Stuart Young
Failbetter Games
My start in tech was with IBM in 2012. I joined their graduate scheme as a business consultant and worked in a variety of roles; test, business analysis and product ownership, for clients and projects across varied sectors (finance, retail, public, defence).
In 2017 I decided to pursue a life ambition to work in games, and joined Bohemia Interactive Simulations as a team leader / product owner. A spin-off of the studio behind the ARMA games, this company makes military simulations which are used to train (only NATO-allied) forces in many different skills. During my time there I worked on a desktop trainer for a Swedish armoured vehicle for tank crews, and an artillery simulation add-on for their flagship “Virtual Battlespace” series.
In 2019 I took the next step in this career trajectory by joining Failbetter Games as their Senior Producer. I've worked on multiple projects at Failbetter.
- Sunless Skies
- A story-driven RPG set in a gothic science-fantasy universe with space trading, real-time ship combat and roguelite elements.
- Post-launch updates and console ports.
- Fallen London
- Text-based free to play browser game with revenue from subscriptions and in-game content purchase.
- I have produced all expansions to this long-running game since 2019, including major rejuvenation of the game with our “Ambitions”, “Railway” and “Zeefarer" programs.
- I am currently the product owner for Fallen London.
- Mask of the Rose
- An upcoming (June 2023) romantic novel, the prequel to our other games which are set in the “Fallen London” universe of dark fantasy and Victoriana. PC/Mac/Switch and other consoles TBC.
- As well as producing this game, I am also the sound designer.
Stuart Young is speaking at the following session/s
Five Practical Production Hacks
Production advice is often nebulous and theoretical, or very specific to one team. This is hardly surprising; it's a broad discipline and the work of different producers varies wildly. So in this session, I want to share some practical production behaviours that I've found useful, and you might too. Specific enough to be actionable, broad enough to be applied in other teams, these are five "production hacks" I've learnt on my journey that really pay off.
Session Takeaway
- You're not too small for build automation
- Meetings aren't free
- Use a scripting language
- Share the numbers
- Bundle your questions
Session speakers
