Meet the Magnopians: James Carolan
James is a passionate and ambitious game designer with eight years of industry experience across AAA and indie games covering a variety of genres, including strategy, platformer, rhythm, and more. At Magnopus, James brings his keen eye for design and collaborative spirit to several projects, many of which are still closely guarded secrets!
Tell us more about your role at Magnopus
I’m a designer at Magnopus, with a background in game design. My job can differ day-to-day, but generally, I’m involved with the conception, design, and implementation of certain aspects of the interactive experiences we make. I’ve been involved with several different projects, but the one I can talk about, and am very proud to have had a hand in, is Metallica: Fuel. Fire. Fury. – a Fortnite concert we created for Epic Games, which you can read more about here!
What made you decide to pursue a career in this field?
Hogs of War is a turn-based tactical warfare game where users take turns controlling members of their squad of hogs to engage in combat with the opposition. Credit: Steam.
Like many people who end up working in games and interactive media, I chose to pursue this career because I love playing games!
I have such vivid, cherished memories of sitting with my dad on the living room floor, playing Hogs of War together, laughing hysterically, and teaming up to try to beat the “cheating computer,” which always managed to land every shot perfectly. Bathed in the dim light of a television that was so chunky, if it fell forward, it might have ended my career before it even began. Thank goodness my mum was always close by!
What piece of advice would you give to someone wanting to pursue your career?
Start making games now. They don’t have to be pretty, they don’t have to be complicated. Heck, they don’t even have to be good (and trust me, the first few definitely won’t be). But please, just start making games.
Developing games in your spare time is a great way to find out if you actually enjoy making them or if you just enjoy playing them. And if you find that you do enjoy making games, it’ll help you figure out which parts of the development process you enjoy most, such as art, design, engineering, etc.
Also, if you’re reading this and the first thing that comes to mind is that it’s already too late for you, then you’re wrong! With all the free software, online tutorials, game development communities, and more, it has never been easier or more accessible to get into making games. So please, from one game dev to another potential future game dev; just start making games, and good luck!
A little birdie told us you’ve self-funded, designed, and published two of your very own games. Tell us about that process, and something you learned while doing it.
I moved back in with my parents, sold my car, and then developed a game almost entirely on my own – just to prove to myself I had what it takes to be my own boss. Once that game was made, I set up my indie studio, including all the wonderful paperwork involved with tax, bank accounts, insurance, etc., and then published my game for free.
Not long after, I began conceptualising the next game, and soon after that, I began scouting for all the people I’d need to help me create it – artists, sound designers, musicians, etc. Where we didn’t have the budget, or if it was an area I felt at least semi-confident tackling, I filled in the gaps.
I spent my days making games, and my nights working in pubs. That then became my days working in restaurants, and my nights making games. Before I knew it, a couple of years had passed, and we’d made and published another game!
Shortly after, I ended up working full-time for another game studio, and because of the commitment required, I decided to close my own. Don't worry – I was the only employee. Everyone I’d worked with previously was a contractor, and their work was already complete. If they had been employees, it would have been a very different situation.
All in all, the entire experience taught me so much, but for the sake of time, I’m going to share what was perhaps the most important thing that I learned: you must take care of yourself. I was working two full-time jobs, one making games and one tending bars/waiting tables, and all that came of it was a bad case of burnout. So please, if you’re thinking about making games, put your health and your financial stability first, and remember, it’s not a race.
What’s your favourite thing to do when you’re not working?
This is going to sound so mushy, but, hand-on-heart, my absolute favourite thing to do when I’m not working is just spending time with my best friend, Katie – my wife. We could be doing something as exciting as white water rafting, or something as mundane as folding laundry, but as long as we’re together, we never stop laughing. Our favourite thing to do together is travel…and play co-op games.
If you were on a game show, what would be your specialist subject?
Probably SpongeBob SquarePants quotes. I don’t even know how you could fashion that into a game show topic, but I know that if you could, I’d be high up on that leaderboard, without a doubt.
If you had unlimited resources and funding, what project or initiative would you launch?
I would love to start an Indie Game Studio Incubator: an organization that provides new and upcoming indie developers with resources, support, funding, etc.
So many of the best games I’ve played over the past decade have been indie titles. Often titles that failed to garner funding from mainstream publishers because their work was seen as “taking too many risks”, ultimately culminating in them self-funding, crowdfunding, or, for the lucky few, pairing with a smaller publisher who was willing to take a chance on them.
Those are the people I want to see flourish and succeed, and if I can help them do that, I will. Because what the world needs now, more than ever, are more games that are just plain weird and unique. Here’s looking at you, Lethal Company.
How do you approach challenges and setbacks?
I take a step back.
For challenges, it allows me to break down a seemingly insurmountable task into smaller, more manageable, actionable steps to achieving the whole. Remember: any big, complicated thing that does a lot is just a combination of several little things that do one particular thing.
For setbacks, it allows me to frame the setback against the whole and see how serious it really is. More often than not, it’s far worse in my head than it actually is, helping me to dive right back in. And worst case scenario – that it is as bad as it seems – it helps me plan and prioritise the solution, taking into account any other work or features that the setback may affect.
At the end of the day, it’s important to remember that nothing’s as bad as it seems, and nothing’s impossible.
If you could invite three guests (dead or alive) to a dinner party, who would you invite?
Easy: Steve Buscemi, Will Ferrell, and Robin Williams.
Why? Because, beyond their numerous influential acting roles and beyond their incredibly interesting personal lives (which, don’t get me wrong, I absolutely want to dig into with them), they just seem like nice people.
