The Clever Endeavour Story Started at MRGS

Written by Richard, co-founder / designer / business guy at Clever Endeavour

As you may have seen, the Mount-Royal Game Society (MRGS) will be closing its doors for good in the following months. They talked about it on a post on their website, which I've linked here. While the news is sad, we understand why they're closing and we hugely appreciate the work they've done over the last 7-8 years. They're having a going away party (can you call it that?), if you're interested as well!

Clever Endeavour, like many other studios I'm sure, has a special relationship with MRGS as it's the place we got started.

First of all, their monthly meetups are the first meetups I went to in the games industry, and the first step of my adventure into this wacky world. I showed up confused, lost, and feeling out of place, and finally mustered up the confidence (desperation?) to talk to people. Luckily enough, I met Osama Dorias, who is an amazing person (as well as an amazing game developer) and he introduced me to some others at the event.

Second, I met Kyler (one of the other co-founders of the company) at an MRGS meetup right when I began looking into starting a game development studio. We met at my second or third event, and it was love at first sight. Well, not really. Actually, I pitched him a game, and he kinda liked what he was doing in his freelance work, and didn't want to jump into a company with someone he didn't know. After speaking with him the next months at the same meetups, I think he was slowly convinced to give it a shot and try to work with Alex (the other co-founder) and I.

Next, we decided to do a game jam with the three of us and another friend named Hamish, who didn't end up staying on the team, and that game jam was using the themes provided by the DATGAM Game Jam which was organized by the MRGS. While we didn't "compete", we showed our prototype off at the next MRGS meetup and Ultimate Chicken Horse was born, under the temporary name "Horseblock". 

The organization has been an important part of the indie developer ecosystem in Montreal, and was extremely important in the creation and development of our team and our game, which eventually led to a larger company with employees, etc. We wanted to write this post to thank the organizers for the work they've put in, and thank the organization for creating a friendly, warm environment in which anyone can share their games and thoughts without judgment. Thanks again, and best of luck to the organizers in all of their future endeavours.

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