The Big Indie Interviews: Record Games on their award-winning social music game Starstruck Galaxy

• Record Games’ Starstruck Galaxy combines social features with AI-assisted music creation.
• Inspired by Guitar Hero and Pokémon, it took second place in the latest PGC Helsinki Very Big Indie Pitch competition.
• The game features a live-loop-pedal system where players can collect instruments and jam with bandmates.

At this year’s Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki, we once again ran our Very Big Indie Pitch competition. This speed-dating-style event, which we regularly take to shows around the world, offers developers a chance to present their games to expert judges and gain valuable feedback. It’s the ultimate networking, game-honing, prize-winning event for indies. 

To give you a glimpse of what The Very Big Indie Pitch is all about, we sat down with Record Games CEO Rob Edgington to talk about his game Starstruck Galaxy (previously Jamland), which came in second place at the event in Helsinki late last year.

To submit your own game in a Big Indie Pitch session, visit our website to find out where the next BIP will be and to apply.

Tell us a little about yourself and your indie studio. Who is on the team, and what are their inspirations?

Record Games is a small studio based in Worthing, UK, and we’re building a social music game for mobile called Starstruck Galaxy.

Before founding Record Games in 2022, I co-founded a neurotechnology startup called Paradromics, where I designed AI and silicon chips for brain-computer interfaces. While this was a fascinating and impactful field, I couldn’t shake my desire to pursue a creative career in the games industry and bring Starstruck Galaxy to life.

For the past two years, I’ve mostly been working as a solo developer, but in the last few months, I’ve been really fortunate to find two incredible teammates: Bence Kovacs and Gabriele Caruso.

Bence is an expert in developing audio synthesizer plugins and has a passion for creating playful musical experiences, so he’s the perfect fit to develop our music engine. Gabriele is a 3D artist, avid Guitar Hero fan and talented musician, so he’s creating the striking punk/anime art you can see in our game.

Together we want to build a music game for a new generation – one that uses modern mobile technology to create an AI-assisted music-making experience with unprecedented social gameplay.

Tell us about your latest project that you pitched at the competition.

In Starstruck Galaxy, players live out their musical fantasies making original songs, jamming with friends and AI, collecting instruments, and competing in Charts and Battle of the Bands competitions. Think “Music with Friends” meets Pokémon.

We aim to do for musical ideas what Instagram did for photography, where players don’t just create music, but share, celebrate and validate their inner musician through social gameplay. At the heart of the game is a live-loop-pedal music creation tool, which allows players to layer up tracks from instruments they’ve collected in the game.

In the pitch, we demonstrated this core loop game, as well as Challenge modes, which teach players how to write music and make the next big hit. Last but not least, we’re developing generative music AI that can jam alongside players as AI bandmates, and generate an infinite variety of musical instruments for players to use.

How hard is it to survive as an indie developer?

I wouldn’t be able to do this without the support and help from my wife, Sarah, and I’m very grateful that I was able to start Record Games with some financial runway. This has allowed me to fully commit to the project. However, scaling up the team is still a huge challenge. With how difficult it is to raise finance from private or public sources these days, it’s tough to plan or rely on securing any external funding.

That’s why we’re focused on working lean and achieving key milestones. I’m thankful every day that I get to work on something I love and hope to keep doing it for years. Additionally, I’ve recently started doing AI contracting and consulting, so if you need help with AI projects, please get in touch!

How was your experience pitching as a part of the Big Indie Pitch?

It was a pretty wild experience. It was actually the first time we’d shown the Starstruck Galaxy to anyone outside of friends and family, so we went into it really not knowing at all how it was going to be received. We were pleasantly surprised! Seeing the judges enjoying the game will be a memory I won’t forget in a hurry.

What do you feel you have gained from these experiences, and what do you still hope to gain? 

Placing as one of the winners at this event has given us a tremendous boost in confidence and validated that the last two years have been well spent. There’s still so much we hope to achieve, and not to sound too corny, but this really feels like just the beginning! Our immediate goal is to release Starstruck Galaxy to a small audience to demonstrate stickiness, gather data, and use that momentum to raise seed funding for full development.

What are your hopes for this game, and do you have any plans for future projects? 

I want Starstruck Galaxy to grow into one of the biggest mobile games in the world. It’s a live ops game with a universal appeal – it doesn’t just let you make music, it lets you live out the dream of being a celebrated musician. I envision our game becoming an essential app, a go-to platform for capturing and sharing musical ideas. One of our company’s core tenets is to create original experiences powered by modern AI systems, so you can definitely expect more innovative projects from us in the future.

Want to show off your exciting new game? We host Very Big Indie Pitch events throughout the year, so be sure to keep an eye out on our events page for an event near you. The next scheduled events take place in London this month and in San Francisco in March.