You may know this already, but Talewind Studios is a fully remote company — our team members are scattered across the UK. We work with each other every day (well, 4 days a week) and the quality of remote collaboration has actually exceeded our expectations, so it turns out we don’t need to meet all that often for work purposes.
Fun purposes, on the other hand, are a completely different story.
During the summer we were hard at work, doing our best to finalise our flagship production, Breezy Bay, to be fit for testing purposes before the end of summer, so we couldn’t really close the company entirely. This is how we came up with the idea of the departmental trips instead. We divided Talewind into three teams: Devs, Artists, and Misfits (people who aren’t devs or artist jokingly refer to themselves as such), and the teams took their trips at different times. Which made them much easier to organise!
Dev Meet-up
All the devs came together to Leicester at the beginning of August. Unfortunately, this was right in the middle of a nationwide rail strike, so we had a few delays (allowing James and Drew to catch up a little bit, since they somehow managed to arrive early). Nevertheless, the Devs had fun that evening at Lane 7, a chain of entertainment facilities that contain things like bowling alleys, pool tables etc.
The group did some bowling, shot some hoops on the machines, and tried some air hockey, too! They also hit a Roam Dome, a VR experience. In the words of James, our lead developer:
“We did two groups and donned kits that went on our hands and feet and torso, so the tracking was really good. It was your class zombie survival situation. I played with Yahya and Max with myself being the most wasteful in terms of accuracy. Max topped that leaderboard with ease but a funny thing happened where his leg sensor ran out of battery, so his character was dragging a broken leg around for most of the time!”
Despite delays and other travel difficulties everybody still had a tremendous amount of fun!
“Leicester was an all-round great experience and left a solid impression. I had a blast catching up with the team over some chill drinks, as well as getting to meet Drew for the first time in the 10 years of knowing him. The VR experience was especially cool (and an extreme workout!)– I’d never envisioned shooting a bunch of zombies with my co-workers although this is 100% something I’d do again.”
Misfits Meet-up
Just two weeks later, the Misfits made their way to Manchester. They really lucked out on the weather, as it was a beautiful, hot couple of days. One of the main attractions was a Treasure Hunt — a paper chase kind of game, that brought the Misfits (divided further into 2 groups) on the walk around the city, pointing out the obvious and hidden points of interest alike, sneakily educating the Misfits about the place.
“Our department meet-up in Manchester was super fun! It was my first proper in-person meet up and I really enjoyed the face time and the chance to get to know my colleagues properly. We had some really fun activities planned, with dinner at Dishoom and a scavenger hunt of the city being my personal highlights. I can’t wait for the next one!”
The group went axe-throwing — an activity that is both stress-relieving and stress-inducing, which some managed to master more than others. At least it was a solid arm workout! After that, they tried shuffleboard — a much less violent game, but one that requirs a crazy amount of precision and dexterity!
“These meet-ups are such a tonic! I always leave feeling refreshed and have a sense of deeper connection with the rest of the team. It’s so important for our remote team to have the opportunity to goof around, have a laugh and enjoy each other’s company in true Talewind spirit!”
Artist Meet-Up
The art team met a few weeks ago, in the middle of September. They headed to Bristol, where they conquered a pirate-themed escape room. And it wouldn’t be an art meet-up without something to unleash creativity, so a pottery class was next on the itinerary — the Artists had lots of fun at the wheel, and left with a cute souvenir to take home with them.
The true highlight of the trip for me was the pottery class! It’s been a while since I made something non-digital so those 2 hours were a time of pure creativity, and a bit of terror as we were rushing to paint our clay creations before the time was up. We did perform well under pressure though (we are, after all, game devs) and so everybody’s clay work was marvelous. After a farewell pint, we parted ways and eagerly await the next meet-up.”
Also, rest assured all the participants of all the meet-ups stayed in comfy hotel rooms, had scrumptious food and drink in abundance, and made their way there and back safely!
Our next company-wide meeting will be taking place very soon, so stay tuned for that!
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