Shuttle Revolution was originally conceived as a prototype for a student project, only being transformed into what it is today through Tranzfuser. Hosted by the UK Games Fund, the Tranzfuser program is a national UK competition for up-and-coming teams of indie developers across the country. Through plenty of hard work, learnt lessons, and teamwork did me and my team manage to come out the other end as winners of the competition! It was a fantastic experience that gave me my first true glimpse into the business of video games and taking a quality product to market.

We were provided a total of £6,000 in upfront award money which we used as our budget to take us from the conception of our title to the end result – fighting against the other 23 teams that had also received the same. The end goal was to impress the judges with a complete vertical slice and to deliver a final pitch to them on the show floor at EGX 2022 in September. The grand prize being up to £20,000 in grant funding. The competition went on for a total of 4 months, starting in June and ending in September for the final showcase event.

There were two notable events during Tranzfuser; The Pitching Practice event hosted in Dundee and the final showcase at EGX 2022.

The Pitching Practice event was a venue with dozens of industry veterans gathered at numbered tables where we were scheduled to pitch our game to each of them throughout the day to gather advice and hone our skills and pitch deck for the final showcase event. Although there was plenty of advice given, our initial pitch deck received surprisingly high praise. We took our lessons from the event and kept honing our pitch until it was the best it could be!

The final event, however, was the most exciting! We were invited to the Tranzfuser stand at EGX 2022! This was my very first experience showing off a game to the public at a showcase like this so it was a very special and heartwarming experience. Many members of public (including many from industry!) came to swing by and play a couple games. The energy was electric. All the players were shouting and screaming that much that we ended up gathering quite a crowd around the stand by the end of each day!

At the tail end of EGX was when we entered a room to pitch to the UK Games Fund. We presented the pitch with the best pitch deck we could possibly muster. Some days after, the news dropped! We were a Tranzfuser winner! Head Empty Studios was turned from a team of individuals into a limited company and we used the £20,000 grant funding to further develop Shuttle Revolution.