ZuluOneZero is the name I was given as a bicycle courier in London.  I liked it and started using it as a moniker.  When I started looking into making games seriously and independently there was way too much going on in the grey matter so I fractured my mind.  There is a lot to designing games by yourself: the art, programming, music, animation, promotion, audio effects, UI, 3D and 2D assets, mathematics, optimisation…the list can be endless.  It was easier to make up a whole team to handle all the different elements of the process.  I found myself working through little dialogues between “team members”, just like I would in a real game studio, to help smooth my brain through the transition processes.  I liked it. It felt kooky and fun.

The internal team are:

ZuluOneZero – That’s me – I’m the only real person in this house.
Xander Blain – Developer
Trixie Lightfoot – Developer – artist
Brian Melloncamp – Finance
Harmony Cage and Felicity Mendleson- Marketting
Gene Goldenberry – artist
Baron Von Hummbolt – audio technologist / musician

So for example when I was looking at buying a new domain name Zander and Harmony would both argue with Brian about what was best for the “company”.  Then Brian would come  back with a very sensible, “Well kids that’s all well and nice to have a .com, .com.au, and a .net.au address but to tell the truth we only got $460 back on the Tax Return so you can only get a .net address this year. Maybe Santa will bring you another domain later in the year”.

As you can see Brian is a little condescending to the “pie-in-the-sky” Xander who wants everything and the “put-your-best-foot-forward” Harmony who just want’s to be able to do her job.

Xander is a great developer. He’s analytical and “patient” (read stubborn) and can test the bejesus out a problem ten ways to Mary.

Trixie does the crafty coding and eases the transition into managing the artwork and talking to Gene.  Xander and Gene can rub the wrong way sometimes.

Brian is… well.. Brian.  I like Brian. He keeps me honest.

Harmony and Felicity are tireless promoters of my work. Because let’s face it I’m an extreme introvert. Talking to people and being social sucks my energy.  But they lap it up like two cute puppies in a bowl of milk.  I don’t know why there are two of them but they work on commission and seem to feed off each other’s energy.

Gene is the man – there is nothing he can’t draw or sculpt.

The Baron is older than the rest of the team and I suspect he’s been in my head for a long time.  I love him like a brother but I think he might be a little crazy.  He’s lazy and talented and only does things that he likes doing. But every once in a while he can be a musical genius.

Anyway this worked in the beginning but now it’s mostly just me…still.

Zulu in real life has an Honours Degree in Art History which used to be called Fine Arts until the Department wanted to get away from the “Fine” aspect of “Art”.   He was a curator and exhibitions co-ordinator in an Australian state gallery. Spent a lot of time working in specialist bookshops. Is a multi-instrumentalist and wanted to be a ‘real’ musician. Trained as a sculptor in the Classical Russian tradition. Worked as a bicycle courier long enough to get a call sign (z10).  Started in IT before people had personal email addresses and is a *Nix guru. Works now as an IT Architect for a super massive Ziabatsu but still makes games.