Tales from The Engine Room

Welcome to Tales from the Engine Room - where we meet the people who make up the Skiff, a co-working community in central Brighton.
Im Caroline Beavon …. a digital storyteller .. and I am a member of The Skiff too.
Across this series of 8 interviews we’ll meet freelancers, remote workers, solopreneurs and small team leaders asking the question - what are you working on today?
This week ...we meet Stuart Wallace - a freelance artist and developer who makes games and apps … who’s entering an exciting new phase of his career ….

Stuart Wallace: Well, today's kind of typical for me in that I'm doing a number of different things. So I basically spent this morning working on some personal game development projects, and then I'm spending this afternoon doing two or three little client app updates that need done as well.
Caroline Beavon (host): Is that that normal if you having kind of morning for, for your stuff and then afternoon for client work? Is that a, a sort of a, a, a habit that works for you?
Stuart Wallace: It's, it's fairly random, but it's something I'm, I'm trying out at the moment, but yeah, no, I, I, I absolutely make sure it's, so over the course of five days, I do probably about three to three and a half days of client work and then the other whatever is left, and it can be changeable to, based on how busy I am is, is then for my stuff. So, yeah. But yeah, I, I, I tend to try and do, if I'm gonna do my personal stuff, I'll do it for at least half a day if possible.
Caroline Beavon (host): And is that, is that something you know from yourself that you need a good runup, you know, you need a good chunk of time to really get your head into...
Stuart Wallace: I think so, yeah, so I previously used to just try and do literally every minute or hour I could find to do the personal stuff, which would mean, you know, from six in the morning till seven in the morning, or six at night till seven at night or, or whatever. But actually, having that slightly longer piece of time it makes you deliver something a bit better, hopefully a bit more consistent. Can you just get, simply get deeper into, obviously
Caroline Beavon (host): Yeah, of course, of course. So let's talk about, first of all, your personal projects. Cuz this is where I think actually, no, let's talk about your client work first.
I know you, you specialize in kind of apps and medical apps and health apps and that kind of thing. Can you tell me a little bit about who, who it is you working for?
Stuart Wallace: Yeah, so I've basically started off freelancing.
If we go back to the beginning, cuz it probably gives it some context. Yeah. After having left art college, I was looking for jobs in television. Didn't really happen because I probably didn't have the same skills as people who did a film and television degree. But something I had done at art college was I'd done a course in web design.
Just, just couple of days. It was like, you know, sort of three days quite intensive. Real basic html, css, you know, using Adobe Go live as it was at the time. It's all very kind of, you know, graphical WYSIWYG type HTML stuff. You know, this was late nineties, early 2000s, and everyone wanted a website and it, that became quite apparent to me quite quickly that, you know, instead of looking for a job in an area where I probably didn't have much of a skill, it really made sense for me, for me to look for web work.
And almost the same time as that I got a contract with a healthcare company in Edinburgh for about three months to, to work on their web design stuff. And that basically then turned into my freelance career because three months in they turned round and said, you know, we don't, we don't really want to keep you going with the agency that had, had applied for the job with but if you want to, you know, we will basically give you, you know, the, the money that we're giving them.
But, you won't necessarily have, you know, x number of hours or all that sort of stuff. But it was, it was like effectively tripling my pay overnight and giving me lots of freedom throughout the week to do what I wanted as well. And Wow. But yeah, that, that sort of, that sort of naturally organically just turned into a freelance career and it made sense for me because having been to our college for, for like four years, I was quite used to being self-motivated, working on my own, all that sort of stuff.
And. Yeah, the healthcare stuff has never really entirely gone away. So you know, it's, it's, it's that typical thing of what you know and get deeply involved in it in a certain sector, and then the people you work for tell their friends and colleagues about you. And then, so I've, I've just naturally, organically or just retained this network of healthcare people over the years, and I've done other stuff.
I've worked in completely different areas. I used to work for the BBC quite a lot at one point, and. I've worked for like startups and publishers and lots of other things as well. But there's just that sort of consistent line of healthcare stuff. You know, they, they've, they've always given me regular work. I've obviously come up with goods and it's a kind of natural relationship that's been retained throughout all that time.
I think that the one thing I would say about healthcare that that's good is they're almost out for new technologies. They're, they're, you know, they tend to be quite tech savvy people or, or at least wanting to kind of, go with the latest thing and try out new things and, you know, so meant that, for example, when Steve Jobs announced the iPhone on the iPad, and I thought, oh, I fancy bit of that, healthcare clients were probably thinking the same. And, and you know, so that there was that sort of, Quick jump for me that that went from, you know, the, the kind of web world in, into the app world as a result. And, you know, they were, they were keen to just give it a go and they knew that we were all kind of just giving it a, a bit of a go as well, which was great.
Caroline Beavon (host): And is that, is that down to the fact that they have got, obviously they're, they're quite exploratory as a sector. They have, you know, they're always finding new things quite inventive. Exactly. But also they've got cash.
Stuart Wallace: Yeah. Yeah. Def definitely. Yeah. Yeah. And, and again, that's probably one of the reasons why I've, I've stuck with the sector because, You know, they, they've tended to sort of reliably have budget where certain other areas may not as well.
And, you know, and they've had their ups and downs with the, the financial issues of the world as well. But Generally they've consistently had the money to spend and I think they're very heavily into good research and development and always wanting to use new media and new tech to, to kind of market themselves and all that sort of stuff.
Caroline Beavon (host): One of your early jobs really gave you the opportunity to almost dovetail into freelancing cuz it gave you that time during the week. What, what, so going right back to those days, what, how were you filling those other days? Were you sort of finding new clients?
Were you exploring different things or were you starting to do things on your own at that point?
Stuart Wallace: I think at that point I was probably trying to work out how to kind of build a business and brand myself and come up with a website and all that sort of stuff. And, you know, also enjoying life as well cause in, in my early twenties or whatever at the time.
But It there, there was a phase of it being fairly quiet for a little while, but it wasn't for very long because there was that natural thing of someone recommend you to somebody else. And it, it became quite apparent quite quickly that the, the company I was working with really didn't have a lot of people like me.
So it, it just, you know, it grew super quick. You know, within probably three months of being freelance, I had. I had like, absolutely nonstop work five days a week. Which, which was great.
Caroline Beavon (host): Yeah. And was, and it sounds like the timing was quite crucial then because, you know, web skills weren't as prevalent as they are now.
You know, you, we didn't have kids coming out of school not being able to like, build their own websites.
Stuart Wallace: Yeah, exactly. You know, I mean, I, I only really used the worldwide web for the first time in maybe 95. So, you know, you're, you kind of fast forward about five years later and actually it's suddenly it's my career, which, you know, it just didn't exist before.
You know, leaving school, it's like to me, you know, what they were doing in the computers suites in the school was just a world away from what I actually ended up doing, you know?
Caroline Beavon (host): But then you, you managed to get in through an art degree, which is what you...
Stuart Wallace: yeah. So, so I was probably more of a designer to begin with than I was, you know, programmer or anything like that. Although I did a fine art degree, I'd also used things like Photoshop and Corral Draw, which was a kind of precursor to Photoshop in the 90s and had done graphic design for, like my mum's company and couple other people and things like that, you know, and, and I'd always had little kind of side gigs like that throughout sort of student time and kind of late secondary school.
So yeah, although officially I was, I was a fine artist I did have some graphic design skills, so it just kind of kept naturally then, you know, sort of went in that direction.
But you know, I was always really to tech as well, and I'd done done a lot of like video work photography and things as well.
And then, you know, some computing stuff at, at art college. So the web stuff just seemed a kind of perfect combination of all my different skills together. Yeah. But yeah, for, for probably the first couple of years at least. It would've been very cheeky for me to try, describe myself as anything other than a designer. I was doing the most basic of coding. If, if, if anything really. So there's that sort of initial phase, which lasted for maybe the sort of first year, five to 10 years even where I think I was a graphic designer who was kind of moonlighting as a developer. But probably like around the time that the app stuff became a a real reality was when I started to shift more towards being a programmer as well. So started teaching myself more how to, you know, code stuff and learn some JavaScript and things. And then the game development stuff, which is, you know, my kind of main personal interest all kind of came together at the same time as well.
Caroline Beavon (host): So you wanted to improve your sort of programming development skills to almost help you make more interesting things.
Stuart Wallace: Absolutely.
Caroline Beavon (host): It was that kind of, it was a necessity.
Stuart Wallace: It was, it was a necessity to, to, to make an app that you know, you, you had to, you had to be going further, you know, down the rabbit hole than just being able to use Dream Weaver or something like that.
Caroline Beavon (host): So what was the first app you made? Can you remember?
The first app I made again was, was, was a healthcare thing. It was I guess you would describe it as almost like a kind of, product marketing piece. But it, it, it was a bit of a Frankenstein because over time they just started throwing different things into it.
But each time they did that, I learned something new in a sense. You know, so there was, there was like a 3D model that was eventually put into it. They were doing you know, various kind of, kind of backend database type things as well. So each sort of step of it was, was a, was a kind of different phase for me as well.
So again, like I said, everyone was just kind of learning afresh and no one really quite knew what they were doing. So I guess early, early apps are probably like early websites, even back at them now, and they're just like, You know,
awful. It's like the World West as well, wasn't it? Where everyone was just like you said, learning and if somebody knew some skills, they were just like, okay, show me how to do it.
And there was just a lot of passing of information and people teaching themselves how to do it. Yeah, it's exciting.
Stuart Wallace: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And every, I think everyone was probably just copying what an Apple app looked at the time, you know, the, the same visuals, the same fonts and everything.
And you know, there was, there was probably not a lot, you, there was a bit of a lack of imagination in those days, perhaps. Yeah.
Caroline Beavon (host): For possibly. But also Apple were. Because they were, they were leading the way and they, you know, they, they, they created this world of apps. Yeah. So of course they were, well, what do Apple want us to do?
Okay, well let's give Apple what they want. And it's that, yeah,
Stuart Wallace: they were the gatekeepers and, and you know, they, they still are obviously as well. But but yeah, no, it's that, that sort of all came out as a sort of almost like a phase two of my career. So yeah, leaving behind the graphic design stuff, it was then what else can I do?
You know? And, and that was, Yeah. Largely led by learning how to code a bit more, but then also, yeah, the sort of the game development stuff at the same time. So, you know, I'd always been someone who was into video games as, you know, growing up in eighties and nineties. You know, it's, it would be odd for me to, to have not been in a sense, but I always thought that video games were made by extremely clever Japanese people or mm-hmm, child prodigies or something. And it wasn't an accessible thing for, for me to do. But, as is the case with the web and app stuff, there's a lot of amazing tools that have been developed over time that have made it much more accessible thing for people. So yeah, so I discovered Unity, which is a game engine around a, a similar sort of time again.
Partly because Unity did 3d and I was looking for ways to bring 3D into my, my client work. Yeah.
Caroline Beavon (host): Was, I imagine with the healthcare app, 3D is quite useful for kind of modeling something or a, whether it's a device or an an organ or, you know, I don't know, whatever it all, all that sort of stuff.
Stuart Wallace: Yeah. Yeah. There's, again, from quite early days, I, I think healthcare was, was, you know, really like forging a path of, of, of looking new media with the apps and stuff, you know, and, and these days they're also into, you know, ar and VR and things as well.
Caroline Beavon (host): Yeah. Yeah. So is, this is how you got into the, kind of the 3D world.
Was there a particular moment where you went, right, I wanna work on my own stuff now.
Stuart Wallace: I mean, it was, it was all literally at the same time. You know what, I think the month I discovered Unity, I kind of got back into, you know, gaming a bit more heavily maybe. I, I discovered indie gaming as a concept.
It wasn't really something I was probably that familiar with and got very into mobile gaming and, and, and it was all, yeah, like, like some kind of explosion that happened together in a sense, you know, one thing leads to another.
And again, going back to the, the whole sort of, Art school self-motivated thing, it kind of made sense for me to think, oh, I'm just gonna do this myself and I'm just gonna sit at home and I'm gonna learn how to do this. I'm just gonna make some stuff I'm gonna put out there in the world.
And the app store gave you that, that window of opportunity that wasn't there before. You know, if, if I'd been doing that, you know, in the 90s say, or the 2000s there was almost no way that a, a sole developer could get their game into the hands of potentially millions of people all, all at one time.
You know, it was this, this, you know, real kind of leveling the playing field for everyone. So, yeah.
Caroline Beavon (host): So let's talk about the game that you are working on at the moment.
Stuart Wallace: Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's, it is literally coming together in real time as we speak, so, and it does chop and change a little bit as well, so Re really the, the 3D game development stuff I've only been working on for the last couple of years. Prior to that, I was, I was working in 2D and hand drawn stuff. My, my, only release game prior to this of any kind of significance was, was a mobile game that was done in 2D.
Pretty much as soon as that was released, I went down the road of, of, of doing 3D. I'd been doing 3D with my client stuff, but I've never really tried it, you know, in my own stuff. So I spent a lot in the last couple years really just playing with new ideas and testing out things and doing, you know, lots of mini games or, you know, maybe make something for a week or two or a month at a time, move on to the next thing.
And each one I'm learning something new, you know, all the time. But yeah, I, I mean, at the moment now where I'm looking at really a sort of 12 month deadline to try and bring something a bit more serious together for competitions and events and stuff.
Caroline Beavon (host): So right. So I was gonna ask you why, why 12 months?
But because there are, there's industry deadlines.
Stuart Wallace: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So, so there's, there's an event each year in Brighton called Develop, which is one of the biggest kind of game dev industry events in the UK and then a more public facing event called the EGX. And both of them, there's an opportunity for freelancers, indie developers to submit to like competitions and, and you know, be, be part of the show in someway or another.
And yeah, so that's my kind of my current next step goal. Having moved from doing mobile stuff to now, Doing what is more likely to be kind of PC, Mac or potentially even console? There's a slightly different route to go. It's, it's not a case of me necessarily just self releasing a game out into the world.
It's, it's probably, I think, you know, more appropriate to take it to shows and try to get some interest from like publishers or funders or other people who could work with me, people I could collaborate with in the future. And so instead of just, you know, finishing something and just. Pressing the button to release it in the world.
I think there's, there's a slightly different route to go this time. So
Caroline Beavon (host): it, so I'm guessing it's similar to the book publishing world where you could self-publish Yeah. If you wanted to Yeah. On Amazon or however you do it.
Or you could try and get a, a book deal with a publishers.
Stuart Wallace: Exactly.
Caroline Beavon (host): Yeah. So it's a similar thing where there's obviously pros and cons, is that kind of pretty much summarizing how
Stuart Wallace: it works? I, I, I think so. Yeah. Yeah. But it, it could still be that, I will, self-published. I just think going down the route of trying to get into like public shows and stuff is just raising awareness. You know?
It's, it's that typical thing of you can make the best product in the world if no one knows about it it doesn't really go anywhere. So yeah, it's, it's, it's hopefully gonna be a kind of gradual process with social media, with going to like meetups and stuff. And then going to these kind of events as well.
And, you know, quite lucky in a sense that. One of the main events in the country happens, would you be just down the road from us in Brighton.
Caroline Beavon (host): So it does help because Brighton is a bit of an unofficial kind of games capital of the UK. Is that fair to say or is that Yeah, self-proclaimed,
Stuart Wallace: I think definitely, you know, must be in the sort of like top five locations in the, in, in the UK for making games as there's a lot of stuff that comes out here and.
Probably the proximity to London helps and stuff as well. And yeah, events like Develop as well, I'm sure make quite a bit of a difference. Yeah,
Caroline Beavon (host): yeah. Something you said earlier about how when you were sort of first starting out in, in making your own games and you, you'd make something for, you know, a week or two weeks and then you'd move on to something else.
Are you still doing that today or is a hundred percent of your personal gaming. Development focus on your, on the game that you're working on? I mean, you know, are you, are you still have got, have you got other things in a pipeline that experiments and things like that? Oh, I,
Stuart Wallace: I mean, I'm, I'm literally still experimenting right now.
Yeah. I, I'll, I'll go through phases where I'll concentrate on something and then, you know, kind of move on to the next thing. And, and, and that's partly because I've not really had any particular deadlines or anything recently and, and it's been a case of trying to kinda learn as much as I can about the sort of stuff I want to be making.
I'm, I'm now at that point where I've learned enough, arguably, I'm, I'm. Obviously we'll keep on learning every single day, but yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm really pointing out where I need to kind of get stuck into that one idea. That's just hard because you know, there's about 85 things I want to make at any one time, and that changes on a daily basis, which, you know, I think is it's a common complaint for anyone making their own stuff that You know, we, we, we've all got a great American novel in US, potentially, but you might be in chapter two of it and suddenly that novel's turned into something else.
Or you might have another three different books you wanna write. And yes, it's absolutely no different, no different with what I'm doing.
Caroline Beavon (host): How, how do you. Get this stuff done include whether it's the client work or, and I imagine it's not a challenge trying to get your own personal projects done because you want to do it, but how do you know, how do you keep all the plates spinning and how do you get it all done?
Stuart Wallace: Yes. That's, that's a quite difficult question to answer, isn't it?
Yeah. I mean, the client stuff, I'm sure you know, money and the threats of You know, not coming up with goods, which can be quite embarrassing or humiliating is enough of a reason in itself. Yeah, yeah. True. But true. But also I think just the sort of pleasure of delivering something, you know, that somebody likes is, is a good thing.
And the personal stuff, just wanna make sure I'm having fun with it, you know, like that's when you're, when you're making a game, you'll play it more than anyone else ever will.
Yeah. You know, you, you'll play millions of times in, in little tiny bits all the time. So if you're not enjoying it, then probably no one else will as well.
Caroline Beavon (host): So you're like the ultimate user of it.
Stuart Wallace: Right. Exactly. The ultimate customer, you know? So as a result, I'm always making in a sense, The game that I want to play.
You know, whether it's a game that doesn't exist already, or whether it's one that's a bit like someone else's or, or whatever. It's got to be something that you enjoy playing. Yeah. And then that keeps you coming back to it, you know?
Caroline Beavon (host): Absolutely. Absolutely. And also you as a, as a freelancer, you've chosen to come into a co-working space like the Skiff.
So how does this fit in with your kind of your work schedule and how does it, how does it help and how does it kind of all make it easier for you to, to get these, I guess, these two different channels?
Stuart Wallace: Yeah. I mean this, The Skiff has always been a kind of central part of that. I mean, arguably Part of the reason why I got into apps and gaming and, and coding was cause of the Skiff anyway. I joined the Skiff pretty close to that kind of time, and I was, I was, you know, inspired by other people around me who were doing things.
The first time I saw Unity, which is the game engine I used was, was in the Skiff. And it was, it was just a, a case of, oh, what's that? And one conversation leads to another. So yeah, it's, it's always been this amazing point of inspiration and, and influence on me and. You know, if you're having a bad day, it's, it's, it's good to be around other people who are doing something quite similar, you know, rather than just being at home on your own.
You know, or, you know, you could be at home with your spouse or whatever, but if, if they're doing something in a completely different sector or a different type of work, they're not necessarily going to empathize or understand what is you're going through. Whereas there's always someone in this Skiff that's, you know, doing something that's either similar to you or just the fact that they're running their own business? Yeah. There's, there's a real kind of entrepreneur spirit. There's, there's always kind of interesting little things going on and different discussions and stuff. So it's yeah, it's been a real driving force in a lot of stuff actually over that time.
And it, it, I, I was talking about my, my career probably being in like different phases. There's this sort of phase one of, of being the designer was largely not in the Skiff. And then phase two is really, you know, the last sort of decade of, of being in this Skiff. And then, Getting into that kind of coding and stuff.
Caroline Beavon (host): So are we heading, are you now heading into phase three? Is that correct?
Stuart Wallace: I hope so, yeah. Yeah, that's, that's what I'm, I'm sort of trying to, to do now. I think it's you know, taking all those skills that over the last 10 years and hopefully driving, you know, where it's gonna go a bit more. I, I've, in recent years, you know, kind of been working on the basis, so if I just bring in as, as as much kind of client work as I need to kind of pay the bills whilst I work on my personal stuff. But you know, we'll, we'll, we'll see. It's so phase three's literally begin beginning as we speak. I think it's
Caroline Beavon (host): ...this is very exciting. This is very exciting.
And what, what would be, if you could design phase three, if you could have that, you know, what would your balance be? Be, would you like to entirely drop client work and just be able to work on your own thing? Or, well, maybe that's a phase four. I don't know where you're just working on your own project, but is that something that you could, you could envisage in the future, is just purely working on your own?
Stuart Wallace: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. But it, but it would need to still be within a certain context. That makes sense. You know, I, I think they were tough to be some level of I, I, I dunno what's the, the right way to put it, but some kind of goal ahead for us. Certainly. There, there needs to be someone to kind of, you know, take stock of what I'm doing and things as well.
I, I think the idea that you're just to entirely on your own, like, like an island or something's probably probably not an appropriate way. You know, you're, you're always gonna be answerable to an audience if you're making stuff for other people anyway. But yeah, I think it just needs to be structured in a way that makes sense.
So something like a publisher absolutely. Sounds like, you know, good way of doing it. Maybe some kind of like crowdfunding or something would, would be sensible. Possibly working with somebody else. Because then you've got some kind of accountability that way as well. But yeah, as to what exactly what phase three's gonna become, it could sort go different ways, I think, you know, and it might ultimately, it might even mean that there'd be a complete abandonment of my own stuff if the right contract or, or the right work came along to replace that as well.
You know, it's it, it could go, could go a lot of different ways, I think, as long as it goes away that I'm kind of, you know, personally excited about, I think.
Caroline Beavon (host): Yeah. That's so exciting. It must feel energizing. It must feel really exciting to be at that stage in your, in your career and especially all, all the work you've done and all the things have kind of almost led to this point now.
It's exciting.
Stuart Wallace: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I, I'm, I mean, the age I'm at, I'm probably about halfway through my career. Yeah. So it would be lovely to think that that halfway point leads to, you know, some, some kind of slight different direction or something where, you know, I feel I'm yeah, more of the kind of driving force behind it and less a kind of passenger in, in what's happening perhaps.
Caroline Beavon (host): Oh, that autonomy over your own career. I love that. I love that. I've just got three quick fire questions just to round things up and then I will let you get on with your day.
What was for lunch today?
Stuart Wallace: What was for lunch today? Oh leftover, especially quite often is for me.
Caroline Beavon (host): What the leftovers?
Stuart Wallace: Pizza and salads and coleslaw and things. It,
Caroline Beavon (host): homemade pizza or,
Stuart Wallace: oh, all homemade stuff. All homemade stuff, yeah.
Caroline Beavon (host): If you, so where do you, do you live in Brighton or do you live just outside Brighton.
Stuart Wallace: Live in Lewes. Which is just outside Brighton.
Caroline Beavon (host): So if you didn't live in Lewes, where would you live?
Stuart Wallace: Where would I live?
Caroline Beavon (host): Anywhere in the world.
Stuart Wallace: I'm quite fancy living in France. I know it's not too far away or anything, but yeah, there's definitely something about that, that kind of lifestyle over there that's appealing.
Caroline Beavon (host): And so rural or city.
Stuart Wallace: Probably more rural. Yeah. Yeah. I'm, I'm actually very much a city person, but I think as I get older it's, it's perhaps going slightly the other way. So but also just I'd like slightly better weather. I'm not necessarily looking for, you know, 40 degrees all the time. Just, just slightly better weather.
Caroline Beavon (host): And final question, if you could earn the same doing any other job, what would you do?
Stuart Wallace: Any other job. I, I do daydream slightly about doing something completely opposite of what I'm doing. So I've, I've spent most of my life sitting indoors on a screen and I, I imagine what it would be like to, I dunno, work in like a national park or something and just be outdoors all the time.
I'm sure it's not quite as romantic and as idyllic as it sounds in that sentence.
And you can find out more about Stuarts work at http://www.leftisright.co.uk
If you’re interested in working alongside people like Stuart and myself, head to Theskiff.org
Don’t forget to subscribe to Tales from the Engine Room, and we’ll see you next time