The solo developer behind the anime-style Cyberpunk JRPG Jack MoveEdd Parris, has been developing games for over ten years. Most of his early work consisted of small games designed for the enjoyment of his fellow community members. This changed with his latest game, a futuristic Cyberpunk RPG called Jack Move. Parris would take on personal and professional challenges to bring it to the public. The trials and tribulations of developing his first commercial game took him through long part-time spells and around the world to eventually find a publisher and a great team.
So Romantic was created to accommodate the transition from a hobbyist to a serious game developer. Parris’ turn-based role-playing game, Jack Move, had been years in the making, and new life opportunities eventually pushed Edd to make the leap into the unknown and commit to finishing his first commercial game. First, he had to think of the team that would help him scale the game into a polished product. However, this also meant finding a publisher and getting financing. Game Rant spoke to Edd Parris of So Romantic about the lengthy development process and the challenges of being a solo developer.
Jack Move started as a hobby
Parris worked at a marketing agency that created websites and developed backend systems, but wanted to see if he could find his way into the game industry. He had developed a few small games for his friends and the gaming community in his hometown of Brighton, UK. However, there was no clear path for him to change career paths. Hosting game jams and running events was one way of trying to get a foot in the door. One of his games, Bubble Tennis: Infatuationwas developed for a community event called Games by the Sea during the country’s premier game developer conference, not unlike GDC, Brighton Develop.
No opportunities came right out of the events, but Parris still had Jack Move, which he had developed slowly. Since the first TIG Source post about the game in 2013, Jack Move got bigger and better little by little. The scope of the game was much wider than his previous works, but it was still a one-man operation with limited resources. Evenings and weekends were the only times he could concentrate on coding or preparing the game’s pixel art. However, a new turn in events would force Parris to consider a radical change in his life, and it had huge implications for: Jack Moveat.
Jack Move goes to Taiwan
Parris’s girlfriend at the time, now wife, moved to Taiwan after completing her master’s degree. This meant that Parris was faced with a serious decision. Moving abroad would put an end to his day job, but would also allow him to focus well on development Jack Move. Earlier that year, Parris had shown the game to a few indie game publishers, and the feedback was so encouraging that he wanted to continue with it.
The move from the UK to Taiwan meant that the transition from corporate engineering job at a marketing agency to independent game development was finally completed. This also meant that Parris had to use his savings to fund the first attempt to end the game. After all, he now needed the talent to create Game Boy-esque pixel art animations, music, sound effects and a polished story. However, the transition was not without problems. While Parris was happy with all the freelancers he hired, some were busy and had to make substitutions.
“Then I found a guy whose stuff was so cool. His style of animation and style of pixel art was so unlike anything else I’d seen…I knew I wanted to work with that guy.”
The biggest setback was that there was no more money. Not being able to hire more creators meant that development would stop. Parris should take an unplanned development break. A year after the money ran out, there was a pause: Parris found a publisher in HypeTrain. It meant he could finally hire people to work full-time on the project.
The core story written by Parris was enhanced by Amalie Kae. Another key asset to Parris was animator Joe Williamson, whose work was a perfect match for Parris’ desired unique anime art style. Two longtime friends of Parris, Adam Hay and Charlie “Fracture” Fieber, created the sound effects and music respectively.
The last push to publish Jack Move
Initially, Parris wanted to launch the game on PC and his favorite current-gen console platform, Nintendo Switch. He had fond memories of Game Boy RPGs, and publishing his game on Nintendo’s latest handheld was a big deal. He had spent countless hours porting the game to Switch, making sure it ran smoothly at 60fps. The publisher also wanted to bring the game to more platforms, which would give it an even greater chance of success. This made sense to Parris and it was decided that the game would launch on all major platforms.
The future of So Romantic would largely depend on how well Jack Move would do, and a wide release gave the best chance of securing the studio’s possible upcoming endeavors. After years and years of development, while not quite a record-breaking launch delay, it was important to make as much impact as possible.
“The most stressful thing is you don’t want people to have a bad time. I need to fix this ASAP and fix it ASAP.”
In 2022, So Romantic’s team entered the final stressful trajectory before the game was released. Parris wanted the game to be perfect, and the idea that someone didn’t like the game fueled the late patch sessions. Nintendo’s unpredictable approval process didn’t help the release schedule either.
However, in September 2022, more than nine years after the first Jack Move post aimed at the indie game developer community, So Romantic released Jack Move for PC, Nintendo Switch and all other major platforms. As strange as it was for Parris to see other people play his game, and stressful to think that some would encounter bugs, it was also the first time in years that he could finally breathe a little.
Jack Move is now available on PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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