Adam Dart, Co-Founder & Director of Junkfish — Interview Series

Junkfish, the developer behind the newly released 1920's bootlegging sim, Bootleg Steamer, has been making moves over on Steam these past couple of months. To learn a bit more about the latest rogue-like entrée on PC, we caught up with Co-Founder and Director Adam Dart…

Thanks for taking the time to speak with us. Tell us, how did it all start for you as a creator?

Adam: How I got interested in games isn’t particularly unique. Similar to a lot of others in the industry, I grew up playing games. I played, but wasn’t particularly good at platformers and arcade shooters on early consoles but soon found myself playing a lot of strategy games on PC. I have a lot of love for my PS2 which had a lot of games that influenced my taste in games to this date. I was also really good in the arts during school, and ended up specializing in interior and architecture design.

In another life, I would have ended up studying architecture but I decided to take a chance on Computer Arts, where it overlaps with games art. It was a huge privilege where I could combine the 2 things I loved into a professional career, and to make my designs come to life in 3D for others to experience. In games, I also found out I could have more creative freedom as I could make whole immersive and engaging worlds compared to just cool structures.

Moving on to the studio — Junkfish. Tell us a bit about it. When was the company founded, and what inspired you to pursue a stake in the gaming industry?

Adam: We had actually started making games together at university. It was a group of us that came together to work on a project for a module where we had the opportunity to work on a client brief, or to create our own brief to work on. We ended up working on our own idea; an airplane shooter meets Shadow of the Colossus-type game named “Into The Sky” where you are a tiny fighter plane chipping away at massive sky battleships. It was actually where we formed the company name, Junkfish, in reference to the Junker-like plane aesthetics for the project.

We did a great job as a student team on that module, and continued to work on more projects throughout university. As most of us are passionate gamers, we decided to keep it going and form a company after we all graduated, where we started work on our first commercial title, Monstrum.

Let’s talk about your latest game, Bootleg Steamer. What is it, and what inspired you to tap into the world of 1920’s bootlegging?

Adam: Bootleg Steamer is actually a game that originated from an internal game jam and pitch from the team. The creative lead on the project has a keen interest on historic ships, so one of the game jam games was a prohibition era nautical alcohol smuggling game which allowed us to explore lots of different ships from that era.

And would you say that Bootleg Steamer is a game that anyone can play?

Adam: Bootleg Steamer has different levels of intensity depending on how you like to play your game. A more casual player will enjoy the simple game play loop of buying, selling, and completing missions. For more resource management focused players, there is a skill level there of managing your notoriety and glamour ratings. Bootleg Steamer can be adapted to suit the playstyle.

If you could compare Bootleg Steamer to any other game of a similar genre, what would it be, and why?

Adam: There are a lot of great rouge-like games out there that helped inspire the creation of Bootleg Steamer. Faster Than Light (FTL) where you can select a new map and it generates conflict has similar mechanics. We also have to tip our hat to Dredge and Sunless Sea for thematics.

Care to share a few tips for potential newcomers?

Adam: Don’t forget about the legal goods! Having wheat, wood, and ore onboard can help hide your bootlegging prizes from the coast guard. Also.. careful you don’t get too far into debt with the Mafia lest they send some accomplices after you.

If you don’t mind me asking, what’s next for Junkfish? Are there any other projects in the pipeline? If so, would you kindly tell us a bit about it/them?

Adam: We’ve actually got a few things in the works right now. However, though we are excited for the time we get to share details about them, we’re keeping it hush hush for now.

Any final words for our readers?

Adam: It’s been great to see Bootleg Steamer grow from a little game jam game to a fully released title. If you enjoy resource management games, it is now available to get on Steam!

Congratulations again on the recent release of Bootleg Steamer! We look forward to seeing some more of it over the coming weeks!

To stay up to date with Bootleg Steamer, you can visit the team over at Junkfish via their official social handle here. Alternatively, you can visit the team and check out their portfolio over on their website here.