Xbox Game Studios Game Camp was founded in 2020 on the belief that exceptional talent is everywhere. The program aims to enable people from traditionally marginalized communities and non-traditional backgrounds to fulfill their potential in the gaming industry and build thriving gaming communities and industries in locations around the world.
In this Q&A series, we want to highlight the stories of Game Camp alumni with unique game development journeys. Today we are chatting with the CEO & Creative Director of LemonJuice Game Studio Austin-Taylor Caldwell, about his experiences at Game Camp and his current project, Beyond the night lighta 3D horror adventure game that sheds light on mental health and addiction.
Tell us about yourself (if applicable: your team and the game you’re working on)?
My name is Austin Taylor Caldwell. Like most people in the gaming industry, I grew up playing video games. However, from a young age I found it ridiculous to even consider pursuing a career in gaming. I grew up in the poorest county in my state, where resources and connections to the technology industry were extremely far and few. Fast forward to 2020, I decided to jump in at the deep end and founded LemonJuice Game Studio to make cinematic games in the horror genre. From solo development to game camp, LemonJuice now consists of 20 members working closely together on our current title. Beyond the night light. It’s a 3D horror adventure game that focuses on mental health and addiction in hopes of shedding light on the topic and potentially helping those who struggle with these illnesses every day.
Why did you decide to center? Beyond the night light about mental health and addiction?
Beyond the night light revolves around the study that when we die, our brain is active for seven minutes, during which time “our life flashes before our eyes”. Our protagonist Jolene is in her last seven minutes and doesn’t know it yet. She races through this strange world in a porcelain doll body, pursued by death to regain her memory of what happened to her and how to get a second chance at life.
I lost my mother to drug addiction in 2019 and that was probably the hardest point in my life. A year later, I found out from my therapist that I had both depression and anxiety…which didn’t help the situation. Beyond the night light is based on real trauma and real people’s experiences to show players struggling with similar, if not exact, issues that they are not alone.
“Xbox Game Studios Game Camp taught me things that would have taken me 10 years to learn otherwise. Game Camp helped me identify my development “superpower” and focus on it instead of getting bogged down.”
Austin-Taylor Caldwell, CEO and Creative Director of LemonJuice Game Studio
Before you visit Xbox Game Studios, join us through your game creation journey play camp?
Before game camp, I taught myself game design through Unreal Engine documentation and a lot of YouTube. Having a full-time job made it difficult, but not impossible, to find time to learn about game development. I woke up a few hours early to finish some lessons or add a new feature to my project, then went to work and used my lunch to research different systems or solve some problems I encountered that morning . When I returned home after work I really put a lot of work into it, staying up way later than I should to add more features to my project and learn everything I could to make a playable product.
What are some of the key takeaways from your Xbox Game Studios Game Camp experience?
Xbox Game Studios Game Camp taught me things that would otherwise have taken me 10 years to learn. Game Camp helped me identify and focus on my “superpower” in development, rather than skinny and trying to stand out everyone Department. That alone is invaluable, but beyond that it has also taught me how to lead a team, communicate and network to build lasting relationships, how to create and manage a development pipeline and much more. Game Camp really changed my life.
What excites you about the game development process?
Seeing the first prototype is a feeling that words cannot describe. Spending day after day creating this world and seeing it come to life is exciting. I really enjoy directing and seeing others get inspired and their eyes light up when they propose a new idea, that’s really what makes game development so beautiful.
What unique challenges have your development teams overcome? Were there any tools/services that helped overcome this?
The biggest challenge we faced was transitioning our 2D project from Unity to the 3D project it is now in Unreal Engine. It took a bit of rebuilding the code in another language to get going, but the Unreal Engine documentation helped us come together as a team, and now we’re back on the ground and sprinting!
Tell us about the tools you use for game development and why.
We use Unreal Engine 5 and Quixel Megascans for Beyond the night light . We chose to work with Unreal Engine 5 because the amount of tools provided for free really drives what we can achieve. Also, it’s great to have megasc ans that we can easily use and easily import into Unreal Engine to paint a very detailed and immersive environment.
Can you tell us about your experience working with an Xbox Game Studios mentor and what you learned about the game development process from them?
Working with our mentor Rosa Dachtler was a great experience. She was very helpful and always available to help in any way she could. In particular, she guided and supported us when we made an extreme change in production with only 2 weeks of production time left. She taught us how to build a strong narrative around action-packed gameplay and how departments can better communicate with each other throughout the design process.”
What’s next for LemonJuice after attending Xbox Game Studios Game Camp?
Game Camp equipped LemonJuice with the tools and knowledge needed to dive headfirst into the industry. We are currently in the final stages of completing our prototype for Beyond the night light. We intend to make it available to publishers so that LemonJuice as a collective can work on this project full time and be equipped with the necessary tools to make it as beautiful as we do to have presented. I have I’ve always dreamed big and it’s still my dream and goal for my business to become a 1st or 2nd party studio for Xbox Game Studios.
To learn more about Xbox Game Studios Game Camp, visit us xbox.com/gamecamp.
