Be honest, could you handle making a game with your sibling? From ideation to creation, playtesting to going live on Kickstarter, brothers Jye and Baden Stone have been hard at work developing Alien Frenzy, a joyfully chaotic card game that pits you and your friends against an invading armada of aliens.
Together, they form Comet Squid, a developer duo who never anticipated they would venture into game development, let alone that they would somehow wind up creating a game so well received that it was a winner at the 2023 PAX Australia Indie Showcase, and winner of GamesHub’s own People’s Choice Award. Only seven years ago, it was no more than a fleeting thought.
“Back in as early as 2017, I came across a forum post from someone who had just released their first game – it was a thank you to the board game community for being so helpful, so welcoming, and this person was just so grateful for everybody’s help,” said Jye. “And I was like, wow, what an amazing industry, it would be fun to try and get into that one day. I just didn’t really think about it any more than that.”
It wasn’t until much later, while playing Exploding Kittens for the first time, that the cogs started turning and the first whispers of Alien Frenzy began to take shape.
“It was clever, fun and simple, and I just thought it could be a fun sort of project to try and develop a card game,” said Jye. “I reached out to Baden – asked him ‘What do you reckon, do you want to try and design a game together? Could be a bit of fun’.”
For Baden, who was already particularly interested in art and graphic design, it seemed like a pretty solid idea. “I thought it’d be a nice opportunity to try and put those skills into something we can call our own, and create it together,” he said.
From there, the pair began researching and ideating the themes they wanted to incorporate into their new project. Making Alien Frenzy a functional card game with synergy and engaging gameplay meant that every creative decision also had to align with very intentional goals.
With no prior experience in development, they drew from two key areas: the games they’d loved while growing up in a family of four siblings, and the type of gameplay that allowed players to mess with each other. After all, messing with each other is the cornerstone of siblinghood.
The first strides into space
It’s safe to say that early iterations of Alien Frenzy looked very different to the chaotic and engaging game we see now. Before landing on the sci-fi theme, the pair had extensive discussions around what kind of catalyst would form the core goal of the game.
“In phase one, there are some hidden cards that trigger a main event,” said Jye. “When we first thought of it, we were like, ‘What’s a huge event that could be triggered by this card?'”
Their first thought was to make it an apocalypse. It made sense – whether by way of natural disaster or through the mistakes of the people, an apocalypse definitely comes with a pressure that makes you want to scramble to prevent it. There was only one critical problem, though.
“It just got to a point where it felt heavy. It felt too serious and a bit dark,” said Jye. “With an alien invasion, though, we thought we could just have so much more fun with that – it could be silly, it could be light-hearted, it could be whatever we wanted.”
Thus, Alien Frenzy was born. Aliens are notoriously flexible when it comes to pop culture interpretation, leaving a lot of room for creativity. From the ominous energy of the Alien franchise, through to the absolute ridiculousness of Mars Attacks, it’s a space where you can really channel whatever vibe you want.
“It’s definitely closer to Mars Attacks,” joked Baden. “Our game is quite lightweight and fast-paced, and so I feel like you’d want something that’s more fun and light-hearted. You don’t want it to be doom and gloom when it’s meant to be a quick, light game.”
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Keeping Alien Frenzy in the family
Theming and ideas can be tricky, but it’s the execution and development process that forms the real challenge. While concepting, creating, scrapping ideas and trying different approaches with Alien Frenzy, it was important to maintain shared goals, and a strong bond that could be sustained for the long haul.
“Alien Frenzy took shape relatively quickly, but playtesting, fine-tuning and balancing the game definitely took a while,” said Jye. “We would have heaps of playtesting sessions where we would try new cards – things that you’d think would work on paper, but didn’t end up fitting, even though they seemed so nice and perfect.”
Fortunately, while some siblings might have some lingering apprehension about working together (especially on a project that could very well take years to refine), the brothers weren’t worried.
“We work pretty well together, we’re quite good at taking each other’s ideas and making them even better – and we’re not scared to give honest feedback,” said Jye.
That level of trust, of being able to simply tell it like it is to your business partner, is one of the elements that made working together much less complicated. Plus, as two of four siblings, the pair had the luxury of an in-built playtesting crew for Alien Frenzy from a very early stage in the development.
“We were lucky to have our sister in Melbourne, who was living with a bunch of our cousins at the time and her boyfriend, so they were our core Alien Frenzy play-testers,” said Jye.
Having them on-hand to provide fresh perspectives on each new iteration of the game was a game-changer – especially as multiple rounds of minor tweaks can render you a little blind to the bigger picture. It also helped identify problem areas, outside of the core gameplay mechanics.
“There are some things that play-tested really well initially, and then you find there’s something wrong with it later on,” said Baden. “At one point, we had a mechanic where you would have to throw a card down onto the deck really fast, before someone else did another action, but [through play-testing] we found that you would clash hands with someone and bend the cards.”
As every card game player knows, the sanctity of the cards is paramount. Whether you’re protecting the card for its monetary value or just to extend the life of your game, card damage is a serious no-no, and so despite being an objectively fun mechanic, it had to go.
“We did not miss it, it was weird,” said Jye. “It sort of calmed the game down a bit too. We want it to be silly and frantic at times, but [by removing the mechanic], it played nicer.”
What’s next for Alien Frenzy?
Making a game in your spare time is a daunting task even at the best of times. With Jye having two young kids at home, and both brothers contending with their regular work, it’s certainly been a labour of love.
“Continuously motivated confidence is definitely a challenge,” said Jye. “There’s been quite a few times where I’ll look at what I’ve done and just not be happy, and then you’ll lose a bit of confidence – but then you might go to a play-testing session where everyone has fun, and it goes back up.”
It’s a rough cycle, one that many developers know all too well. Creatives of all types reckon with doubt and impostor syndrome. Fortunately, the team are now at a point where their labour of love is feeling more rewarding with each passing day.
Today marks the launch of the Alien Frenzy Kickstarter campaign, and in only a short period of time, the game is already well on its way to hitting its target. With tier rewards ranging from basic support, through to the ability to have your own character incorporated into the base game, the team are keen to smash out a final push to get Alien Frenzy into the hands of players all over.
That’s the really exciting part of the process, and what Jye and Baden have worked hard to reach. The opportunity to ship a game, and to see the reactions and responses from fellow card game devotees, brings a sense of accomplishment and excitement that sticks with you.
Having won the GamesHub People’s Choice Award, we’ve seen firsthand the enthusiasm and hype that Australian players have for Alien Frenzy and its wild gameplay. Given the success of the game’s prototype, we can’t wait to see what’s next for Alien Frenzy, and the Comet Squid team.
