Reflections

Finding the uniqueness in our product market fit has been fraught with so much uncertainty and pivots it’s hard to keep count. But that’s what building a start up is all about. You have an idea, a vision and determination to see it through, which more often than not, means changing direction when and where it’s needed.

We started Hangry Animals with a grand vision of an animated series, toys, games, comics and a want to share the joy of creating something with a community who cares about animal welfare. That vision still exists, and is still alive, but we missed a big chunk in the middle… Who and where is our audience, why and what are we building this for on top of personal gratification and recognition. Who are our end users?

We’ve recently been meeting with business mentors to discuss commercialisation of our products and strategies around the road to market. It’s been great to have someone else, who gets the vision of what we’re aiming to achieve, especially with web2 and web3 blended approach, with a platform dedicated to helping charities unlock new revenue streams through unique and tailored gaming experiences for their younger supporters. We’re slowly growing a network of charities who need our help, partnerships that are super exciting in the gaming space, yet we’ve got to hold our tongue until these relationships and roads to market are ready to announce. Super exciting times ahead for sure. But the daily tasks of building, finding new sources of funding, and networking have taken a break for a while as we’ve focussed on work coming into the studio side of our businesses, both a blessing and a hindrance in equal measure considering progress.

Validation

Our feasibility report finalised in August with the Media Cymru Seed 2025 funding has highlighted some key preferences of younger players that are informing how we approach building these gaming experiences of the future. Games have a major role to play in educating us to change the way we look at giving, caring for, and restoring the lives and habitats of 1000’s of species across the globe. But it all starts at home, on our doorstep with causes we can see, feel, hear and touch. That’s why our first planned charity partner will be Hope Rescue - Dog shelter, right here in Wales. The team at Hope, have been generous with their time, shown us around the facility and sparked a tonne of ideas for gaming experiences we can create that would both generate revenue and support the educational aspects of caring for a pet as well as debunking what a shelter’s role is in the journey of a stray or ill treated pet when they arrive at the kennels for assessment and are cared for by the team. If you want to know more about a shelter at breaking point due to human neglect or mistreatment of pets, mainly dogs, visit their website: https://www.hoperescue.org.uk/

Collaborations

Our recent work for a platform called Planet Play through our creative agency at Hangry Studio, has provided us with amazing insights into ‘in-game’ items and discounted games with the proceeds from sales funding green projects across the globe where they are needed most. Alongside this platform, conversations with Jude Ower one of the authors of Gaming for Good, a recent best selling book success discussing how games have the power to change the world, is providing us with further validation that Hangry Animals is not alone in our approach to entertainment, fuelling the behaviour change and empathy for others through play. If you want to read Jude Ower and Mathias Nørvig’s (Yes, Mathias of SYBO, Subway Surfers fame) best seller, it’s available digitally or in print

Origins & celebrating the wins

Way back in 2021-2022 when I was hosting livestreams on Twitch of me sketching and colouring these human hybrid heroes I’ve now come to love, the mission was ‘just draw’. That was a personal response to help my mental health recover from more than 15 years of creative agency life at the helm with no breaks or consideration of the toll the job was having on my wellbeing. I found an outlet that gave me joy and got me back to my roots of character design and creativity, away from the head of a design studio mindset of juggling so many things. Creativity became my freedom and Hangry Animals was born out of this release alongside a small growing community of supporters online. That was almost 4 years ago now, and we’ve come so far, met some amazing human beings in that time and dodged a few rubber bullets in the same breath. In all that time, whether in the evenings or now full time, we’ve managed to launch a fun digital collection, some cool merchandise of hoodies, T-shirts, Caps and Socks.. Yes socks hah, released our first origin story comic of Otis’ back story digitally (physical prints coming in 2026), won numerous pockets of funding in Wales for the animated series and gaming side and internationally on the blockchain side to further develop our IP, and even gained trademark status for 2 categories in the USPTO for games and merchandise… and yet, it still feels like we haven’t properly started.

Road trip, aherm.. “Research”!!!

We recently took a trip to Harrogate to the Thought Bubble Festival which takes place annually in the North of England. A 2 day event crammed with industry professionals in the creator space for comic and graphic art as well as writing. Thought Bubble isn’t your typical MCM, Comicon style event where every bit of plastic from TEMU or Ali Express is up for sale, or knock off T-Shirts from licensed brands in a mishmash or stalls flogging tat. This is pure sequential art across 4 halls of stalls and breakout spaces all dedicated to the craft of comics and books from independent studios and creators as well as the big publishing might of established brands. The aim of the visit was twofold, scope out the breadth of art and stalls on offer, meet a few legends and get inspired.

This year was our first visit to Harrogate and the festival itself and I nervously came armed with a gift for an influential writer named John Lees, who wrote a fantastic 8 issue comic called The Nasty, which captivated my love for 80’s VHS low budget horror movies or “Video Nasties” from back in the day. I was inspired that much, I illustrated an original piece for John and presented it to him at Thought Bubble. Hope you like it John, took me three attempts on that one :)

Also in residence at the festival was Simon Bisley, artist extraordinaire of Slaine the Horned God, Lobo, ABC Warriors and Judge Dredd/Batman Crossover graphic novel that made me appreciate the craft of sequential art beyond titles for kids such as the Beano and The Dandy.. Art for grownups. I took the opportunity to get a speedy commission and a signing of my copy of Judgment on Gotham book for good measure! Nice one Mr Bisley.

The entire weekend was rocket fuel for the soul when it comes to motivation to continue developing Hangry Animals. We met some artists and writers who live literally 10 minutes down the road, by travelling 6 hours in a car to the Northern lands of the UK, go figure. All in all, amazing experience and we are sure to be back. Let’s gooooh.  

Future Plans

2026 promises to be a year of focus, product releases and growth, and we hope you’re here to share the joy of these developments with us. Overnight successes… take 10 years. It’s true in the music industry and it’s equally true in the entertainment industry of games and storytelling. Take Super Meat Boy for example, although they had what seemed to be a overnight success was actually 5 years of development as a Flash Game prior to porting to XBox Arcade for the success and launch.

We’re absolutely on that journey right now.

The grind

We’re hard at work on our first issue of our main comic story of the Hangry Animals in action… Delivery drivers by day, galactic saving vigilantes by night, and it’s shaping up to be a banger! The comic series title is still unknown as yet, but I’m sure you’ll all love it when announced. I’m drawing the pencil work physically, but taking all the inking and colouring into the computer for the greatest flexibility and control. Sneak peek of 2 pages here:

So where’s the Game then Andy?

A rejuvenated me, is also now evaluating the Nom Nom Express game with a level 1 push and polish to attract some interest. The mechanics are crude but functional after a third iteration to get the stacking physics optimised, and the game loop seems to work as expected, but it needs testing and butchering by some game testers in this early form to ensure we’re hitting the right motivational moments to make it fun to play, it’s currently a tad too slow, so we need that high octane version for the dopamine fuelled among us. Will be making some progress on this front over the next few months, so stay tuned for more game dev updates.

With the game(s) and platform plans being formulated, it’s important we pitch this right to our target audience - the charities, and you, the charity supporters as end users! 

Our skills, track record of building brands and experiences for good causes, are coming to fruition, with Hangry Animals as the brand at the centre of it all. We’re hoping kids resonate with the characters we’ve designed, and creating these entities and games with partner charities to earn a revenue share is what our mission is ultimately about. 

Gaming for good causes for the win.

Until next time: 

Stay Curious.
Stay Hangry.

Ceri & Andy

The Hangry Animals Team
www.hangryanimals.com

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