From the bottom up: mobile developer Digital Goldfish's life in a bowl

Sometimes inexperience is the best spur to innovation. Certainly, it seems to have been so in the case of Dundee mobile developer Digital Goldfish. Set up by two graduates from the computer game programming course at University of Abertay Dundee, it released its first game direct to consumers back in 2005.

"We were way ahead of our time," believes MD David Hamilton (pictured), when we met up during Pocket Gamer's recent trip around Dundee's mobile game developers.

Since then, however, Hamilton and studio head Barry Petrie have learnt the hard way that experience does matter when you're trying to build up a sustainable company within the highly competitive world of mobile development. But keeping their youthful enthusiasm to the fore, they're looking to get their first titles released by publishers in 2008.

We sat them down for a chat.

David Hamilton: I had to do a project for my degree and I'd just got a Samsung T100, so I thought I'd do a mobile virtual baby game. I did it, passed my degree and then started applying for jobs, but didn't really get anywhere.

I talked to Barry, who'd been on the same course, and he was having a similar experience. One of our lecturers said, 'You should try and develop that baby game'. That's how we set up Digital Goldfish and started work to make the project, called BabyGrow, into a proper game.

DH: I'd done some research into the market for female mobile gamers and we decided to really go for it. We set up an SMS gateway, took out a loan and started running adverts and competitions in magazines like Top of the Pops, Mizz, Shout, Beano and Dandy.

Barry Petrie: We got a good deal on the advertising from DC Thompson because it's based in Dundee, which meant we got in lots of magazines. But it was too early to go direct to consumers, although we sold a couple of thousand games. We still get the occasional email asking about it.

DH: We've even had Wolverhampton Council enquiring about using it to demonstrate the responsibilities of looking after a kid.

Did you subsequently release it through any mobile publishers or aggregators?

BP: No. It was a case of going back to the drawing board and revamping it.

DH: It was lacking a lot of things. We have a new version with better flow and crisper graphics. We've had some meetings with people about it. We're signed up as an official supplier to Jamba and we have a package with a ringtone and wallpapers. We'll see what happens.

What games are you working on now?

DH: We've got a game called Reach for the Starz. Do you remember an Amiga game called Rock Star Ate My Hamster? It's inspired by that, but it's a lot more pop-based. The basic idea is you start out as a wannabe star and you have to do gigs and earn enough money to move to the big city and get a record contract. Once you're in the city, you have to do PR stunts to build your fame, while recording singles and albums.

BP: Behind the screens, it's quite stat-heavy. We don't want it to be too random so you do things like playing various mini-games to build up your character. You can also set the ticket prices of your gigs and do the PR stunts, which have elements of risk to them. There's a lot of collectible items, too, so as you make more money you can get a better wardrobe. People like to collect things.

What has the reaction to it been like?

DH: There are a couple of publishers who are interested in the game, especially in terms of attaching it to various licences but we're under NDA so we can't give too much away at the moment.

BP: Our philosophy is to start as high as possible. We could put it out though aggregators and it would probably do pretty good sales but we want to build a reputation for ourselves. Over the past two years, we've learnt you have to be patient. There are plenty of ups and downs, but we feel we're at the stage where we can take it to the next level. Our thanks to David and Barry for their time.