admits. “That is life and that is the sport trade at the second, sadly. However you’ll be able to’t afford to sit down round doing nothing, twiddling your thumbs and feeling sorry for your self. You have got to go: what are we going to do now? What have we realized?”
“We have realized a lot. We have got a crew now that has shipped a sport, that itself is a enormous achievement. They know what they’re doing and that’s a enormous tick field for all the crew. We all know what we’re good at, we all know what we’re not good at. We all know what we are able to obtain and what we must always attempt and keep away from. It is about how we use all of these abilities to get again in the solar and preserve shifting ahead.”
There have been some modifications, nonetheless. Whereas certainly not in a unhealthy spot financially, Glowmade was not hooked as much as the Amazon money hose. Subsequently the studio wanted to behave like a a lot smaller firm.
“I bear in mind saying [to staff] that the perspective we want is to truly behave extra like a startup now as a result of we are able to successfully do no matter we wish,” Hopper says. “And the problem goes to be reigning in that enthusiasm and exercise as a result of we’re not financially dependent on anybody, however we have got to be pressing as a result of we additionally haven’t got infinite money and infinite time. It is making an attempt to stability these issues. It was actually thrilling and it was a bit chaotic.”
One other attention-grabbing limitation for Glowmade is that the studio makes use of its personal tech to energy its video games. Which means that there’s solely a sure sort of scope that the firm can sort out. “A query I am all the time asking myself is whether or not having our personal expertise stack is the proper name?” Hopper says. “There’s clearly great advantages to with the ability to take one thing that is off the shelf and begin plugging in. There are additionally points and hurdles to take care of. Our engine is totally not excellent. It does not do all the issues that Unreal does, nevertheless it does not must. It must do the issues we want it to do. And in some methods these limitations are helpful since you then haven’t got these huge flights of fancy the place you assume that we might make a 100-hour RPG. These sort of information rails are actually helpful.”
“We have discovered that two tasks works fairly effectively. Three is a little more durable”
Rogue Fortune is not the solely sport that Glowmade has in the works. The plan is for the studio to have a common cadence of new releases to maintain it going.
“I really need us to have the ability to stay impartial and self-sustaining,” Hopper says. “Which means roughly working on two video games without delay and broadly having one title out yearly. We have got this good pipeline of stuff. We have discovered that two tasks works fairly effectively. Three is a little more durable.”
The Glowmade ethos “flexes and modifications” as the firm modifications. In phrases of what the studio needs to make, the agency’s high brass – Hopper, design director Mike Inexperienced and artwork director Adam Sibbick – mentioned what varieties of video games they need to make.
“Mike was identical to: ‘I simply need to make cool shit.’,” Hopper says. “Adam mentioned he wished to make lovely issues that win awards, which is what any artwork director ought to need to do. After which I mentioned: ‘I simply need to make attention-grabbing video games’. We tried to wordsmith the theme of what Glowmade stands for. On one stage, it is about creativity; the occasion line is that we stand for empowering creativity. We wish our video games to be inventive. That additionally stands for what I need for our crew as effectively. I need them to really feel like they’re inventive and they’ve company.” He continues: “Finally it got here right down to what Adam, Mike and I need to see. We need to make cool, lovely and attention-grabbing issues. We have got our personal barometer with these issues.”
Requested if Glowmade is open to working on another person’s IP and even doing co-development work, Hopper says that “he is not averse to it in any respect” and in truth is “actually in speaking about” these tasks.
“What these varieties of issues come right down to is it, once more, does it tick our cool, lovely and attention-grabbing bins?” Hopper says. “We do not have to do it but. We have got that luxurious of selection. If there was an IP that, as a crew or as a studio, we might go: ‘Sure, completely. That’s one thing we expect we ought to be making,’ and that is thrilling. It’s very up for grabs.”