Beasts of Balance remembered
A few years ago videogames were bursting at the bezels of their monitors to get out of the screen and join us in the real world. A number of the major publishers all had a swing at adding some NFC / RFID fun onto their work, with varying degrees of success. Toys to life!
Given their privileged position of being able to work from a strong, family-friendly character line-up as a starting position, it's not surprising that the most successful of the rush was Nintendo with their Amiibo line.
It was another good few years for plastics.
Activision's Skylanders were ubiquitous for a while, driving some 300 million toys to be sold, but by 2017 the market was largely saturated. Activision canned Skylanders and even the seemingly invulnerable LEGO juggernaut hit its first real videogame flop with LEGO Dimensions, also cancelled in 2017.
Enter the Indies
In the middle of all of this, entered another project that took a wholly different route. The brainchild of a number of Hide & Seek alumnus, led by the irrepressible Alex Fleetwood, Beasts of Balance burst onto the scene with a breezy confidence back in 2015. A defiantly indie project, but launching with the brand swagger of a the kind of a toy you'd see on the shelves, it was an intriguing proposition, a pioneer of a new kind of plaything.
Everyone was rooting for it to succeed...
The lovely (and he is) Alex Fleetwood has written an account of the lessons from its creation. Daily cashflows, lens bias (that was an interesting metaphor, I remember we used to think of it as drinking in different pubs) - there's lots to learn and nod at in his 22 point analysis. I'm glad to read the team are proud of it. "Creativity in transition", indeed.
