Electronic Thinking Humans is an independent game studio focused on creating fun cooperative experiences.

Who am I? My name is Ethan Verrall, and I’m diving into Indie Game Development. I’ve worked in the gaming industry about ~19 years. Starting out as an intern on a new game engine that was fully C# and built with XNA, competing with Unity at the time before Unity got big. Unfortunately that start up eventually ended and I moved on to other studios. To Wargaming Seattle, to 343, to Blizzard and then Hypixel Studios. Each time learning new technologies, new games, making new friends along the way. Most of my time has been on the technology side of things, game engine, tools, infrastructure, tech art and management.

After the closure of Hypixel Studios, I started to think about the games that I actually play nowadays… and almost all of them are indie games. I especially love indie games that have local cooperative experiences (Spirit Farer, Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime, Absolum, Castle Crashers, It Takes Two, Brotatoe, etc). I then started to think about what it is I actually want to do as oppose to rushing into a new job. That’s when I decided, I would love to just make small indie games, and that even if I was retired that’s what I would do. So with the support of my amazing wife Lynn, here I am.

My experience helps me navigate how to approach creation, and what needs to get done, along with staying motivated and focused…. it doesn’t however, help me with Art, Sound, or even the Game Design side of things much. As only my initial job did I do gameplay elements much. Although I’d like to say I’ll be awesome at those and that I know good elements from all my years of playing… but then I’m sure everyone thinks/says that. You’ll have to be the judge, and hopefully you’ll come along and tell me where I’m wrong so that I can make adjustments. As I want to make great games that I and my family can enjoy… but I want others to enjoy it as well.

Miscellaneous Information - I have been practicing yoga for nearly 20 years and meditation for about 8. I enjoy calisthenics, recently got into bouldering with my family. I am a father of two (Son 8, Daughter 11), and my kids occasionally contribute to the project through art, ideas, and playtesting. I love reading about fitness, longevity, health, and seeing what the human body is capable of.

Here is a list of my various favorite games over the years :

• Netstorm

  • Played a ton of this as a kid, The Tick was my tag name, so many good memories. I do someday want to create a game that uses elements from this.

• ChronoTrigger

  • I still remember seeing this game on my birthday, and needing to really really beg my mother to let me buy it, as at the time it was 80 dollars! What a gamble to make such a large purchase on something I knew nothing about…. However it paid off, truly a great experience.

• Counter-strike

  • Oh the countless hours spent playing this game. Eventually playing competitively for a while before competitive game playing really made any money. Playing on The Space server, eventually turning into The Space Offensive team (TSO), then rebranded as The Speakeasy Offensive when we were 'sponsored'. Certainly spent more money on this hobby than we won at the time, but still brings back many found memories of tournaments and matches.

  • My gamer tag at the time was ETH, which for a long time I thought I’d make a company with using those letters and call it Electronic Terminating Humans… but now as I create that company I thought the name was a big aggressive and didn’t really fit the games I want to create now =)

• Spirit Farer

  • Cozy 2d experience with a slight cooperative element. One of the first games I played with my kids, having to read/narrate the entire experience to them since they couldn't read at the time.

• Point and Click Adventure Games

  • Full Throttle, The Dig, SpaceQuest, these were always fun for me.

• World of Warcraft

  • Played a bit of wow before kids on Tichondrius server. Mostly played a protection oriented warrior / main tank for dungeons/raids. This was a great time, but the time needed to really enjoy it was tough.

• Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime

  • I first played this single player and had a great time. Then it was one of the few games I managed to get my wife to play. Then as my kids got older it was one of the few we played through as an entire family. Works out well as being a fairly 'hard' game but not needing every player to be completely on point… which means it's great for kids who are more focused on trying out upgrades then actually playing =)