DNA OF DENKI

INTERACTIVE TELEVISION

■ For the majority of the Noughties, Denki concentrated on creating games for digital interactive television platforms, most notably Sky Gamestar which launched in 1999. By the middle of the decade, more than 50 million games had been played on the service in three million households, with Denki providing dozens of quality titles.

MAGAZINE PROCESSES

■ Gary Penn used his background as a magazine journalist and editor to help structure and streamline the game-making process. Working on the basis that if a magazine missed its deadlines, it wouldn’t come out, he set out to bring order to development so that the Denki team wouldn’t be constantly reinventing the wheel.

CASUAL GAMES

■ Denki wanted to move away from the growing trend of taking years to make a single game by evoking the spirit of the Eighties with 180 accessible, easy-to-play games created in its first decade. Colourful and cheerful, it drew on big-name brands and familiar gameplay – puzzle games and platformers were prevalent.

THE SCOTTISH SCENE

■ From 1988, DMA Design effectively created a gaming hub in Dundee, attracting talent from across the world. Denki’s cofounders were drawn from that company, and they helped establish the new developer as key part of the Scottish scene, picking up top talent that would go on to compete internally by pitching original ideas.

SMALL WITH BIG IDEAS

■ There may have only been 20 people at Denki at the turn of the Tens (down to just two today), but there’s no faulting the company’s ambition. Rather than concentrate on graphics, Denki has placed a greater emphasis on interface and interaction over the years. Its latest game, Autonauts, is inventive and charming.