- Firstly, and most obviously, what's it like to work on a boat? What do you find the most difficult and what do you enjoy the most about it?
Our studio is subject to the whims of nature. Because our vessel moves with the wind, the view from our window changes all the time. Our work schedule is tied to hours of sunlight. The most difficult aspect of working from a boat is power management, as we have to size our projects to the energy we have stored, but it is also what we enjoy the most because we thrive within constraints.
- Why and when did you both want to take your life onto the seas?
We lived in Japan for a few years prior to moving aboard Pino in 2016. We found that working while traveling impacted our projects in positive ways. We wanted to keep moving, but also wanted to exit the loop of buying and selling the various things you need when moving abroad(furniture, tools, etc).
A sailboat solved our issues with travel. Lack of experience aside, we knew we could learn to sail and thought that traveling was a good catalyst for learning new languages, developing interests in foreign cultures and ultimately for building empathy, curiosity, and creativity; traits that we value and believe that, as a species, will need to foster if we want to survive the years to come.
- Favourite games to play? Do you play any while your sailing or stick to working on your own projects?
We work on our own projects mainly, but we enjoy playing card games in the evening. We enjoy games like like Hanabi and Star Realms. We play games on our Retro Pi too, we completed Zelda: Minish Cap together while in the Marshall islands. We don't play games whilsts sailing, we prefer to read books or listen to music and podcasts. We only ever play games while at anchor, but we definitely spend most of our time working on personal projects. Devine maintains a list of favourite games here.
What's it like building games and software on the ocean?
Our experiences continue to change how we work and think. We operate on a loose schedule, we have to make room for the unexpected, as conditions change quickly on a boat. On sunny days, we have plenty of power and working is easy, but when the weather turns our priorities change. Work is second to safety.
How do you overcome brain fog and development struggles when confined in a small space?
The space doesn't feel small, we do our best work aboard Pino. Our boat has large windows and a lot of room to walk around on deck. When near land and struggling with a project, we go out for a walk, a swim or do some maintenance work outside. We use our time at sea to plan projects. We take notes and talk things out, we don't do any drawing or coding and prefer to let our minds wander. Because we brainstorm on passage, in an environment with few distractions, we don't suffer from brain fog often.
What hardware and software do you use?
Devine has a Macbook Pro 2012, and Rekka has a Macbook 2011. We both run the Elementary OS GNU/Linux operating system, and we both use intuos tablets. Rekka draws using Krita, and writes with Left. Devine writes music in Orca, and create procedural graphics with various homebrew tools.
How do you get upgrades or deal with hardware troubleshooting?
We repair our working computers when they fail, sourcing parts when we are near ports. We use Raspberri pi computers as backups, if ever we can't get the parts that we need. We prefer to continue repairing our devices than to purchase new ones, as discarded electronics don't always get recycled properly, and clog up landfills. Redundancy is important, as boats exist in a very hostile environment.
- What inspirations (or lack thereof) does sailing the world give to your creative mind when building games on the seas?
Learning to repair, and maintain a boat has advised the way we build things now. We like to think that we approach sailing and living on the water according to some of the unix tenets:
- Write simple modular parts connected by clean interfaces.
- When a program must fail, it should fail noisily and as soon as possible.
- Design for the future, because it will be here sooner than you think.
Working according to the sun and the wind has been an excellent exercise toward mindfulness, something we much needed to better navigate today's attention economy. We learned to do more with less.
- Combining Rekka's unique illustrations with David's programming skills has resulted in some wonderful projects. How did you two initially meet and how did you come to the realisation to build games?
We met through common friends. We collaborated early on, we published books and made toys together, games came later. We started working on Oquonie a few months after Devine's first commercial release, having gathered the skills necessary to make more complex projects.
Secondly, how do you not go insane and kill each other from seeing each other so much?
We've lived together since 2007, mostly working from home, with our space growing smaller and smaller overtime. By the time we moved aboard Pino, we were already accustomed to eachother's quirks. Because we have compatible personalities and a similar work ethic, there is little animosity to begin with. As a preventive measure, we discuss problems when they arise so they don't have time to fester.
- How does working on a boat give you an edge upon working in at an office or at home?
Considering that we both cannot deal with working at a desk, and within rigid schedules, working aboard does not give an edge over someone who is comfortable at office work, but we both know that we find our best selves when working close to nature.
- Are you currently working on or thinking about building any new game or software projects?
Always. We'd like to build a Paint Program for the Famicom written in 6502 assembly, in the vein of MacPaint. We are currently creating small tools for macintosh(1991) in Pascal, we like exploring new ideas with old systems, and so hopefully give old electronics a second life.
- What are your ultimate project goals while sailing the world? What do you want to build and achieve?
We want to inspire people to do more with less, to promote a culture of re-use by producing inspectable, repairable and backward-compatible software and games.
Finally, is there anything you'd like to share or add?
Nope.