The Future of Heart Shaped Games
In October of 2010, I decided to step out on my own to found a game company and make games with a more personal design focus. That decision took me on a twelve-year journey of learning not just how to make great games, but also making them while building a remote team and running a business with limited resources. Now with We Are The Caretakers finished and released, I have to share the bittersweet news that I’ve decided to step back from making new games at that company, Heart Shaped Games.
I am moving on to an exciting new role at another studio that I can’t wait to talk more about soon, but for now I wanted to share a bit more about why I’m making this change. This decision has been in the making for quite some time. Over the years, our teams have poured their hard work and creativity into games of increasing complexity and scale (by indie-standards, anyway). From the Kickstarter-funded Roguelike Hero Generations, to the live-service collectible card game Highgrounds, to our latest 3D grand strategy RPG We Are The Caretakers. I’m incredibly proud of what the studio accomplished, winning awards, pushing at design boundaries, and building a dedicated community of players.
However, as the studio grew I was required to take on more and more business & production work, and less and less of the design work I am most passionate about. Twelve years is a long time to do anything, and when the opportunity presented itself, it just felt like the right time to shift back to being a designer day-to-day.
To be clear, this isn’t the end of Heart Shaped Games. The company will continue to support and maintain all of our released games going forward. I’ll just be shifting my personal focus full-time to my work at a (super exciting) new job.
I really want to thank each and every one of our fans for supporting and playing our games. Your sustained encouragement has been what allowed me and the HSG team to make innovative games for so long.
Heart Shaped Games gave me many gifts, but none more than getting to work with an incredible group of talented developers and game design heroes. I want to thank all of our team members and partners, past and present, for your hard work, dedication, and creativity. I am grateful for everything you contributed to our games and love seeing the ideas and culture we fostered live on at other game teams.
Thanks for everything,
Scott Brodie — Founder, Game Designer @ Heart Shaped Games
P.S. You can still find me active in our Discord Channels and on socials, so stop by and stay in touch!
