GUILFORD — Most people in search of country life in 1999 still did not place high-speed internet service at the top of their essentials list. Julie Beet and Elliott Mitchell did.
For the cofounders of Vermont Digital Arts - a software-development studio specializing in design and coding of computer games of all types on both mobile and desktop platforms - the rest was rural southern Vermont predictable: a sweet house, acreage for an ample garden and a bucolic spot.
Bees - which would later serve as a central theme in their newest game, Waggle Words - did not make the list.
Beet grew up roughly 30 minutes south in Greenfield, Mass. While house hunting, Beet was pregnant with their first child. The western Massachusetts hilltowns didn't have high-speed internet. (Some still don't.)
At the time, Adelphia provided cable service to Southern Vermont - and promised residents high-speed Internet service but left the area.
Comcast took over the franchise, but the company “had to honor the commitment to provide correct infrastructure,” says Beet.
As a result, the couple managed to wrangle a broadband connection from the cable behemoth. “High-speed Internet is what allowed us to live here,” Mitchell said, gesturing toward the window from the studio outbuilding behind their home.
For the couple, work and family, technology and rural life meld in a New England 21st-century, unplugged, high-speed jumble. Until recently, both daughters, 18 and 14, respectively, were home-schooled, primarily by Beet.
Mitchell, whose Master of Fine Arts from Bennington College was in digital art, taught digital and 3-D art at his alma mater, as well as in Massachusetts at Greenfield Community College and Springfield College until 2008.
That's when Vermont Digital Arts launched.
Cue the bees
Art runs in the family. “Both girls like to make art on paper. I think that hands-on experience is really important,” Mitchell notes. “I came to digital art through painting and sculpture making.”
Beet's hands-on endeavors include a large garden, a small orchard - and a beehive. Concerned about bees' disappearance worldwide, and eager to attract pollinators close to home, she began beekeeping four years ago.
“I knew bees would be good for the garden and the orchard. The honey was secondary,” Beet says. “I fell in love with beekeeping.”
In the meantime, says Beet, “Our younger daughter was really into two games: a word game, Spell Tower, and Chip Chain, a casino-based number game. She suggested it'd be cool to combine both games' elements into one.”
Cue the bees.
Mesmerized by their sounds and configurations, Beet got out cardboard and markers, old school.
“Bees move in a figure-eight-shaped motion called a 'waggle,'” Beet explains. “I thought about the construction of the hive. Something was clicking. I got into the game. It was a more flower-power feeling game when I began, but it evolved.”
The end result shed its Vermont-hippie-beekeepers-homesteading vibe. But the hive remained an important element of the game - and the name stuck.
As described on the Vermont Digital Arts website, Waggle Words “is a strategic word search game set inside a beehive,” where “[f]lying letters, chains of words, and a swarming hive keep the energy high.”
Beet didn't work alone. Her daughters drew by hand the game's protagonist, the Bee Lady, as well as the game's scrolling artwork.
Despite their contributions to the product, “Neither is interested in joining the business at this point,” Mitchell says.
“They need some distance from us, after all the years of homeschooling,” Beet adds.
But both daughters have creative ideas percolating, and while there's no discussion of family business per se, Beet and Mitchell can imagine future collaborations.
The first, Spin Spell, Mitchell describes as “a cool idea” that took just two months to develop.
In contrast, Waggle Words, the company's second game, was complex and, all told, took four years.
The game, launched on the iOS App Store last fall, uses augmented reality, a technology that superimposes graphic visuals on the real world as seen through a smartphone's camera lens.
Also, Mitchell had to take breaks. “I'd work on the game; I'd stop for contract work, and then return to the game,” he says.
The most high-profile piece of contract work VDA has done to date is environment art on one of the virtual-reality pieces for Björk Digital, a traveling art exhibition in support of the Icelandic singer's Vulnicura album.
“Björk was very specific about what she wanted, how she wanted the piece to look, but she never communicated directly.” Mitchell has been busy with contract work ever since then.
Gaming out a strategy
According to Mitchell, it takes two to five years on average for a small studio to develop a complex game.
Mitchell used a software development platform called Unity, which, according to its developer's website, provides “the tools to create rich, interactive 2D, 3D, VR and AR experiences.”
As a cofounder and organizer of a Boston-area monthly gathering of developers who use Unity, Mitchell's connections helped him secure early access to VR prototypes critical to test his product.
The game business is enormous: before 2014, when there was more industry gatekeeping, about 300 games a year were released for PCs. After 2014, 4,000 games a month launched.
For game developers, challenges stack up: from how stiff the competition is, to how quickly technology rolls out and how little - if any - lead time is granted to determine how or whether your game works with new technology, a challenge that proves especially difficult for a small studio.
A designer like Mitchell essentially races to the starting line on every platform. Waggle Words, aided by its unique combination - it is both an AR/VR game and a word game - forged a small niche in a gigantic market.
Mitchell had to decide upon which platform on which Waggle Words would first be launched. People must purchase iPhone games, which he calls “a drawback, unless it really catches fire.” Yet, games on that platform can be ad-free.
Another potential advantage was that Apple, keen to join the augmented-reality game, urged Mitchell to launch there first. “I missed an opportunity to get in early for some virtual-reality platforms,” Mitchell says. “To go with Apple was a gamble, because Apple won't promise to feature [specific apps on the iOS App Store], and that's critical for success there.”
But the gamble paid off: Waggle Words was featured and broke away from the glut.
Consequently, “we reached sixth launching for paid word games on the app store,” Mitchell says. That week, the game got 11 million impressions, “although not that many sales.”
Beet and Mitchell had barely tested the game with consumers, although they demoed Waggle Words at Pax East, a game convention.
“In my mind, PaxEast attracts more hardcore gamers with interest in action games,” Mitchell says. “A large contingent also enjoys cosplay and attends the conference in elaborate costumes based on game characters.”
“Word games generally fall into the category of 'casual' games, and that demographic tends to be older,” he recalls. “I wasn't sure if there would be many attendees interested in a word game, but was pleasantly surprised to see people in full costume playing our game.”
According to the Vermont Digital Arts website, future development for Waggle Words includes development for OSX, AppleTV, and Android.
A creative process weaves through family life
“We are both basically homebodies,” Beet says. “We live at the end of a dirt road. I birthed our babies here. I homeschooled both kids. We organize work hours around kids' schedules. We sit down to dinner together every night as a family.”
“At dinner, the girls tell me, 'Put away the phone,'” Mitchell says. “When I'm on a deadline, which happens frequently, I find myself working constantly, literally pulling all-nighters.”
Over the last few years, Beet has become more involved with the business. Mitchell does most of the design and coding work; Beet focuses upon business development, marketing, and writing.
Beet requires quiet. Mitchell does not work in silence.
“He'll be bursting to share an idea,” Beet explains. “I'm working. 'Raise your hand,' I tell him.”
She relishes the fact that two days a week, Mitchell heads to Greenfield, where he sets up shop at Another Castle, a co-working space for game developers. He gets other developers to talk shop with; she gets peace. He also drops their younger daughter off to her homeschooling program en route.
“Between homeschooling, which had kids underfoot, and working with Elliott in this small studio, I haven't had much of a solo space for many years,” Beet says.
Another perk for her is access to new machines and gadgets without having to purchase each one.
The sustainability of a game-developers' coworking space is just one indicator of the growing concentration of independent developers in the area.
“When Waggle Words landed in the top-10 listing for new games on the App Store, two others on the list [at the same time] also originated locally,” Mitchell says.
Greenfield's HitPoint Studios is the largest area game design studio. This burgeoning community also inspired establishment of the Pioneer Valley Game Developers. “We're pioneers out in the wilderness. It's funny, because I had kids before many of the younger people in this industry, and when I've gone to do consulting in cities, plenty of developers were puzzled by my move to the country.
“Now, as they begin to have kids, they get it. Lifestyle, cost of living, less hassle.... More tech people who can work independently are moving here from places like Boston. They think we're living the dream here in the country.”
The rural tech-savvy cohort is small. When Waggle Words launched, Mitchell's friends “got it.” Beet's friends were another story entirely.
“I posted about the launch on Facebook,” Beet says. “In the homeschooling community, nobody gets what we do. They were calling me to ask whether I could help them get the game onto their phone or computer.”
She laughs. It's a contradiction she'll take.