You found my secret page offering real-world consulting sessions at UKGE!
I don’t just offer these to anyone, naturally.
This is your chance to meet up in real life during the UK Games Expo to chat about your game.
These consultations are one hour, cost 50 quid, and will focus on your game(s), design(s), etc.
Let’s chat about any and all of the following:
- 1 on 1 Playtesting at any stage of development
- Brainstorming ideas to make your game better
- Developing your game to the finish line
- Discovering the feelings and emotions during your game
- Finding the hook for your game
- Finding the right publishers to pitch
- Finding the right questions to ask
- Game design โ theory and application
- Math, probability, balance, and building a spreadsheet for your game
- Pitching and practicing
- Sanity-checking the game โ putting your game through the ringer to see if it survives
- Tabletop Simulator โ uploading, understanding, optimizing, and other best practices
- Teaching a game so playtesters will understand
- UI / UX โ make everything easy to understand
- Understanding the publisher-designer relationship
- Writing the rules to your game
The goal is to have the one-hour session end with a clearer understanding of what you want from your game, along with a few next steps to take.
Frequently Asked Questions
- When is UKGE again? May 31st – June 2nd, 2024 from 10am-6pm on Friday and Saturday and 10am-4pm on Sunday.
- Where should we meet? Suggest meeting by the Wetherspoons by hall 2, but if you have a booth I’m happy to meet you there.
- I can’t make it to UKGE…! It’s all good – always happy to meet online for a more typical consulting session.ย
- What should I bring to prepare? Your prototypes (if you want to discuss them), a list of questions or things you’d like to learn, and a smile =)
Previous clients and testimonials
“We just hired Chris Backe to consult with us before we start pitching our game to publishers and it was a big help. Chris gave us a lot of helpful advice on focusing our materials more toward what publishers actually want to see. I just wanted to give him a shout out. Highly recommended!โ
Brett Trout, game designer
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“…your meeting was extremely insightful and proved to give me tons of helpful pointers making my journey as a developer much more clear. I feel like I dodged bullets and got refined direction from you!”
Ryan K., game designer
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“Chris has a wide breadth of game knowledge and an excellent eye for quality game mechanics.ย He was very comprehensive with me on the feedback he gave.ย He’s extremely easy to work with and I was glad I got a chance to have help me on my game.”
Taylor Hayward, designer of ‘Dawn’
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“I think direction was the real value. Actions I can take, are always more helpful than ideas. “Define the high level look of the game-play, and focus on creating a polishing introduction scenario experience.” In my situation, with where my head was at before, that advice was incredibly helpful.”
Jason Terry, game designer
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Chris Backe helped us develop our game Mโฑฅhr during the past year and it is fair to say that without his expertise we would not have brought the game to the state it is in: fully developed, playtested and ready for production. Would we recommend Chris to other game designers? Hell yeah! And we will hire him again for our next project.
Benjamin Effer, designer of Mโฑฅhr