The Clockwork Bird duo are going separate ways

Hello Clockwork Flock,

I’m afraid I have some disappointing news to share with you. To rip the band-aid off quickly, I’ll get right to it: Danny, the other founder of Clockwork Bird, has had to leave the studio. 

Why?

The reason is simple: Clockwork Bird has always struggled to make ends meet, and we finally ran out of money. To be honest, we’ve squeaked through a number of crunch-points similar to this. Before Silicon  Dreams was finished we almost ran out of capital twice, and were saved by coronavirus grants from our local government and by some project-changing prizemoney and feedback from Game Dev Days Graz. After Silicon Dreams launched, we would have been totally sunk if I hadn’t already been offered freelance work writing for Star Dynasties. And at the start of 2023 we were on the brink of financial ruin once again, and were saved by an out-of-the-blue offer to design and write The Hidden Isle, our beloved tabletop RPG project.

But this time our luck seems to fully run out: despite looking for contract work to keep us afloat, we couldn’t find anything this time around within the timeframe we needed. It seems like there’s not many large narrative gigs out there, or if there are, we couldn’t find them.

This is a pretty upsetting place to be, since Danny and I are best friends and we really enjoy working together. But it is what it is, and we both agree that it’s probably for the best. When we founded Clockwork Bird, we defied established gamedev wisdom: we were taking a narrative/writing/game design expert who can also code (me), and pairing him with a narrative/writing/game design expert (Danny). There’s no doubt that combination led to some excellent writing, narrative and game design (see Silicon Dreams, and see The Hidden Isle when it launches!), but in gamedev you’re normally told to shore up our weaknesses – in my case, mostly art – and only dig into our strengths when that’s been taken care of. We ignored that wisdom, and while it was a blast, it was not, in hindsight, the most sensible way to grow my business. I’m still glad we tried.

What next?

Well, Danny is looking for other gamedev jobs in our area so we’ll see what comes of that. I’ll post about any cool projects that he’s a part of, so you can keep following his progress.

In the meantime, the studio’s coffers are not completely empty, so I’m going to use what’s left to create a small narrative game that plays to my strengths. If I only need to pay myself, rather than two people, then this new game only has to sell modestly to keep me going. So you haven’t seen the last of Clockwork Bird, but it will be a one-person operation from now on. You will still be able to follow my progress by staying subscribed to this newsletter. Perhaps one day, when I am rolling in millions, I will be able to bankroll working with Danny again – we’ll just have to see what the future brings.

So, that’s it for now! Sorry I don’t come with happier news. Hopefully my next update will be much more upbeat!