Auroch Digital is a video games and digital media consultancy. We can help you develop or update a gaming strategy, design and produce a game or other digital artefact for you, or support your projects in various ways. Our clients include The Wellcome Trust, the second largest charitable foundation in the world and the University of the West of England (UWE), one of Britain’s most popular universities, based in Bristol, UK. You can contact us at debbie at aurochdigital dot com. Here’s an idea of what we do:
Gaming Strategies
Games are expensive to produce, but can have amazing results, provided they are done correctly. We can generate a gaming strategy for your organisation; we’ll be looking what types of games might assist your aims, on what platforms and how it fits your organisation as a whole (some thoughts on this topic from our blog…). We can also advise on an existing development strategy, helping you improve what you do already.
Digital Production
We can produce games, digital projects and other creative ventures for your organisation. We have a wealth of experience producing projects on a whole host of platforms, timescales and budgets. Recent examples include producing the digital accompaniment to the Wellcome Trust’s highly regarded ’Dirt’ Season. The game ‘Filth Fair’, described by the technology blog Nine Over Ten as, “…an amazing and beautiful piece of art melded with tough trivia gameplay. [We are] proud to present it with a 4.5 out of 5 rating.” Design Week described it as ‘captivating’, remarking that the game was, “a great way to get people engaged with the exhibition’s theme and objects.” It is not just games we produce; other examples of projects we’ve produced are; a panel for Develop Conference and Bristol Game Jam (part of the Global Game Jam).
Filth Fair Screenshot: The game was No.1 in the US iTunes Store for Education and Trivia.
Evaluation, Design & More
We can also help with evaluating your current project/s and how to improve on future developments (thoughts on this topic from our blog). We can provide a game design, whether an initial concept, right through to a full game design document, for example Bag It & Bin It game for Wessex Water.
We can help with game balancing (helping to get the fun and difficulty curve of your game just right), development process evaluation (assisting in improving the way you make games and their impact on the player), presentations (from talking at your events to helping you improve your presentations and pitches).
We can also assist with designing and delivering topic specific workshops, facilitating ideas sessions, practical sessions on many aspects of games and technology (thoughts on this topic from our blog).
"I haven’t been able to put this game down Im shattered today as I stayed up until 4 am trying to recapture a moon I has lost only going to sleep after my battery died !!. SCORE 94%" bone-idle.ie review of Savage Moon: The Hera Campaign (PSP)
More about us…
Auroch Digital was founded by games and digital media veteran, Tomas Rawlings. Tomas worked as a computer games designer for Hothouse Creations and Pivotal Games for PC, Dreamcast, PlayStation2 and Xbox. He has also worked as an associate lecturer at Bridgwater College on matters of media and technology and computer games. He is the co-author of the first ever book on filmmaking and the Internet: PlugIn&TurnOn: A Guide to Filmmaking for the Internet, (Marion Boyars, 2004) and has published various articles on technology, see below for details. He is currently working on a PhD examining evolutionary theory and networked forms of media and has just been informed that a new piece from his PhD, Understanding the Evolution of Technology Through P2P Systems and Its Impact on Learning Environments, will be published! Tomas has been a guest speaker at many European conferences to present his research findings aswell as in his current home town of Bristol and throughout the UK. Tomas was the co-founder of FluffyLogic and the Development Director for 6 years until September 2010 when he left to start Auroch Digital Ltd.
Tomas addressing the eComm conference 2009 in Amsterdam
Tomas’s Game & Appography …
- Abomination: The Nemesis Project (PC) – Level design, testing, interface and other design tasks
- Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (Dreamcast, PC & Playstaion) – Script-writing, testing and liaising with the IP holder
- Conflict: Desert Storm (PC, Playstation2, xbox, Gamecube) – Testing, gameplay evaluation and multiplayer lobby design
- The Great Escape (PC, Platstation2, xbox) – Based on the 1963 film, he was Lead Designer on this title. It charted in the UK at no.2
- Conflict: Desert Storm II (PC, Playstation2, xbox, Gamecube) – Testing and gameplay evaluation
- Conflict: Vietnam (PC, Platstation2, xbox) – Level design and scripting, script-writing and testing
- The Dark Mirror (paper RPG supplement) – Developed and wrote
this add-on for the Call of Cthulthu RPG game which sees the players as the cultists rather then those trying to stop them - Hidden Danger UXB! (iPaq) – A GPS game for Hewlett Packard’s Mscapes platform. Lead Designer on this title which included an online user-generated content system
- Savage Moon & Waldgeist DLC (Playstation3) – Lead Designer on this title, pushed the media campaign for the game and did the follow-up community support. This was the top selling full game on PSN for the period following it’s release
- Savage Moon: The Hera Campaign (PSP) – Lead Designer on this title, follow-up community support and media campaign
- Star Wars: The Battle for Hoth (iPhone, WM7 and iPad) – Lead Designer on this title and responsible for community support and the media campaign. The game hit number 6 in the US paid App charts
- Eat Them! (Playstation3) – Another PSN title for Sony – Monster-smashing action game. I was the Development Director during most of this title’s development period, so co-ordinating and involved in design, testing and fan and press outreach. Here’s a review
- Filth Fair (iPhone, iPad, Flash) – I produced this game for the Wellcome Trust. It was a no.1 trivia and word puzzle game on iPad. There is lots of information about the game here
- Cthulhu Christmas Calendar – Red Wasp Design, an indie dev studio I’m part of. “Red Wasp has produced perhaps the most interesting iPad advent calendar ever.” DigitallyDownloaded.net
- Bag It & Bin It – A game for Wessex Water to help people have fun and learn how to save water and dispose of waste correctly. We were part of the design process on this game
- Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land (iPhone, iPad) – Game based on the cult writer H.P.Lovecraft and also on the paper RPG ‘Call of Cthulhu’ which has got some great reviews and was no.1 in the UK RPG category of the App Store
Some of Tomas’ writings…
- PlugIn&TurnOn: A Guide to Filmmaking for the Internet. Published by Marion Boyars Publishers (May 2004)
- The world’s best video diarists (The Independent)
- Open source websites: All change on the internet (The Independent)
- New Media: Who are the real winners now we’ve all gone Wiki-crazy? (The Independent)
- Narrative and Interactivity (originally for Develop magazine)
- The Future of Consoles (Gamezebo.com)
- How to Start a Games Development Studio – Parts 1, 2 and 3 (Gamezebo.com)
- Writings for the Wellcome Trust Blog – Deus Ex, the Scientific State of Mind, Crysis & the Biological Singularity
...its depth and challenge make The Battle For Hoth one of the best tower defense games on the App Store." Gamezebo review (iPhone version screenshot)
Sample Public Speaking & Talks…
- Audio Visual production with FOSS tools (Glasgow, 31st October 2004)
- Video Vortex, Reflections on YouTube (Belgium, 5th October 2007)
- How to Design Computer Games, Skill Swap (Bristol, 28th June 2008)
- Develop, Diegetic Media (Brighton, November 16th 2009)
- eComm, Technology and Biological Evolution (Amsterdam 28th October 2009)
- Pervasive Media Studio Talks; Software Palaeontology (Bristol, 16th November 2009)
- Virt3c@Hull, Evolutionary p2p Systems (Hull, 20th March 2010)
- OKCon, The Evolution of Software: Why Open Beats Closed (London, 24th April 2010)
- Develop, Why are Games Sequels So Often Better Than Film Sequels (Brighton, 16th July 2010)
- Develop, Panel discussion about games beyond the console (Brighton, 20th July 2011)
- Strange Seeds: The Ethics of Artificial Sperm and Eggs (London, 13th October 2011, Chair and facilitation of event)
PS. Aurochs, if you were wondering, is the ancestor of the domesticated cattle we see today. They were huge wild animals with a shoulder height of around 2m…
…we like the conjunction of something ancient with something very modern, with our own twist, hence, we are Auroch Digital!
For more information, contact Debbie Connor, our Operations Manager on debbie@aurochdigital dot com
