Today we’d like to introduce you to Tyler Watts.
Hi Tyler, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Shortly after I started college I found myself in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. At a time meant for socializing, discovering myself, and growing in my independence, I instead found myself alone with no drive for anything. Tired of doing nothing, I took it upon myself to make use of the abundance of time and challenged myself to make a video game. After experimenting with my own game project, I decided to throw myself into the fire once again and signed myself up for a Game Jam where I had to make a complete game in 48 hours alongside a small team. By the end, we not only had a great game, but also learned what a great team could do in just a weekend. This team led the foundation for what we now know today as Surprise Studios. At heart, I’m fueled by the team driven process of making video games, and the Surprise Studios team’s story is what drives me. Here’s some insight into our team’s individual stories:
• Our 3D Modeler Mikey Whiteneck took digital media classes in high school. It was there he learned how to 3D Model various Star Wars vehicles and low poly environment.
• Our Game Designer Dean Kazusa didn’t want to code, and the design process sounded interesting. He remembered the fun he’d have designing Mario levels as a kid, and realized he could fuel that creative passion by creating his own modern video game levels.
• Samantha Cuevas always wanted to make games, and coupled with a strong art background, was always able to appreciate games that had an interesting art style. She hopes to create the same provocative and profound art in her own games today.
• As a high schooler, now Cofounder and producer Jack Murray taught and organized DND clubs at his local middle schools, introducing kids to the fun that designing their own games could bring. Soon after, he discovered he could make his own computer games that could have an even bigger impact on those around him.
• For programmer Logan Kilburn, the story of games is what always captivated him since he was at a young age. He felt the desire to recreate that same captivation for other, and give back to the community.
These are all the reasons why we make games today. These motivators: passion for design, community, and an overall strong appreciation and recognition of the social power games can bring through storytelling and art, that drive me and the Surprise Studios team.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
For a while, a lot of our time working on Forklift Fury and previous projects has been not just a creative burnout, but also a constant reminder that passion projects are often an unpaid, sometimes unrequited endeavor. Not many see the extra 10 hours we slap on to the end of our already strenuous 40-hour work weeks in our day-to-day jobs. To make things worse, despite efforts to spread the word, on social media and beyond, it can sometimes fall on deaf ears or get lost in endless sea of content out there on internet. The key to this is innovation. To counteract all of this – we find that brutal honesty is so important to the game design process; and something we remind other creatives and each other is to be you and your teams own worst critic. Exposing your work to the feedback loop is ultimately what makes you better. As our artist Sammy put it “You have to learn how to be critiqued. Ultimately, there will always be harsh honestly and even just someone bashing on your game in general, what’s important is how you approach critiques and how you can find a balance between loving your project enough to continue and disliking it enough so that you can always improve it.” This is why as someone responsible for the game’s image, I prioritize getting the game out there as much as I can, and early on urged others to give us the harsh feedback and criticism we needed at the game’s early stages of development – even if that effort at times falls on deaf ears, or doesn’t immediately have any perceived value.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
What happens when you take Forklifts, a normally strict OSHA-regulated vehicle, and juxtapose them with crazy, wacky and far-from-safe environments? This is the question we at Surprise Studios decided to address with Forklift Fury, a physics-based party brawler where you compete with your friends for the title of Forklift Certification. Jack Murray conceived and spearheaded the project: “After graduating from college in May of 2024 I was exhausted from finishing my capstone game design game: Interweaver. Realizing I needed to reignite my passion by making something I truly want to make, something dumb, funny and exciting by concept alone – it was then I came up with idea of Forklifts fighting one another and Forklift Fury was born. After developing a prototype on my own, I reached out to some talented friends from college who joined the team who in the last 6 months have pushed the game further”.
If you didn’t get the memo, we’re a good group of friends who build games that bring people together. You can wishlist Forklift Fury on Steam here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2440600/Forklift_Fury/
We also have a website, there you can sign up for our mailing list, and get in contact with us. We’re on the hunt for a publisher who can help bring our vision to life and reach the masses.
We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
There are a lot of inherent risks that come with bootstrapping your own project. You could blink and suddenly the project blows up and becomes so popular that you bend under all the pressure. Conversely, you could pour all your savings into something and watch it all crumble to some unfortunate circumstance. I’d like to think we are playing things pretty conservative; spending little to no money on events, DIY’ing our own merchandise, finding a publisher who can help us in making the larger than life decisions.
With that lack of funding and constant need to do things ourselves wherever possible, however, comes the greatest risk of all.. As a 23-year-old I can say the biggest thing I’m risking, along with a lot of other creatives, is time. Many of us are working full-time jobs and spending our free time doing what effectively boils down to even more work. All the while, I’ve seen friends starting their own families, getting married, moving cross-country, ultimately exploring themselves in the prime of their life. While I don’t think any of us regret the time we’ve poured into this project, there’s no denying there is a collective feeling of opportunity cost at play. Still, I’m a half-glass full person, and I have a feeling it will all pay off some day. I think that’s something that all artists should remind themselves. I believe that hard work, though there may be risk involved, always pays off.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.surprisestudios.games
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/surprise-studios-llc/
- Twitter: https://x.com/SurStudiosGames
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCno2UHfibf4GOGcpyiwAocw/
- Other: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2440600/Forklift_Fury/
Image Credits
Main Photo: Red Stylized Photos, Steven Seidman
