A couple of weeks ago, I had the privilege of grabbing a coffee with Max and Josh Scott-Slade who make up Johnny Two Shoes, and are probably best know for their great game, Plunderland. I saw on Twitter that they were heading to the fine city of Norwich to take a lecture at Norwich University College of the Arts, so dropped them an email cheekily asking if we could meet up. Because they’re such nice people, they agreed, and so I had a chance to ask them about how they got to where they are and what it takes to build a successful iOS indie games company. I thought it would be good to share some of the key things I picked up.

Work for hire always sucks

Having read up on what the Johnny Two Shoes boys had done in the 3 to 4 years since starting, I noticed that they had quite a few client projects in the mix for big names like Channel 4. As someone who freelances making non-game apps, I wondered whether this might be a good direction to head in, and I still think it might be a good direction to head in as a stepping stone, but Max and Josh helped me to realise that that’s not the end goal. The truth is making games for someone else limits your creative freedom and never has as much earning potential as you could have making something you want to make. Stressing out with deadlines working on stuff you don’t enjoy doing just isn’t worth it. The guys say with the success of Plunderland, they’re now done with freelance work — good for them!

Make the game you want to make

You’ve probably seen similar advice before, but I think it’s worth repeating as it’s an easy trap to fall into, particularly when success eludes you. Don’t try and copy someone else’s game or make something that you think other people might enjoy but you yourself won’t. Make the game you want to make — the game you’d enjoy playing. That’s what JohnnyTwoShoes set out to do with Plunderland, and Max told me he still plays it on the tube because he enjoys it. This has the effect of making the game really fun for you, and if you find it fun, there’s a good chance other people will love it too.

Marketing is overrated

Journalists only want to write about stuff from people they already know: people who are already popular. Once you’re at that point, then they’ll be asking you if they can review your app, not the other way around. Knowing the right people obviously helps, but the really key thing is to make a game that people will talk about.

It takes time … keep going!

Max mentioned he’d been making games for 13 years, which is quite impressive for someone in their mid-twenties. We talked about how Angry Birds was Rovio’s 52nd game that they made. Whatever looks like an overnight success from the outside always has years of working away unnoticed preceding it. I think the best advice I got from Josh and Max was just to keep going. Keep making games you love and build on the experience gained from each one. Nothing happens overnight, so I need patience, passion and determination to keep going.

Thanks again to Max and Josh for taking time out to meet with a random guy who follows them on Twitter! You guys are awesome.

Originality seems to be one of those issues that I keep on thinking about time and again. I guess it’s natural when you’re trying to be creative on demand in order to make a living to be questioning how much you should be “borrowing” from others. This week, like most weeks, I started work on a new game (although I’ve got a good feeling about this one!) which got me thinking again about the nature of originality.

I probably don’t have the best track record when it comes to making original games. Brainz is the numbers game from Countdown, and Flying Cats started with the thought that I could make something a bit like Fruit Ninja. My new game, at least initially, is going to be similar to a Wii Party mini-game and will take place in a world inspired by Studio Ghibli films. The question in my mind is is this a bad thing to be doing?

It would seem that being similar to existing games certainly doesn’t hinder success. When Tiny Wings got popular, people started pointing to other games with a similar mechanic that already existed but few people had previously heard of. Harbour Master was a deservedly successful game, made by Keith and Natalia who are loved and respected by the indie community, but it did attract more than a couple of comparisons to Flight Control. But both are great games in their own right. Even Donkey Kong bears a slight resemblance to Space Panic.

Truth is that there’s nothing new under the sun. Everything is some form of evolution of what has come before, and there’s nothing stopping two people having the same idea either. I wrote a brief for a game idea I had at the end of last year that looked like this:

“The idea is for an side-scrolling iPhone game where you must avoid the rain and stay dry. Rather than jumping on moving platforms, you must pay attention to what happens above you and time running for cover. The above action will involve various monsters that go about their daily lives in the world above, but will stop rain from falling beneath them. It will also combine RPG elements, by being able to spend gold collected on power-ups.”

Imagine my surprise when I saw The Rainy Day appear on the App Store. So many aspects of my idea are in this game, from the concept, to the wet-gauge, to the background story. They just made it less awesome. No matter how unique you think your idea is, someone could easily come up with something similar.

I’ve said before that originality shouldn’t be king, but our primary focus should be on implementation. That’s not to say we become rip-off merchants, and I think you can trust your conscience to tell you when that is what you’re doing. Whatever unique and amazing idea you come up with, there will always be parallels to be drawn with other games. And that’s OK. We make games out of who we are — they are creations that reflect us, our personality and our likes and dislikes. Who we are is made up everything that we’ve experienced, watched and played. So if your game starts to look like something you’ve seen before, don’t freak out — it’s all part of the creative process. Just make sure that the end product is great in it’s own right.