Making Games Is Easy, Making Games With People Is Hard, Says No More Robots’ Sophie Smart

Those familiar with the world of indie games will undoubtedly recognize the name No More Robots, known for titles like Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath: Vengance of the Slayer, Soccer Story, and the Singaporean game Let’s Build a Zoo.

Video games, being such a multidisciplinary form of art, demand a range of talents to breathe life into them. So, even for a small title, a substantial amount of effort is required to bring a game to launch.

This is why a Production Director is very important, and to learn more about this essential role in modern video game creation, IGN Southeast Asia spoke with Sophie Smart of No More Robots about her role in the studio.

Introduce yourself and your role in No More Robots.

I’m Sophie Smart, the Production Director of indie games publisher, No More Robots. I’ve been working in the games industry for nearly 10 years now across development studios and publishing.

I’ve shipped 20-plus games in that time, notably, Gangbeasts, Kingdom Two Crowns, Transformers Battlegrounds, Descenders, and Let’s Build a Zoo and soon we’ll be releasing a game called Spirittea!

How did you get your start in the video game industry?

I actually went to university to study animation! Soon after I graduated I found myself in London working for a visual effects studio. It was during the time the Harry Potter films were being made, so there were many jobs in visual effects.

But shortly after the last Harry Potter films were made, there were a lot fewer jobs, so I then went freelance and found myself working as a Producer for a VR company then as I progressed through making VR games, I moved over into console development.

What are the challenges that come with being a Production Director?

I always say ‘Making games is easy, making games with people is hard’. Managing the relationships between team members and making sure decisions are made and actioned are always the hardest steps.

At No More Robots, we are all very close and get on extremely well, so this has now made my job a lot easier as I’ve taken on a lot more of the day-to-day running of the studio. However, being a Production Director is never boring!

Running a studio means my days are always different. One day I’ll be putting a schedule together for a game coming out in three years' time and the next moment I’ll be patching a game that has been out for years.

My job varies from making sure the holiday calendar is correct, running the company's finances, managing localisation teams, submitting age ratings, searching through bugs on project management software all the way to running stand-ups with the team and playing the latest milestone builds.

What makes an indie game perfect for the No More Robots label?

We love to publish games which are a bit out there! The perfect example of this is our title, Hypnospace Outlaw. It’s a ’90s internet simulator where you play a detective searching for people who have committed internet crimes. It’s bizarre and wonderful and we have a great cult following for the game.

We’ve also been branching out into cosy management sim-type games recently, with Let’s Build a Zoo and Spirittea. But again, they have to have something different about them to be a No More Robots game.

Let’s Build a Zoo allows you to splice animals together to create creatures such as a ‘croco-duck’ and Spirittea is a bathhouse management simulator, set in Asia, where you work with a floating cat to catch spirits which have been bothering the local townsfolk.

What has been your most memorable experience at No More Robots, and which project are you most proud of?

Releasing Let’s Build a Zoo on consoles (which is made by the wonderful Springloaded who are based in Singapore!). It was a big ask for such a small team at No More Robots and Springloaded.

We sim shipped the title on Xbox One, Xbox Series, Windows 10, Switch, PS4 and PS5 on day one, alongside physical versions of all of those which also included the Dinosaur Island DLC! It was busy but people loved it!

If any of you would love to check it out, Let’s Build a Zoo is localised into many languages, including Thai, Japanese and Simplified Chinese. We’ve also just released a new Aquarium DLC!

What can we expect from you and No More Robots in the future?

We want to continue helping very small development teams of 1-4 people make their games and get them out there. In the immediate future, we are going to continue working on Spirittea which is releasing later this year. It’s very much a love story to Asia where the developer lived for many years.

The game has a wonderful cute aesthetic and feels just like playing Stardew Valley if it was set in the world of Spirited Away. We’re localising it into many languages, including Japanese, Korean and Simplified Chinese so as many people in Asia can play it as possible!

What are your favourite games of all time?

The Last of Us changed everything for me. The fact that the gameplay and story could weave together so well blew my mind back in 2013, playing on my PS3. These days I play more management and RPG-style games, with F1 Manager and Baldurs Gate 3 captivating me at the moment.

What advice do you have for up-and-coming Southeast Asian game developers who are looking to release their games globally?

Make sure you localise your game for your intended audience and if you are looking for a publisher, don’t be afraid to look further afield. We work with teams across the whole globe and so do a lot of other indie publishers.