Be open. Don’t be too hard on yourself, and have fun!” During development on A Little to the Left, the biggest issues turned out to be time and team management related, rather than perhaps the design or technical woes that would more typically expect to come with the territory of making an independent game. Thankfully, the team had the support of a well-seasoned publisher and its parent company, which could help them before things got out of hand. “Our biggest issue was that things just took longer than we planned. This is our first video game project and we had a lot to learn about creating a large scale technical production,” said Macmillan. “We are grateful for the good working relationship we have with our publisher, Secret Mode. They were very good at helping us through production-related blips and helped find us additional resources on the final push to completion.”


LESSONS FROM A LITTLE TO THE LEFT Having successfully reached the end of development on A Little to the Left with a project they can and should be very proud of, Macmillan is ready to look to the future, having grown as a developer and learned crucial lessons from her last two years of full-scale development. This new knowledge includes the ability to better size-up the requirements of production, and the realisation that the team will probably have to expand. “This was our first game ever, and we have grown an


Inferno and our lead programmer, handled a lot of the day- to-day business tasks. For the next project we’ll look to have some more programming help. We now have a better idea of how to schedule our time and understand all the pieces required to bring a game to market. I think we are much more confident in our ability to better anticipate the production requirements of another title.” A Little to the Left has been on digital storefronts since November, and the reaction has been a fairly positive one. As the world has enjoyed its ‘a-ha!’ moments with the puzzles of Max Inferno’s first project, Macmillan seems rather Zen about it being out there with audiences at all. Its reactions are out of her control, after all. “Our sense is that there are a lot of people out there who enjoy our game! We have been overwhelmed with positive feedback and excitement from players and critics. It’s extremely gratifying to learn about people who laugh at the moments that made us laugh, or to see the penny drop when someone realises the structure behind a particular puzzle. We understand this game isn’t for everyone, and we respect that people have differing preferences and interests. That’s a good thing. But we are so glad to learn there is a large group who do positively resonate with what we’ve made.” As is often the case with creating works of art, the act of making A Little t the Left itself has been such a positive experience for Max Inferno that it sounds like Macmillan probably would have considered A Little to the Left a success on some level whether it had been a commercial success or not.


incredible amount during this process. We learned that project management takes a substantial amount of time when there’s so many aspects to bring together to create a successful video game and Lukas, co-owner of Max


“Lukas and I just feel so grateful that we have been able to make something together. It was a success to us, even before the launch. We accomplished a very hard thing that we have never done before, and we had fun doing it. I very much hope that this game is fun for people, and that it brings joy. But it is very abstract and difficult to comprehend how widespread our project is now in the world.” explains Macmillan. “I look forward to hearing more from individuals, to help it sink in better. But I also don’t want to be too easily swayed, by either positive or negative feedback, when it comes to what it is that Lukas and I decide to make next. The important part for us is that we can continue to be creative and explore ideas together.”


January 2023 MCV/DEVELOP | 55


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