Games today are made by big companies, programmers, and affluent people with a lot of time and money. There are millions of people around the world who would love to create their own games but have no resources to get started.
Otrera Technology is a startup founded in Long Island, NY in September of 2014. It is solely owned by Jonathan Bethune, a Jamaican-American software engineer formerly based in New York City.
Otrera Technology is developing a browser-based toolkit for creating game manuals and blueprints. It would provide the user with a number of templates and forms for taking a rough idea about a game, and creating the actual content and rules in a structured, well-formatted manner.
The program includes a number of analytical tools for testing and balancing a game engine. This is potentially an extremely disruptive feature for the tabletop gaming industry, as card and board game developers today rely on expensive, time-consuming, and imprecise playtesting for their games.
Originally meant to help people create pen and paper games, the Otrera software can also be used to design electronic games for phones, consoles, and computers. Users will be able to patent and sell the manuals they create to publishers and developers, or even use the generated blueprints to code the game themselves.
Otrera currently exists as a command-line app as the user interface is still in development. In order to create a complete and user-friendly web service, Otrera Technology is seeking funding via a Kickstarter campaign. You can visit the Kickstarter campaign here: www.kickstarter.com
Otrera is a timely invention given the recent GamerGate turmoil and the growing polarization between consumers and the companies that serve them. Otrera’s tagline is “Democratizing Game Development,” precisely because it hopes to give people the power to compete with the established players in the gaming industry.
Otrera will allow typically under-represented communities to create their own games instead of waiting for big corporations to do so. This will help break down barriers and add voices to an industry plagued with incumbency and monolithic thinking.
For more information on Otrera, please visit: otrera.com
Please contact Justin Flick at JustinJayFlick@gmail.com for any inquries.
